Sunday, October 24, 2010

Figuring out Salt DeIcers for commercial properties

The use of salt as a deicer on townhome roads and sidewalks is the preferred method to promote safe motor vehicle and pedestrian travel during winter months. The most commonly used deicing salt is sodium chloride (NaCl). Sodium Chloride effectively depresses the freezing point of water to melt ice. But what are the impacts of salt applications to drinking-water supplies and watershed ecosystems?
The application of NaCl and its environmental consequences have come under scrutiny by the environmental and scientific communities as well as regulators and legislators.
There is growing concern over plant habitat, wildlife kills, and water-quality issues. It is estimated that the United States applies 8-12 million tons of salt on the roads annually. Living in Minnesota, we certainly get more than our share of this total. The question is, how much damage to the environment is caused by dumping the equivalent of 20 pounds of salt on the ground for every man, woman and child in the U.S. each year?
Environmental Fate
Soil with high salt concentrations affect biotic communities, hinder plants ability to uptake nutrients and reduce root growth.



Wildlife
Damage to vegetation hurts wildlife habitat by destroying food resources, shelter, and nesting sites..There have even been reports of bird kills. The thinking is that birds might not be able to distinguish between salt crystals and the grit their diets require. Salt can be an irritant to dogs and cats too.
Infrastructure Impacts
In addition to the public health and environmental problems associated with chloride deicers, the corrosivity of road salt adversely impacts motor vehicles and infrastructure. In vehicles, corrosion can affect critical vehicle parts, such as brake linings, frames, and bumpers, and of course, surface rust on the body. Townhome sidewalks receive a lot of damage each year.
“Pet Safe” products
Many bags of salt promote the fact that they are pet safe. In practice, most pet safe salts have a blend of different chemicals, some of which can be an irritant to pets. Magnesium Chloride and CMA are more “pet and environmentally friendly” than Sodium Chloride, but there still may be other salts in the blend.

So, what is the solution for townhome associations and condos?
1.review your winter maintenance contract. Does your contract call for auto salting by the contractor whether the site needs it or not? Although the numbers vary widely, most snowfalls in the Twin Cities don’t require salting. If we have 20 snow events in a season, Maybe 4-7 need salt. So salting 20 times is not only damaging your property and the environment, but you’re throwing dollars out the window as the contractor has built in the cost of the 20 saltings in your contract.
It’s better to have your board or manager determine when and where salt is applied on your property. Since the board lives on site, you’ll have a constant watch of your sites conditions.
2. Even if a site requires salt, many times putting the proper amount of salt on intersections, hills and underground parking ramps are all that is needed. That alone will save at least 50% of the salt applied.
3. Temperatures matter! At 30 degrees, one pound of salt melts 40 pounds of ice, while at 20 degrees, one pound of salt melts only10 pounds of ice, a 400% difference! And the air temperature is a minor part of the equation. Does your contractor apply varying amounts of salt to your property at different temperatures? Do the varying amounts show up when they bill for salt, or does it always seem to be “2 tons” every time?
4. Barrels of salt/sand. 10 years ago, we were applying mixtures of 80% sand and 20% salt as THE standard application for townhomes. The salt was in there basically to keep the sand from freezing solid in the spreader. Nowadays, sand is rarely used on private lots, but there is still a place for sand. Your contractor can usually provide sand barrels for your association. They’ll place them next to hills and parking ramps, or wherever you want them. It’s that same 80/20 mix of sand/salt. They’ll provide a cover and a scoop for residents to use whenever needed. When a barrel runs low, call the contractor and he’ll refill it. At the end of the season, the contractor picks up the barrel and stores it.
Road-Salt Alternatives
Calcium Magnesium Acetate
CMA is relatively harmless to plants and animals, noncorrosive to metals, and nondestructive to concrete and other highway materials. CMA is very expensive and is required by customers with raised parking decks or concrete parking areas. Because of it’s expense, it’s use as a parking lot deicer is limited, but can be found in bagged salt as a blend to be used on sidewalks. CMA acts more slowly and is less effective than salt in cold conditions.
Magnesium Chloride. Another good choice if you’re concerned about pets and the environment. Magnesium Chloride also melts ice at much lower temperatures than Sodium Chloride.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Budgeting options for commercial snow removal

The vast majority of property managers think of only 1 or 2 ways to specify snow removal services. This article talks about the good and bad of some interesting methods!

