I was reading the financial pages today and read about your electric consumption due to the early heat this season. I’m not that dumb, I get that you can wet the siding ahead of time to cool it off, but a 105 or higher sunny day? Do you wash early morning then later at night? I’m curious. If it gets above 92 I don’t leave the house unless I’m going to the lake.
I’m sure this happens in arizona and new mexico too, but the financial pages were talking about early heat and electric consumption spiking in TX.
i just try to work 8-1pm for residential. commercial stays 6-10am which is much nicer than the 100° i’m standing in right now but even this morning at 6am was 90°
Heat index was 103, temp 97 today. Tomorrow 99 with 109 heat index. Loving the early am commercial. Trying to be done by 1 ish most days on resi. I like warm weather but this is pretty brutal. The only good thing is last week it was almost as hot and I got tips from nearly every job. Think homeowners were feeling sorry for me.
I’ll work anytime if the day as long as i have my water and something to eat. there’s been days where i just could not cool off though, as in still sweating hours after during the night. And ac wouldn’t cut it. but that’s all. quality sunglasses help.
Man you guys are making me miss that humid hell that is central texas.
Grass is always greener on the other side i guess, even if it is full of fire ants and chiggers.
As a part time house washer, full time town employee, I get to start my days around 7am with nice relaxing activities such as mowing right of ways, string trimming guard rails, edging miles of sidewalks and curbs, cleaning up roadkill, etc. until about 3:30pm. Then, I usually start my house washes around 4pm and work into the evening. Nice and cool here in the middle of South Carolina this time of year!
I don’t mind cutting my field in the heat anymore, now that I got a cab with AC But cutting with an open station on a hot humid day, everything sticking to you due to sweat, beads of sweat rolling down your back until they stop at the tractor seat, yeah, don’t miss it. Can’t touch anything on the tractor because it is hot from the sun heating it all day. Lovely.
That is insane, cleaning at 107. Do you have to worry about cracking glass when misting it in those temps? I would think the possible rapid change in temp might cause the glass or gasses to pop. I know it happens in the north on sub zero days and the heater is set too high and can crack windows. I had it happen in my house, wife and kid “bumped” the thermostat up a “little” on a -15 degree night. I watched it crack. They just shrugged like what did we have to do with that. Window replacement guys said they see it often.
Really surprised you guys don’t use flail mowers, since they don’t throw the grass/rocks/trash.
Not to make you envious, but it is 72 and raining here, went out and did estimates, procrastinating on the write ups. It is still our rainy period, in about another 20 days will begin the dry part, then about 40 days after that it will start rapidly cooling off. At least I’m not in canada, they get about 3 weeks of summer
That’s a Grasshopper 725D “tractor” with the edging attachment mounted on the end of a mower deck. It can be configured to edge sidewalks while riding on them, or the along the top of curbs while on the road. The blade isn’t powered other than hydraulic down pressure, and a tension spring to pull it back towards the concrete, but it rolls along well and does great at about 4-5mph if you can ensure you have a smooth concrete edge to roll up against.
We just found out that we should be getting a Ventrac “tractor” and it’s edger/blower attachment this upcoming fiscal year. So that’ll take a two man / two machines job and hopefully allow for one man to do it sufficiently. Takes about a 8-10 days to edge all sidewalks, and then another 4-5 days to complete the curbs with our current setup.
But cutting with an open station on a hot humid day, everything sticking to you due to sweat, beads of sweat rolling down your back until they stop at the tractor seat, yeah, don’t miss it. Can’t touch anything on the tractor because it is hot from the sun heating it all day. Lovely.
