Philip Talbot asked:




Lawn mower trailers are very useful for moving your lawn care equipment to different locations. There are a number of features that you need to think about when picking a trailer. Let us look at the key features you need for a great trailer experience.

1. Good tailgate for loading

Lawn mowers and other motorized equipment are often heavy and bulky. When loading such items on a trailer, having a good tailgate that is low to the ground and can handle large loads is very important. The tailgate should be easily secured to protect your load during transport.

2. Pulled by any vehicle

Some trailers are designed to be pulled by special hitch equipment. When you select a trailer, look for a model that has a temporary hitch that can be installed on any car or truck. This will give you the most flexibility.

3. Visible tail lights

When towing a trailer, your tail lights and signals are often blocked by the trailer and its contents. To fix this problem, make sure the trailer tail lights are visible, and can be attached to your existing tail lights so your turn signals and brake signals are visible.

4. Sturdy hitch

The hitch is the attach point between the trailer and the car/truck pulling the trailer. A light duty hitch is not strong enough to handle a heavy duty load. To avoid a potential breakaway of your trailer, make sure your hitch is rated for the loads you expect to be pulling.

5. Well balanced

Trailers are designed to handle the maximum possible. The spacing of the wheels will determine the overall balance of the trailer. Be sure you understand the right distribution of your load to avoid getting unbalanced as you pull your load.

6. Big enough for other items

Having lawn mower trailers can be a temptation for loading extra equipment. Make sure you know how much equipment you want to transport, then pick the trailer size to match the number of items.

7. Tie downs for securing the load

A good trailer will have tie down points along the walls of the trailer to allow the use of straps or tie downs to secure your load. This helps ensure that you will not have shifting loads.

Picking lawn mower trailers is a straightforward task. Keep in mind the features you needs, the amount of equipment to be moved, and the towing capacity of your vehicle, and you should be able to move your equipment safely and securely!



Commercial Lawn Equipment

Drew Roberts asked:




Businesses that provide lawn care and general landscape maintenance operations are a common start-up every spring. According to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States Department of Labor, there were 402,000 self-employed grounds maintenance workers in 2008. This number continues to grow as the entire industry expects substantial growth over the next decade. The report stated that “more workers will be needed to keep up with increasing demand for lawn care and landscaping services both from large institutions and from individual homeowners.”

Homeowners that hire a new business to mow their yard should request proof that the business is properly insured to cover the liability for property damage and bodily injury. This exposure will be covered under a typical general liability policy and commercial auto policy. The business owner can provide from his insurance agency a ‘certificate of insurance’, which is a current listing of their liability coverages and limits.

For new lawn care businesses throughout the country, there are four standard insurance coverages to protect the business venture:

1. General Liability Insurance – Pays losses arising from real or alleged bodily injury, property damage, or personal injury on business premises or arising from business operations.

2. Commercial Auto Insurance – Pays losses for damage to company vehicles and trailers as well as injury and property damage to others as a result of vehicle liability when used for business purposes.

3. Equipment Floater Insurance – Provides protection for tools and equipment from a number of exposures such as theft.

4. Workers’ Compensation Insurance – Covers the cost of medical expenses and disability payments to employees that are injured at work, and it is required by state governments.

There are additional insurance coverages to consider as the lawn care business expands and the exposures increase. For more information about those coverages or the ones mentioned above, visit BearWiseLandscapers.com, an informative insurance website exclusively for lawn care and landscaping businesses. BearWise Landscapers is a division of an independent insurance agency and specializes in serving the unique insurance needs of the Florida landscaping industry.



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Sherri Joubert asked:




No matter what the economy, the grass still grows. There is always someone near by who needs their lawn mowed and cannot do it themselves. These folks have a problem and you, the full-time employee wanting to start a part-time lawn mowing business, have the solution. They can pay you to mow their yard. Problem solved.

I often get the question of whether you can start your lawn mowing business part-time in the evenings and on weekends and keep your full-time job. The answer is a big yes!