The best methods to budget snow removal for your sites this winter:
There are innovative ways to budget your snow removal that most property managers are unaware of. They are (in order of wildest swings in meeting budget to most conservative):These methods will have the BIGGEST impact on whether you beat or blow your budget this year.
a) Snow billing by the hour. This is the riskiest plan in order of maintaining your budget. Good contractors billing by the hour are fine, but if you don't know them, it's also the easiest for a bad contractor to overbill you and your clients (tenants). Also something that many property managers fail to include in their strategy is to know if your snow contractor is using all or mostly subcontractors. Now you have TWO entities that could overbill. Unless the general is out there every night, it's nearly impossible to verify each subs hours. If they can't verify it, you'll probably pay extra. This isn't all bad though, if we have very light snowfall this winter, you can save considerably over other methods.

b) Snow billing by the PUSH. This is the newest method of determining pricing. Let's say you have a retail site and you have a 1" trigger. You need constant service to keep drive lanes open and ice free. Once the site gets to an inch, the contractor will start snow removal operations, even if snow is continuing to fall. When they're done, if there's another inch or two on the ground, they'll go through the entire process again.
You have one price per push, which is MUCH less than a per "event"
and gives you some control

c) Snow billing by THE EVENT. You're probably familiar with billing "Per Time". Usually this is broken out at 2-4 inches, then a higher price for 4-6 inches, etc...The plowing usually includes a breakout at 4" where the contractor will clear the drivelanes, then come back hours later and finish the entire job. Then you get charged once per snow event

d) Snow billing by THE INCH. This is another new method of budgeting for snow. You receive a bid for $200 per inch of snow. The snow can be measured on site over the season, or if you'd like numbers with no argument, go with the snow totals at the Chanhassen Weather Service. At the end of the season, if we've had 48 inches, then you would have been billed $9,600.

e) Seaasonal billing. When you absolutely need to be on budget, a seasonal bill consisting of 5 equal monthly payments will keep you there. What are the downsides? If we have a winter with light snow, youi'll end up paying more than you could've by taking a chance on any of the above methods.
This is the favorite method of townhome associations. I think it's because no board wants to get beat up by being way over budget. At least when the price is decided in September, the residents know what to expect.

Let's touch on subcontractors again. One of the real life problems with using subcontractors is that many times they sign up for a site with the "general contractor", but have 3-5 of their own sites that they have a personal stake in, and almost always pay better. So, are you going to get service when you expect it? Good question, but many property managers are now adding "no subcontractors" to the bidding process.
This is the preferred method of the largest snow removal operations. They can use up to 95% subcontractors, and may offer a lower price. Their success is determined by how well they can find and retain great subcontractors who can't sell their own work.

Check on references of course, and spend a little time getting to know your bidders in person. They'll be the ones you count on to keep your clients happy and your phones quiet for 5 months, and that's darn important.

If you are in need of a snow removal bid, call me at 763-213-2410, or email me at Steve@Landscape.Pro and I'll give you a no obligation property evaluation and snow response plan.Email steve at Steve@Landscape.Pro to get your free snow response plan.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Summer swelter damages lawns in 2010

Summer Swelter Stresses Lawns

Inside our company, we’ve been discussing mother nature’s effect on our lawns. It’s no surprise that it’s been a strange season for weather. Honestly, every season seems strange. This one started out with over 400 funnel clouds early in the season, followed by plenty of rainfall, and an extended period of hot, humid weather. The item that’s caught our attention is the bumper crop of weeds. We expect a lot of weeds during hot, dry weather, but not in a season with plentiful rainfall.
So, why the bumper crop of weeds? It shouldn’t be a surprise when you hear that on August 30th, it was announced that Minnesota farmers are expecting all time record crops this year. It’s obvious that growing conditions are excellent.
Crabgrass is a particularly tough problem. Crabgrass crowds out healthy turf and a single plant can leave behind an ugly purple skeleton along with 3000 seeds to germinate in your lawn for the next few years, so control is critical. Most companies apply crabgrass control once in the spring. We’ve taken the proactive stance of applying it twice as a pre-emergent and have spot treated during the summer as a third treatment.
Let’s recap the year:
Mild growing conditions in the spring and early summer produced beautiful lawns, but excessive heat and rainfall have produced some weary and weedy lawns that will need assistance to recover this fall. Statewide precipitation rates well above normal provided ample water for lawn growth, but while your sprinklers may have been growing cobwebs, lawns in Minnesota were being set up for decline from diseases, weeds, insects, and summer stress.

