What if you couldn’t get your car out of the driveway or if your customers and employees couldn’t get their vehicles in the parking lot at your store or office? What if the short walk from the car to the front door was hazardous? This isn’t a hypothetical scenario or a plot for movie. It’s real. It happens every year. And, around here, in Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin, we call it winter.

The only real question is whether you’re prepared for the inevitability of the upcoming season. Assuming you’re not flying south for the winter, you’ll have to find someone to deal with the snow when it comes, and it will come. Other than a snowblower and shovel, which is fine if your parking lot or drive are relatively small, you may want to consider a contract with a snow removal company.

Snow removal companies in these parts are usually a busy breed when winter comes. Though folks don’t think about them much during the summer, their importance comes to the forefront of our consciousness when winter approaches. About that time, there’s a rush to line up a snow removal company before it’s too late and the snow removal companies have all the clients they can handle.

To put it another way, if you haven’t lined up a snow removal company by now it’s almost too late. That’s not to say you won’t find anyone but the pickings may be getting a little thin. That’s especially true in terms of which snow removal company you plan to hire. All snow removal companies are not the same.

There are a few questions you’ll want to ask first, such as:

What kind of snow removal equipment do they have? Is it big and strong enough to handle your job if a really big snow falls? Keep in mind, they’ll have to keep up with their other clients, too.
What kind of shape is their snow removal equipment in? Are their trucks of the late-model variety or merely late for the junkyard? Older trucks have a tendency to breakdown more often. They can’t remove your snow if their truck won’t start or go.

What about their other snow removal equipment – the blades on the front of their trucks, snow blowers for walkways, shovels and such? With better snow plows, the driver can turn the blade to direct the snow in a particular direction. A straight, fixed blade limits the driver’s ability to put the snow where intended.

What kind of experience do they have? Are you hiring someone who recently bought a truck and then decided to throw a blade on the front to make some extra money or are you hiring a snow removal company that is professional and trained to safely and efficiently remove your snow?
Do they have references? If no one has ever heard of them, it’s the luck of the draw if they’re any good. If they’re not up to par, not only can they pose a safety hazard to you and those around them, they can also damage your property and vehicles if they don’t know what they’re doing. References will help you establish that they do know what they’re doing?
Are they insured and bonded? This isn’t in reference to the auto insurance they have on their vehicle the same as you have on yours. This refers to business insurance specifically designed to provide insurance if there is an accident while on your property. If you’re hiring someone who has the right insurance to do the job, that’s another measure of the likelihood that they know what they’re doing.

You may enjoy winter or you may dread the thought of all that snow. Either way, around here, the snow is coming. It’s time to get prepared.