The question is can you do it? If you have lots of energy, enjoy being outdoors and working in your yard, and can handle just 5 to 10 extra hours of physical work each week, you can start a part-time lawn mowing business and keep your regular job.

People who work 12-hour rotating shift schedules are in a terrific position to run a lawn mowing business part-time while keeping their full-time jobs because they have so many days off.

Marketing
First, you need to find some customers. Write a flyer using word processing software, print it, take it to your local copy shop, have 25-30 copies made, and distribute them around your neighborhood within walking distance of your house. You may want to use a half-page flyer so you can distribute to 50-60 houses. Include what you offer the prospect (lawn mowing, edging, cleaning off the concrete), your name, best phone number to contact you, your address so they know you are a neighbor and how much you charge. Since you are new to the business charge on the lower end of the average rate other lawn care professionals charge in your area. Five dollars cheaper than average may get your neighbors to stop using someone out of the neighborhood and start using you instead.

Another reason to start with your neighbors is they know you or know of you and we all want to help other people, especially people we know. Since these folks are close by, you get to go out, knock on doors and meet your neighbors while marketing your business to them. Smile, introduce yourself and tell them which house is yours or what street you live on and get to know a little about them and some things you might have in common. Hand them a flyer at the end of the conversation and move on to the next house.

Keep this up until you have at least one person ready for you to go home, get your equipment right now, come back and work that day and are pulling out their checkbook to pay you. If this happens, stop marketing that day, service your new customer and earn some money. Continue marketing the next day.

When you have the number of customers you think you can handle, stop marketing daily and only doing a little occasionally or when someone asks for your information. You will need to keep a few flyers on hand to give out. Be on the lookout for yards that overgrow and see if a lawn service comes to mow them. These folks may need someone closer who will service their lawn regularly. Be sure to visit them and ask.

Equipment
Do not buy any commercial equipment or go into debt. You only need the mower you use on your own lawn, a gas-powered string trimmer and blower to get started. If you have an electric-powered string trimmer and blower, you can still use them, but make sure the customer knows you will need access to an electric outlet and you will need a very long extension cord.

Alternatives to gas and electric-powered trimmers and blowers are the cordless rechargeable models. They are less expensive than their gas-powered cousins, cheaper to operate and much more environmentally friendly. If you have electric equipment that requires an extension cord, you will want to replace it with cordless electric or gas-powered equipment as soon as you earn enough money mowing to do so.

Starting within walking distance of your home eliminates the need for a truck or trailer to haul equipment to job sites keeping costs down. If you live within walking distance of the job you can put your equipment and gas can in a wagon or cart and pull your lawn mower along by hand. If you are willing to do this extra manual labor you are more likely to succeed because you are not afraid of hard work and not prone to overspending.

Earnings
One of the biggest reasons to have a part-time lawn mowing business is you make significantly more money for the time you spend working than at most other part-time endeavors.

If you charge $50 to mow the grass, edge and clean up and you can do 5 lawns after work and on weekends each week, you will earn $250 per week. You will need to set 15% of your revenue aside after expenses (gas, parts, repair, replacement equipment, etc.) for self-employment taxes which you will need to pay each quarter. If you spend $9 on gas and save $36 for taxes, your net weekly earnings will be $205. Six weeks of hauling your equipment by hand will build physical strength and allow you to accumulate about $1230. You could also resubmit your form W-4 at work to take the correct amount of extra money out of your pay checks to cover these taxes. However, if you are trying this to determine if you want a full-time lawn mowing business I recommend you become familiar with paying self-employment taxes quarterly.

After 20 weeks of mowing 5 lawns per week you will have netted nearly $4,000. It will be less than this because your equipment will need maintenance and repair. That will not cost more than a few hundred dollars, so you will still have around $3,700 if you save your profits.

Now you will have the cash to buy a good used commercial lawn mower. Once you have a commercial mower you will be able to increase the number of yards you can mow per week in the same amount of time it took with your residential mower, increasing your revenue. You may be able to mow 10 yards per week instead of 5, so your gross revenue will jump to $500 per week. After another 10 weeks you may have enough cash to buy a used trailer to haul your commercial equipment.

