When you run a landscaping business, your crew and mowers are your biggest investments. Keeping your employees safe and mowers running smoothly is essential for staying on schedule, ensuring client satisfaction and avoiding unnecessary costs.
Here are some of the most important things to be vigilant about.
Preventing Commercial Mower Accidents
The big, complex mowers like zero-turns, stand-ons and walk-behinds that are used in the landscaping industry can cause serious injury. You can never be too prepared and careful when operating them.
- Have your crew wear close-fitting clothes, long pants, non-slip boots, safety glasses, face shields and hearing protection.
- Make sure belts aren’t loose, blades are secure, no fluids are leaking and there’s no accumulated debris on your mowers.
- Only start mowers after the operator is seated, never when standing next to them.
- Ensure all guards, shields and decks are operating correctly to prevent entanglement with moving parts.
- Always keep both hands and feet on the equipment.
- Be cognizant of debris, ditches, drop-offs, embankments, steep slopes, paved or gravel areas, nearby traffic and children.
- Always mow up and down hills, never side to side, and avoid sudden acceleration and turns to prevent rollovers.
- When shutting down mowers, disengage the blades and attachments, shift into neutral and set the parking brake.
- Follow mower manual safe fueling procedures to avoid fuel ignition.
Maintaining Commercial Mowers
With the continuous usage and number of hours that quickly pile up on commercial mowers, regular and thorough maintenance is an absolute must to keep your business running efficiently and cost-effectively.
Along with needing to know the manuals of the mowers you’re using, it’s smart to leverage the knowledge of dealers and take advantage of professional maintenance plans they have available. They’ll come to you, replace parts when necessary and even provide loaners to avoid downtime.
There are maintenance tasks you’ll need to do daily or weekly when running a landscaping business. Change the oil, filters and spark plugs at the usage intervals recommended in the manuals, check the mower belts and sharpen blades regularly, make sure the wheels are inflated and secured properly, and clean mower decks every day.
Transporting Commercial Mowers
When you’re hauling thousands of pounds of expensive equipment, you want to think strategically about the kind of trailers that are right for your equipment. How much space do you need? What kind of weight limit do you require? How easy will it be to load and unload your mowers safely?
For the size of trailers, don’t just consider what equipment you have now but what you may need in the future as your business grows. In terms of design, do you need a trailer that features efficient and safe ramps and lifts? For weather concerns, maybe an enclosed trailer is the way to go. Also think about quality – it’s better to spend more up front and avoid costly replacements later.
Storing Commercial Mowers
A storage unit is an excellent option for most contractors using big commercial mowers like zero-turns, stand-ons and walk-behinds, both during mowing season and for off-season winterizing. You want a safe, dry, well-ventilated enclosure spacious enough for maneuverability and maintenance, as well as one that can be easily secured.
Renting a commercial unit is less expensive and more flexible than leasing a building or plot of land to store your mowers. It’s also much easier to upsize or downsize the space as needed. And consider a convenient central location that makes sense for your business. Finally, find a facility that provides good and safe accessibility for loading and unloading your mowers.
Stay Safe And Have A Great Summer
When you run a landscaping business, choosing the right commercial mowers will be a big part of your success. Make sure you put the same amount of careful thought into ensuring the safety of your people, having the right maintenance plan and knowing how to best transport and store equipment. Don’t forget that dealers have a ton of knowledge you can leverage.
