Well folks, its snowing here! I’m sitting in my nice warm office really thinking about how excited I am to not be out washing in this cold. I have 1 house left on the books and I think the equipment is coming off the rig. Time to concentrate on deer hunting and snow removal!
This year has been pretty amazing stepping up to 8gpm! At this time I do not know how serious we will be for residential pressure washing next year. We may have the opportunity to take over snow removal for 6 Walmarts. If this happens we will have to scale back the pressure washing side to just commercial. Who knows?
Im done… finished up about a month earlier than normal with baby coming.
Missed out on normal flow of residential calls/jobs, but had a golf course call last week and it was hard to tell them i was done, could have been chance at good money. But its worth it, been an awesome few weeks here with baby girl.
Still have a few pw’ing jobs left. Booked out with 75% window cleaning halfway thru November.
I usually winterize my rig at the first hard frost, unless it looks like there’s a good warm spell in the forecast. Then I just heat blanket the pump and drain the hoses to make it through the cold snap.
I do windows right up till Christmas, or until there’s too much snow on the ground to trudge through, whichever comes first. I never really shut down the window cleaning completely. If I get a call in February, and the weather will cooperate somewhat, I’ll do it.
Yep, same for me. I will be busy up until the week before Christmas and then pretty much off until early March. Around here we get calls randomly through the winter and if it is decent weather I’ll do them. Early March we start getting calls for people wanting to sell their house in the spring. We also have a big commercial job we clean every December and March so the break has gotten shorter and shorter over the winter.
Joe
Yah, I have a shop (1800 sq ft) thats in a commercial space. Heated…and to be safe I disconnect pressure hoses and blow them out with air if it’s going to get really cold. Run RV antifreeze through the pump every night.
Only takes an extra 10 minutes end of the day.
Cold sucks though, I hate it. I just went through 220 gallons of SH on one apartment complex. In July it would have taken 80 gallons. Nothing likes to work when it’s 42 degrees out
We clean year-round in SoCal. Well not everyone does, but one of my main goals for the business has always been to get year round jobs so everyone stays working. We make less profit, for sure, between Jan-March. You can’t do that many places in our industry, but that’s a big reason it’s so competitive out here.
Take it from someone who has been in your shoes. If you are nervious about finances during the off season find a part time job that will pay the bills for the winter. In my early years I found myself going into the off season with little in the bank and really suffering. Work on finding the job now and not when everything is past due.
I actually took my full time job at the college for the benefits and so I knew I could be home with my family every night. I make far less than I did working wind farms but it’s year round pay. Thus also why I kept an employee on the road and ramped up the pressure washing. Thankfully we do the whole snow deal but until this year that was never even guaranteed income.
Not saying you should give up on pwing just find that filler pay. No shame in that. Just my 2¢ for what it’s worth!
If it’s 42 I’ll be in my office, truck, shop, or ground blind with a heater.
Well I can’t say always a heater. It was 36 when I got in the blind today and I forgot my boots. Was wearing camo coveralls, camo thick coat and dress shoes… I hadn’t drug the heater to the blind yet since it’s usually not this cold.
Just keep an eye on it. If extremities are cold in comfortable temps I would seek out medical advice. If no matter what you do in the cold keeps them warm I would say the same. My father-in-law has a fancy pair of those remote control shoe inserts that get hot. He loves them. I’m just too cheap/poor for that level of warmth. I just turn the heater on and hold my feet till I smell rubber melting and see deer running.
