William Fries, Owner of Xtreme Fabrication, has been a snow and ice dealer for 15 years and has seen many changes in the marketplace in that time. Fries shares some of the industry changes that have been made and what these trends look like now.
January 20, 2022 | Emma Tyborski
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William Fries, Owner of Xtreme Fabrication, has been a snow and ice dealer for almost 15 years and has seen a lot of changes in the marketplace. One of the biggest changes that Fries has seen is the onslaught of labor shortages. Years ago customers would have a fleet of workers out shoveling sidewalks and now, they have a fleet of small compact sidewalk equipment. Many companies are moving to utilizing equipment that can be run by one person, because it can do the work of 25 workers. It is also harder to find people that want to do snow removal, finding ways to do more with less is becoming a huge trend in the industry.
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Another change in the industry is the difficulty finding new trucks, due to the the current chip shortage, new trucks are getting hard to come by. Many contractors are switching from truck operations to equipment operations like skid steers with snow boxes. These types of machines are far more efficient than a straight blade snow plow on a pickup truck. The cost between these two is very small, so contractors are making the switch to buying a piece of equipment that doubles the production in a shorter amount of time.
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Lastly, the marketplace is seeing an uptick in the use of liquid applications for snow and ice removal. Contractors are recongnizing the importance of being more environmentally conscious and switching to salt brine. Salt brine can reduce salt usage by about 30 percent when using brine up front in pre-treatment applications.