What is a good price to charge for plowing snow with a backhoe?

County pays the contractor ~250 /hr for heavy equipment snow removal.

In the past I've been paid $150 /hr to run my hoe.

Is that fair?

I only do it when we get ~3' of snow or more, so a couple of times each season.

Are you covered under their insurance and do you have proof of this in writing?
what do your numbers tell you?
are you making a profit operating at that rate?

Each area & individual needs differs

RMO might be able to give a better opinion on this.

Does the county set the rate?

You get way more snow than I do, so technically your overhead is spread out more. But not if you're only helping out at 3'+.

It's not bad for where I'm at, but I am higher. And to make life much simpler, all my plow rigs (truck with plow, loader with plow, tractor with blower) are all figured at the same rate.

I'm still trying to figure out who got the county contract. All I know is they are based out of Estes Park CO (20 miles from here). So I don't know how the insurance will work yet.

About half of the reason I even get involved in plowing the heavy snows is the fact that no contractor in recent years has any sort of heavy equipment and believe me when I say that a late model 1 ton dually with 4 chains (front and rear that cover both duallys) can't plow when there is more than a couple of feet of snow. The mountain dirt roads are just too steep.

So I try and get involved mostly from my own self-interest. I end up plowing the roads anyway, so I may as well get paid.

I'm running an old 555c hoe that I've had for years and works well. Has plowed ~5-6 feet MANY times.

Of course I have 4 chains for it. This pic was taken last year before I put the chains on. They usually go on in November and stay until June.

How much road are you plowing?

Steve300xcw said:

How much road are you plowing?

Click to expand...

I only plow the upper part of this mountain. It's all 100% offgrid.

I'd guess about 10 miles. In years past it would take ~12 hours to plow most of the roads up here with ~5' of snow with my buddy in a similar hoe.