Snow Plow News: Landscape Company Transforms with On-Site Salt for Winter Operations

skid loader spreader, Virnig salt spreader

Nate’s Lawn Maintenance replaced nearly 30 salt truck routes with 300 SiteTotes and 67 spreaders, slashing costs and response times while making winter operations faster and more efficient.

The Challenge of Growth and Efficiency

In 2015, after having grown the commercial snow part of the business for about 15 years, owner of Nate’s Lawn Maintenance, Inc., Nate Kohn, of Belgium, WI was challenged with the issues of continuing growth, improving the customer experience, and lowering overhead and operational costs. After a string of exhausting snow events for his crews Kohn was manning the company’s snow phone one night. He took a call from a large retail client requesting drifting and empty parking stall cleanup. This was a common, simple request; however, all the salt trucks were back at the shop and emptied out. A driver was called in. The driver had to drive to the shop, fire up a loader, load the truck with salt and head to the client’s property. It was nearly two hours before he could make it there, and more than five hours by the time the driver returned, emptied out unused salt and parked the truck. It was that night Kohn realized a change was needed.

Introducing the Site-Specific Solutions

Beginning in the season of 2017-2018, Kohn implemented a new system; the Boss QuickCube. Most locations would either not allow or not prefer to have unsightly, leaky salt bins or large, rusty shipping containers on their property, so the cubes were perfect. At first, the cubes allowed Kohn’s employees to supplement salting efforts using skid loader operators. Responding to requests was much quicker as a result of being more prepared on-site. Skid loader operators that were historically used just for plowing could now keep up during events, salting as needed without relying on a truck. Today, Kohn no longer uses a truck in a scenario like this one. A skid loader operator that lives near to the service location gets called in and the result is a much-improved response time at a greatly reduced cost. Often this type of request is completed within an hour, and the operator is given a set minimum pay because it is so quick and easy.

Shifting Away from Salt Trucks

Soon after adopting the service approach of staging salt on-site with equipment like skid loaders and compact loaders, the use of salt trucks slowly diminished for Nate’s. The on-site spreaders became the “go to” because it was always quicker and easier than using a truck. The salt savings of giving operators a cube budget was substantial. Salt use was reduced by more than half. “For some reason, salt truck drivers have always felt the need to ‘pour it on’ even when given budgets”, Kohn says.

Refining the System and Expanding Operations

Since 2015, Kohn’s business has more than tripled its snow operations and continues with an even more refined version of what started nearly 10 years ago. “It took us a few years to refine the system, specifically the refill approach. We refined routes by qualifying clients and slowly eliminated salt trucks. Now we have it dialed in,” says Kohn. The Boss QuickCubes that started it all in 2017 have been phased out and replaced with the new Virnig spreader SiteTotes. Kohn says most of the company’s refill process is contracted to redi-mix trucks that can haul and unload the salt. Gaps are filled by exchanging SiteTotes using gooseneck trailers, however, given the current size of the company, redi-mix trucks are even more efficient. Refilling or exchanging is always done between events when it’s easier and quicker to move around and generally between every fourth or fifth event. 300 SiteTotes and 67 spreaders make up the current fleet that replaces what would be nearly 30 salt truck routes.

Encouragement for Industry Peers

Kohn encourages anyone managing snow and ice to consider the approach they have refined. He says, “Start by trying it out, by reducing just one salt truck route. After you gain a taste of reduced stress during snow events and less overhead and staffing of trucks, you will want to expand. We have reduced operating costs and depreciated annual expenses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and that’s just on our little business. Anyone is welcome to reach out to us to discuss how we could help their business or snow operations by sharing our experience.”