Remember that in many areas there are only 3 mowing seasons or about 40 weeks of steady work each year. If you spend the first 40 weeks earning enough to get some commercial equipment and increase your customer base, your second part-time year will be mostly profits.

Two years part-time in the business will allow you to decide if you want to start mowing full-time. You will know it is time to go full-time when you are turning customers away because you do not have time to service their yards and if you could take on those customers, you would earn more annually than at your full-time job.

Earning more means earning more than your current annual pay after taxes plus paying for the benefits you and your family need, like health insurance. If your spouse works outside the home, he or she may carry the family benefits leaving you free to earn lots of cash. You will have to save for retirement and pay your own disability insurance even if your spouse can provide the other benefits. Few companies offer spousal retirement or spousal disability coverage.

If you are willing to work during your off hours and not spend money on equipment you do not need, you can work part-time mowing lawns and earn a lot of extra money. You may also be able to eventually leave your job and run your business full-time.



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Steve Sutherland asked:




Once you are up and running and have fine tuned your lawn mowing business marketing and customer service the next area that you can target to maximize profit is your companies productivity. Here are some ideas for running an efficient lawn care business and cutting down costs.

Equipment

Some lawn care businesses have started to use electric mowers, edgers and blowers. Not only are these options cheaper due to fuel savings, they are also quieter and don’t produce negative air emissions. The problem with electric equipment though is that it has to be recharged and this can be a challenge for commercial lawn service companies.

Buying used equipment that has been well maintained is another way that you lawn care business can cut expenses.

Logistics

Efficient lawn mowing business operators plan their routes in a way that makes the best possible use of time and resources. Ideally you want to spend less time in your vehicle and more time cutting grass. Planning a cost-effective route can also cut down on gasoline consumption.

Send Two Guys on a Job Instead of One

By sending out your staff in teams of two (or working with a partner) you can run a more efficient operation. As you will only require one vehicle instead of two there are fuel saving to be made and two workers can often be more productive then one when it comes to jobs like lifting heavy objects.

Your workers will be happier overall and derive more job satisfaction from working in a small team. Customers may be happier too as they may perceive that having two workers tending to their property is a more valuable service then having only one worker on site.

Lawn Care Business Software

Look into the various software packages available that are specifically designed for lawn service businesses. Installing a system to manage accounts and scheduling lawn jobs is essential if you want to efficiently manage your lawn care business.

The are two sides to maximizing profit. One side involves working to increase your income and the other involves working on decreasing expenditure by being efficient and productive. Finding ways to save money and to increase productivity in your lawn care business is essential to your success.



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Simon Harris asked:




If you need to find out any type of information on lawn equipment such as different brands of farm tractors, the Internet is a great resource in order to do this. There is a lot of information to be found out about Honda Lawn Tractors. You can research on many different websites to find specifications, pricing, and places that make these tractors available. Among all the different tractors in this brand, the most popular Honda tractors are the Rt500, the H5518, and the H5013 garden tractors.

If you want a calm but powerful tractor that will do a sufficient job, then you should get the RT500 model of the Honda Lawn Tractors. The specifications of this model include the engine type which is the GX340. This engine is an overhead valve, four-stroke, one cylinder motor. The maximum horsepower of this tractor is 3,600 RPM or 11ps. There are mechanical shoe type brakes on the rear wheels of this tractor, which gives it better traction for going through tall grass. The gas tank can hold up to 2.2 gallons of gas and the transmission has eight speeds for going forward and four speeds in reverse. This is the perfect tractor to tame that large yard because it is easy to use and take care of.

The H5518 tractor of the Honda Lawn Tractors has specifications that include a motor that is a four stroke OHC two cylinder engine called the GX640. This tractor can get up to a speed of 6.9 miles per hour making it very easy to get a rather large job done in an ample amount of time. There is a two and four wheel drive model as well a just a two wheel drive model depending on the preference of the customer. This model gas tank can hold up to 2.5 gallons of gasoline which fewer trips to get more gas.

