Earthblog

It’s a funny fact of life, but it sometimes seems that opportunities are more abundant the more prepared you are.  We hear all the time from our clients that as soon as they bought a piece of equipment, the “demand” for them to do that kind of work went up.

For example, a guy gets an opportunity to bid removal jobs every once in awhile, and would just rent a machine if and when he ever actually was awarded the job.  Then, he wins a big job, decides to buy his own machine rather than rent one, and all of a sudden, he’s finding more opportunities to bid removal.  And, the other thing he notices:  now that he has his own machine, he’s actually winning more of the bids.

It’s interesting how that works out, isn’t it?  I’m not sure if it’s a different mindset when you own the machine, or if the fact that you own your own equipment communicates a level of competence and experience to your potential customers.  But, there’s something at play here, and the results cannot be denied.

Maybe you simply start getting more work because you’re not as intimidated when bidding jobs.  When you own your own equipment, you now know how quickly you can take up the floor, allowing you to bid more accurately.  Being able to more accurately asses the job allows you to bid more aggressively, since you don’t have to put in that “fudge factor” or a cushion.

Floor removal can be hard, and making business decisions can be hard.  Lots of guys are out there either renting or subbing out work, not taking in to account the extra business that you can pick up when you have the equipment in house.

If you’ve been on the fence about buying your own removal equipment, or a grinder or whatever, don’t forget to account for “The Law of the Prepared”.

If you’ll be in Las Vegas for World Of Concrete in February, be sure to pay us a visit.  As you know, World of Concrete is where you can learn all about new products, techniques, and trends in the industry.  Demolition equipment, grinders, and floor scrapers, are on display, along with tools for cutting, drilling, chemicals, coatings, and more

To view the industry leading Renegade 5700 All Day Battery ride on floor scraper as well as the new revolutionary Renegade 5600 Propane riding scraper, you can visit your SED sales representative at the World of Concrete National Surface Preparation Equipment booth (# S13905) or the National Carpet Equipment booth at Surfaces (#5742) on February 3-6.

We’ll be happy to discuss these scrapers, as well as other equipment, products, and services we can provide your company.  At SED, we take pride in the depth and breadth of knowledge possessed by our team of experts, and our ability to assist our clients before they make a purchase, and long after, through the lifetime of the equipment, including disposal of used floor removal equipment.

We look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas, at WOC.

It’s fairly common for us to get calls from production facilities looking to clean up industrial excess.  In a production environment, it’s common for stuff to spill or fall onto the floor and build up over time.

Whether it’s latex, rubber, wax, paint, or other soft materials, you can often take it up with a walk behind floor scraper, rather than a diamond grinder.  It’s a simpler process, less that could go wrong, and less expensive to run the machine over time.  Plus, depending on the floor that you’re removing the materials from, a scraper is a safer option.

Grinding stuff like this off a floor will wear the floor down over time.  This is especially true if you’re going to be forced to grind the same spots over and over and over, while not touching other parts of the floor.

If you’re thinking about a floor grinder for this kind of “industrial clean up”, you may find that a walk-behind scraper is actually the better option.

Just to clarify from the last post, finding small floor equipment is much easier than the riding floor scrapers or heavy duty floor grinders.  Local rental centers, and some Home Depot and Lowe’s locations will often have small walk-behind floor scrapers, spud bars, and even small floor grinders.

Rental fees will vary tremendously by location, but our experience in talking to guys is that a small walk behind scraper, that is NOT self-propelled, will typically be $30-$50 per day.  At an average of let’s say $40/day, you can get a machine similar to our Renegade 550 walk behind, which sells for $1300.  So, you’ve got about 3% of the purchase price for every day of rental.

It’s not uncommon for guys to get sick of renting, and contact us to buy one.  It’s not only the cost of renting that eventually gets to them, but also the hassles that may be involved.  Having to go pick up the equipment and the pressure of needing to have it back by a certain time to avoid over-charges and fees gets old pretty fast. 

The other point we hear is that guys that own a machine are free to use it whenever they want.  Often, if you run into a smaller job, you would definitely use the machine IF you have it.  But, if you don’t own it, it may be hard to justify the cost, and headache of going to rent one for such a small job.  So, you end up doing alot of those smaller jobs “the hard way”.

Again, it’s very hit and miss out there as far as rentals go, but, if you really are in that “once in a blue moon” situation where you need a smaller machine, call around, you might get lucky.