What to Get in Writing Before You Hire Snow Removal

There's a thread that goes around every winter. A homeowner posts a snow bill that came in way over what he expected, and he's furious, and he pulls up his agreement to prove he got taken. The agreement says nothing about extra charges. Just a simple formula based on accumulation. The most useful reply in the whole thread wasn't a defense or an attack. It was basically: at least now you know what to ask the next time you hire somebody.

That's the actual problem with snow agreements. Most bad surprises aren't a company being dishonest. They're a one page agreement that never named the thing that ended up mattering. Get these named before you sign, in October, while everybody's still calm and nobody's standing in a driveway at 5am.

What actually starts a visit

Trigger depth is the number that says when a crew shows up. Two inches, three inches, whatever the agreement says. Get that number written down, and then ask three follow ups that most agreements skip.

• Where is it measured? At your property, or off the nearest official reading? Those are frequently not the same number, and the gap gets wider the further you are from wherever that reading comes from.
• Does the trigger reset? If two inches falls Monday night and two more falls Tuesday morning, is that one event or two? A single storm broken across a day can bill very differently depending on how that sentence is written.
• What happens on ice with no accumulation? This one matters more in Butler County than most places. A lot of what falls here lands under three inches, and a storm that drops an inch and a half, melts in the afternoon, and refreezes overnight leaves a walk that's worse to cross than four inches of fresh powder. A high trigger depth on paper can mean you're clearing half of an Ohio winter yourself.

Which surfaces are included, named one at a time

"The property" is not a surface list. Get the actual surfaces written out.

For a house that usually means the driveway, the apron where it meets the street, the walk from the drive to the front door, the front steps, and whatever path you actually use, which for a lot of people is the side door off the garage and not the front at all. Add the path to where the trash cans go if you want that cleared, because nobody clears it unless it's listed.

For a business it means the lot, the entries, the walk between the parking and the door, the fire lane, and the handicap spaces. Handicap spaces get skipped constantly because they're at the edge of the lot and take hand work.

Be this specific because the work is mechanical. A truck with a plow clears a driveway in a few minutes. Walks, steps, and entries are hand work with a shovel or a walk behind blower, and that means a person standing there for real time. If nobody wrote those down, they almost certainly weren't priced, and you'll get a clean driveway next to a sidewalk nobody touched.

Salt: included, or a separate line

Ask flatly whether salting is included as needed or billed separately. "Salt available" and "salt included" are two very different lines on an invoice, and both of them sound fine in October.

If it's billed separately, ask how. Per application, per bag, per pound? Is there a limit on how many applications happen in a bad week, or does that just run?

Ask what product too. If you have a dog, or the neighbors walk theirs past your steps, pet friendly ice melt is worth naming rather than assuming.

The local reason this matters: a Butler County winter isn't usually one big snow. It's a couple of inches, a day that gets above freezing, and a hard refreeze overnight. That cycle repeats all season. Plowing moves the snow. Salt is what stops the refreeze that shows up the next morning. If your agreement only prices the plowing, you priced the easy half of the winter.

What a heavy storm or back to back storms changes

This is where the surprise invoice almost always comes from, and it's the part the shortest agreements never address.

• Is there a depth above which the rate changes? Ask where exactly that line sits, then ask what happens above it. Does it become a multiplier, an hourly rate, or a second visit charged on its own?
• How many times do they come back during a long storm? Ten inches falling over fourteen hours isn't one visit for a crew doing the job properly, because a drive cleared at midnight is buried again by six. Is that one charge or three? Get the answer before the storm, not on the invoice.
• Where does the snow go? Every property has a spot where the pile ends up, and by the third or fourth storm that bank can get taller than a plow can push. Relocating stacked snow is usually its own job and usually isn't in the base number. Knowing that in October is a lot better than negotiating it in February.

Who answers the phone at 4am

Plenty of companies advertise 24/7. Ask what they mean by it. Is that a cell phone a person picks up during a storm, an answering service that takes a message, or voicemail until somebody gets to the office at eight?

Ask about the window. How long after the snow stops does your property get cleared? Then ask where you sit on the route. Residential running after commercial is normal and not a knock on anybody, but you should know it going in rather than discovering it while you're staring out the window.

And ask what the plan is when something goes wrong. One truck, one crew, twelve inches, a breakdown. Every company has a bad night eventually. The ones worth hiring have already thought about what happens on it. That's one more of the questions worth asking before you hire anybody, snow or not.

What we put on paper before winter

Every property gets a site visit before the season starts. That's where the edges get marked so the plow knows where the drive ends once everything is white, where snow can be stacked gets decided, and the trigger depth gets agreed instead of assumed.

The surfaces get named, and walks, entries, and handicap spaces get cleared and treated rather than skipped. Salting is included as needed with pet friendly ice melt. Service runs 24/7 during a storm for both residential and commercial. Pricing is per property, based on the actual size and what needs cleared, and it's quoted before the season rather than after the first storm. You can see the full rundown on our snow removal service.

Frequently asked questions

What trigger depth should I ask for?

It depends on the property and who's using it. Somebody who can walk out over two inches can set the number higher than a property where a delivery driver, a wheelchair, or somebody unsteady on their feet has to reach the door. Set it during the site visit instead of taking a default number off a form.

Is salting always billed extra?

It depends on the company, which is exactly why you ask. On ours it's included as needed using pet friendly ice melt. Somewhere else it might be a separate line per application. Ask directly and get the answer written down.

Does anyone actually answer at 4am?

We run 24/7 during a storm, residential and commercial. Ask any company you're considering whether 24/7 means a person picks up, because a storm at 2am is the wrong time to find out it meant an answering machine.

If you'd rather have the terms nailed down before the first storm than argue about them after the first invoice, give us a call at (513) 464-0111. Rachel and her crew will walk the property, name what's included, and price it for your actual driveway, free estimate included.