The H5013 model of the Honda Lawn Tractors specifications are that is has the GX390 motor which is a four stroke overhead valve one cylinder motor. This model is one step up from the RT500. They are basically the same type of tractor but this model has a little more horsepower coming in at 3,000 PRM or 13ps. It has a little more kick to it when it comes to the power that it gives out. It contains a 12 volt battery as well as having a gas tank that can hold up to 2.2 gallons of gas.



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Drew Roberts asked:




As an insurance agent that specializes in the landscaping industry, I am often asked about the importance of equipment floater insurance. “Why can landscape or lawn care equipment not be covered by regular property insurance or other coverage?”

Here are three facts to consider about your operations in the lawn care business:
1. Lawn Mowers and other equipment travel to the properties of multiple clients each day. 2. This equipment therefore has a higher risk of not only theft but other causes of loss and damage. 3. This equipment also includes some of the most valuable assets of your landscaping and lawn care business.There are many insurance implications to this information.

A typical property insurance policy will only cover your equipment while it is in your office building or other place of storage. A commercial auto policy may cover damage to your trailers, but it will not protect your equipment while on the trailer. To protect this equipment with insurance, a policy needs to be written and rated to cover valuable items while away from the premises of a building.

Equipment floater insurance is a type of inland marine policy. It is specifically designed to cover your lawn care equipment and tools while located anywhere in the broad coverage territory. Virtually any type of mobile articles, tools, machinery, and equipment (other than motor vehicles designed for highway use) can be insured under an equipment floater policy.

The price of equipment floater insurance is a good value for lawn care businesses with annual premium rates ranging from one to four percent of the total value of the insured equipment. Some insurance carriers also provide discounts when this coverage is packaged into one insurance policy with general liability or commercial auto coverages. Other premium discounts may be available for safe storage techniques, theft deterrent systems, claims history, and equipment maintenance procedures.



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Andrew Caxton asked:




So as to maintain and care a healthy and green lawn, you might need some commercial equipment for you help. The right type of this commercial equipment has the ability to complete a job very quick and also making your job of taking care of the lawn easier. Some kinds of this commercial tools are designed to take care of small lawns while at the same time others aim at being used during particular seasons.

You will always have equipment that would be useful at any point of time. The commercial equipment that is available in the market is the lawnmowers. However, you can also see leaf blowers, trimmers and such many other commercial equipments that be considered. Lawn mowers suit perfectly for people who possess a lawn of good size to be taken care after which you can make use of the trimmers to trim the edges of your lawn neatly and effectively.

One of the essential equipments is a Leaf blower, especially for people who have a lot of trees near to their lawn especially when you see a lot of dead leaves falling off that smother and shade the grass. Trimmers are correct for the ones which have lot of weeds as this turns out to be a handy and quick solution for the obstacle and help you in protecting the back as many gardeners see this as a problem area. Even seeders do lot of bending over the longer run which is now not practical.

You have a vast variety of items of commercial equipments available in the market which make lawn care the gardening an easy take for people any ability, age and mobility. These equipments also cut down on the amount of time required for one to be in the garden which is being considered as a major concern for people who work for long tiring hours or just can’t find time to take proper care of their garden and lawn.

It is very hard to take care of the lawn during the winters and hence you find so many commercial equipments specifically available to be used at this time. Most of the commonly used equipments are the ones which need of the most of the things to be done with snow like the snow blowers, that clear the lawn of ice and snow which might harm the grass. Other kinds of commercial equipment can even be made use of during winter seasons but many of them need to put away till spring. Make sure you take good care of this machine all through your winter and this can be a good idea to make sure they always stay in good condition. This will help maintain an effective landscape design.



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Gerry Faehrmann asked:




If you are starting a new lawn mowing and gardening business, then you need to consider a basic range of equipment that will allow you to provide a decent level of service to your new customers. What you offer customers is limited by the range of gardening equipment you invest in.