Disease
Dollar spot and red thread were active through June, but the more deadly brown patch and Pythium have reared their ugly head in late July and August to finish off some of the weaker lawns.

Weeds
This was a terrible year for crabgrass and yellow nutsedge. Pre-emergence herbicides generally give 85 to 100% control of crabgrass, but this year's excessive rain and high temperature reduced efficacy of crabgrass control products. High moisture and high temperature are two factors that increase the activity of soil microorganisms that ultimately ingest the herbicide and render it inactive for season long weed control.

Lawns inundated with crabgrass by August 2010 will benefit from pre-emergence crabgrass control in spring 2011 to reduce the infestation of crabgrass that is eminent; seed from this year's heavy infestation will germinate next summer and the cycle of crabgrass will continue.

Should you try to kill the heavy infestation of crabgrass now? When crabgrass covers less than 25% of the turf area, do nothing. Crabgrass will die after the first frost and the Kentucky bluegrass will usually fill in the areas through the dead crabgrass. However, if the Kentucky bluegrass is being smothered beneath a layer of crabgrass that covers 50 to 100% of the visible lawn surface additional action is needed. The thick, uncontrolled mat of crabgrass will dominate the turf until the first killing frost that usually occurs in October; then it will be too late to establish Kentucky bluegrass from seed. Contact your lawn care company for assistance to suppress or kill the existing crabgrass to aid re-establishment. Power rake and reseed in early September.

Insects
White grubs and bluegrass billbugs are our two major lawn insects. There were some bluegrass billbugs this year but damage was very limited compared to past years with drier conditions. Annual white grubs of the masked chafer and Japanese beetle are showing up in ample supply and right on schedule for Mid-August. Grub damage may be concealed by ample rainfall in late summer, only to appear during a dry spell. Curative insecticides are only effective between now and early October.

Summer Stress
High temperature and excessive moisture are a deadly combination that cause stress for cool-season grasses grown in Minnesota lawns (Kentucky bluegrass, tall fescue, perennial ryegrass, fine fescue). High temperatures favor warm-season grasses such as crabgrass while cool-season grasses suffer. This partially explains why crabgrass can overtake Kentucky bluegrass as the summer progresses.

Excessive moisture also contributes to lawn decline in the summer. Roots need air to survive. Oxygen is displaced in soggy or flooded soils and the anaerobic conditions cause the roots to not function properly. Imagine lying down in the sun of your front yard in the hottest part of the day on a sunny, soggy and humid bed of grass. You wouldn't last but a few minutes. Grass plants in the sun can't get up and move to the shade. They're stuck, and when the evaporative cooling system begins to shut down the grass plant, thatch, and soil surface quickly heat up to the existing air temperature or higher. Plants can be literally cooked to death by direct heat injury as plant tissue temperatures rise above 95 degrees F. Temperatures this year were sufficient to cause rapid injury directly from high temperatures and indirectly from prolonged periods of high temperatures that eventually depleted stored carbohydrates. Weakened plants with slow growth were often overcome by brown patch and pythium diseases that flourished when night time temperatures were greater than 72 degrees F.

What to do
The bad news is that several lawns have succumbed to the various woes of summer described above. The good news is that now is the best time to rejuvenate damaged lawns. This may be a good time to kill the existing mess and start over with improved grass varieties suitable for your lawn. Consult your local lawn care professional company to develop a plan to recover your lawn through aerification, slicing, seeding, and fertilizing.

By Dave Minner, Department of Horticulture & Steve Hoogenakker, Concierge Landscape Environments

Friday, October 8, 2010

Townhome living maintenance free? I think not

Maintenance Free Living! Really?