A basic lawn mowing business will require the following equipment:

Motor vehicle sedan with a tow behind trailer. Obviously, a utility (or pick up) will be better for this sort of work but only if funds allow. A push mower with catcher – this is your entry level mower. You can (as your cash flow allows) invest in a self propelled lawn mower (these are called walk behind mowers in north America) A whipper snipper / brush cutter (or as the north Americans say, a weed eater) – you are best to invest in a quality machine with a minimum 25cc motor and a straight shaft, however, you can get by with a cheap bent shaft model from your home hardware store One vacuum blower, or the more efficient back-pack blower machine Wool bags, or hessian style bags for lawn clippings Mobile (or cell) phone Pressure Sprayer Bottle and non-selective herbicide, that is, Roundup Basic garden tools, for example, secateurs, bush saw, garden gloves, plastic rubbish bin

If you are wanting to offer your customers more gardening type services then you will need to invest in hedging equipment, chain saws and so on. This can (to an extent) be planned for. Until you are ready, you will just provide a basic lawn mowing and lawn care service.

Generally, many contractors will focus on lawn mowing in the warmer seasons, and in the cooler season expand their service offering to include some gardening and tree services.



Website content

Donald Gordon asked:




Husqvarna is probably best known for their chain saws, but they make a whole range of outdoor equipment. Their lawn mowers are every bit as powerful and reliable as their chain saws, and they make a range of models for both the homeowner and commercial use. Let’s look at some of the reasons to choose Husqvarna.

First, as mentioned, they make a range of models for both home use and commercial use. In either case they make push-behind mowers, like the 7021RH for home use and WGE4815 for commercial use, riding mowers like the Rider 175 for home use and the PZ6029PFX for commercial use, and a number of other styles and models. They even make a robotic mower that will cut your lawn without you having to lift a finger!

Husqvarna mowers – or “Huskies” as they’re affectionately known – have many features that add to their overall dependability and durability. Features like solid steel frames, powder coating to resist corrosion and premium engines from manufacturers like Kawasaki, Briggs & Stratton and Kohler ensure that you will have many years of service from your mower.

Husqvarna has a large dealer network, which means you’ll be able to both buy your mower locally in most places and get it serviced locally. And because they use engines from the largest engine manufacturers, you’ll be able to find repair centers almost anywhere, even if they don’t specifically carry Husqvarna equipment.

If you’re looking for a more expensive model of lawnmower, Husqvarna offers attractive financing options, direct from the manufacturer, so it is often on better terms than a lot of dealers offer themselves. This can be especially important for commercial models, which can cost anywhere from $3000 to over $10,000.

Whatever type of mower you’re looking for, whether a smaller one for use in a small yard or a full-on zero turn riding mower with all the bells & whistles, Husqvarna has a model that will suit your needs.



Commercial Lawn Equipment

John Wesley Wright asked:




Hybrid remote lawn mowers are setting the new standard in the industry. I believe every one has seen the movie, “Honey, I shrunk the kids!” back in the ’80s. The little boy in the movie built himself a remote control lawn mower to mow his lawn with. And, some twenty-some-odd years later…Companies are developing awareness for remote control lawn mowers.

Hybrid technology is just one of the many features of the remote mower. The hybrid power system cuts down on fuel consumption by 40% while keeping the battery charged during use. You don’t have to worry about the battery going dead on this one! Not many people care about saving $1.62 on fuel when it comes time to mow the lawn. But, if you multiply the number of people mowing the lawn everyday by how many gallons of oil we could leave in Iraq…Now it’s making sense!

There are a lot of senior citizens out there, who really enjoy mowing the lawn, but are becoming unable to do so with traditional lawn equipment. Simple, one finger control means no coordination skills needed. The hybrid remote control lawn mower is definitely elderly friendly.

Some companies also have commercial units also. Professional lawn care providers use a remote control lawn mower with tracks to maintain steep slopes of up to 70 degrees. There is no need to put six or eight men out on steep hills with weed eaters to risk injury. It is just not practical to use a weed eater for a lawn mower anymore.

After Googling “remote mower” I found prices start at $2200 for the residential units and the commercial units are a bit more pricey.



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