“When a member asked me to address the belief of homeowners, that HOA living is maintenance free living, the zippy Green Acres theme song came to mind immediately. “Green Acres is the place for me, farm livin’ is the life for me… It continues on “The Chores.. The Stores.. Fresh Air… Town Square…”
I mean, the whole premise of the show was about Eddie Albert & Eva Gabor moving from a complicated city life to their own piece of “the promised land” to enjoy nirvana. Nearly all the comedy revolved around the Douglas’s interactions with “real” people and misconceptions about a simple lifestyle they thought they would enjoy.
This isn’t much different than the belief that moving from a single family home to an HOA would make life carefree. Well, without the comedy and Arnold Ziffle, the pig.
Where does the thinking come from?
In general, many developers sell units implying the Association repairs everything and pays for everything, via dues. They don’t explain that some items, like a leaky or clogged kitchen sink or a low battery in a smoke detector is the homeowner’s responsibility. They also don’t understand the concept of a benefit assessment – i.e. a certain element is used exclusively by one homeowner so the association assesses the cost of repair back to the unit owner who benefits from said element – like a waste pipe or a fence or whatever.
In addition, some people think they live in an apartment – or assisted living. People call the property manager complaining about smoke detectors beeping because of a low battery or burned out light bulbs in their living rooms and are aghast when I tell them I’m happy to send someone over there, but they’ll get charged for it. One woman called a manager 3 days in row to keep the manager updated on her fight with a spider web in her garage.
If you think that homeowners are entirely responsible for this thinking, you’d be wrong. In a quick search of one local real estate’s company, using the term “maintenance free”, there were over 1,200 homes for sale! There were even 4 farms listed as maintenance free. Now, that’s funny.
Senior communities tout the maintenance free benefits, and for good reason. Many of the seniors have health problems that keep them from doing a lot of maintenance. Townhome living is meant to be easy.

Think about the term “maintenance free” during the winter. I’m sorry to say, snow season is expected to make another surprise entrance in about 90 days. (Yuk) One of the biggest benefits of living in an association is that the lawn care is done, the driveway is plowed and the sidewalks are shoveled. Is there some maintenance required by the homeowner if the downspout is spilling water that freezes onto a sidewalk? It’s certainly not in the governing docs, but some common sense is in order here. What would a good neighbor do? What if you had a pregnant daughter coming to visit? Do you say well, it’s not my responsibility; C’est La Vie or do you get out there and do something about it? At the very least, call and let someone know about the dangerous situation or make sure the outside lights are working.
It amazes me that during a snowfall at an HOA, there are always a handful of people who shovel their driveway and sidewalk off, even before the snow has stopped and while our trucks are working down the street. I often wonder what drives these people to do something they don’t have to do. I just assume they care about their association and neighbors. Maybe they’re doing their neighbors sidewalk, maybe they’re trying to help us? If we all thought and acted like these neighbors, I don’t think worrying about light bulbs would even come up.
Association living isn’t responsibility free either. A homeowner who just sits back and waits for the board to decide everything to their satisfaction is not going to work out for that homeowner or anyone else in the association who might be experiencing the same thing. Boards & property managers really need more (quality) inputs from the homeowners so they can do their job.
Contribute your time and ideas to make your association a better place to live for everyone.
Don’t believe everything the developer and salesperson said about maintenance free living. What’s wrong with doing your part and maybe just a bit more to realize the feeling at the end of the theme song…”You are my wife.. Goodbye city life, Green Acres We Are There!”

Monday, October 4, 2010

Standardizing Specifications as your competitive advantage

Using Standardized Specifications as a Property Managers Unique Service Proposition.
By Steve Hoogenakker Steve@Landscape.Pro
It was a hot Monday afternoon in July and the humidity made it feel like an Indian sweat lodge. The air conditioner was refusing to work through another day, much like the temp that was hired here last week. My desk, looking like it belonged to Andy Rooney was strewn with paperwork facing every direction.
Emails had come in over the weekend about sprinkler heads shooting fountains 15 feet in the air, and I’d received 2 calls from the Vice President of the board asking when the pruning was going to be done. I even got an email asking about the sidewalk edging. Sidewalk edging? Who asks about sidewalk edging?
I scrambled through the papers looking for the maintenance specs, then through my files. I called my assistant and asked her for the contract, but nobody had found it yet.
The contractor finally called me back at 3:00 PM. He didn’t think the pruning had been due yet. The edging might have been kind of done using a weed whip, he didn’t know. As for the sprinklers, how was he supposed to know? He said “I’ll get my irrigation subcontractor out there in the next week”. A week? Oh no.
At 5:45 PM, I left the office, never finding the specifications. I emailed the Vice President before I left and told her I was working on it, but didn’t feel like I had made a lot of headway.
Tuesday morning. Another email about wasting precious water due to the fountain sprinkler heads asking if I cared about the environment, if I worked for BP and asked if I was going to pay the water bill next month. I get a phone message from an angry resident about one of their bird baths being damaged by the mowers last week. With the edging and pruning questions still fresh on my mind, we did a full press search for the specifications. Voila, we found them. My assistant has saved us!
Well, saved might be a strong word. I start to read through it. Hmmm, I’ve never seen specs like these before, they’re only a couple of pages long, should be a piece of cake.
Let’s see here, mowing; “Contractor not responsible for damage to personal items left in common areas”. I don’t remember seeing that. I hope the birdbath was inside the sidewalk, but it’s not likely. I’m not looking forward to that visit and phone call. Ah, here’s edging. “Edging shall be completed once annually”. Well, no end date, so I guess they have until Halloween to finish. I’m sure they won’t wait that long, but when?
Then I found pruning. Pruning shall be completed twice annually, but after shrubs have flowered. What does that mean I wondered? Surely some shrubs have finished flowering, it’s July for Pete’s sake. Have they done any of it? OK, one more question, irrigation, let’s see if that’s any better. Irrigation: “Lawn Sprinklers will be started up in the spring and blown out in the fall. If adjustments or repairs are necessary, it is the responsibility of client to notify contractor.”
So, I feel good that I found the contract and specs, but I still don’t have a single answer to give to the association.
This story happens hundreds if not thousands of times in Minnesota each year in one form or another. The problem arises because there are no standardized specifications for grounds maintenance. The specs could’ve come from a book, or more likely, they’re using a contractors specifications. I’ve run the largest landscape maintenance business here in the distant past and I can tell you that 20% of the language in contracts being passed around is language I wrote in 2000, and I am not an attorney!
In the past the board probably took 3 bids with 3 sets of specifications and accepted one. If they were one of the lucky ones, they kept using the same specs even after the contract ran out. If not, when the bid was up again, they asked for 3 more bids and got 3 different sets of specs to try to compare and had a new board to re-learn everything all over again.
So, what’s the solution? Whether you’re non-managed, a managed association, or a management company, you need to come up with your own set of specs and standardize as much of it as possible. To me, NOT having grounds maintenance specs for one of the biggest budget items and complaint items is just like trying to run an association without having MCIOA as a backstop!
There are only a couple of large management companies that have their own specs and they have a big competitive advantage over all the others. Their property managers already know what’s required at each site, why and when. They have deadlines for pruning and edging and they’re the same date, so on July 15th, sidewalk edging had better be done at every site. 80% of the thinking and brain damage of the board and property managers has already been eliminated. Just mark it in your Outlook calendar in February: First edging to be completed July 15th. You’ll see July 15th coming up so you can contact the vendor 2 weeks in advance with a reminder if you wish. The standardized specification makes less work for the manager, and in turn makes the manager and the board more efficient, and that translates into a happier association.
So, how do you go about making standardized specs? Since 90% of the horticultural items apply to all sites, standardize as many dates and descriptions as possible. For those few items that have to be customized, put them on as an addendum WITH DATES.
Grab 2-4 of your current landscape contracts and setup a meeting with me 1-2 of your property managers with 2-4 of their current grounds maintenance/snow contracts and optionally 1-2 respected board members. Send the documents out ahead of time and ask all to comment. Then, buy them lunch to come up with best parts of all contracts. Have them combine the specs into two sets. One for very small associations and one for larger associations. Run these by your accounting and legal departments and start using the “ABC Grounds Maintenance Specifications” as your own competitive advantage. Once done, 90% will always be done. You can tweak it over the years but you can have a new competitive advantage in a couple of weeks.
Steve Hoogenakker
Concierge Landscape Environments
Steve@Landscape.Pro
763-213-2410