Snow Removal Contract Clauses Every Contractor Needs

Snow removal contract clauses do two jobs: they tell the crew what to do at three in the morning, and they tell a judge what was promised when someone falls in the lot. The clauses below cover both jobs, in words a customer can read.

Trigger depth: how much snow starts service, and who measures it

A trigger is the accumulation that starts plowing, and nothing else. Snow plow trigger depth: 1 inch vs 2 inch prices the two common triggers; this post is about the wording. Write the number, the surface it applies to, and the ice rule as its own sentence, because freezing rain on a dusting is slick with the trigger unmet.

Then say how the depth is read, because a ruler in a drift and one on a windswept lane disagree. The National Weather Service's Denver and Boulder office measures new snow on a snowboard, a light white board laid on the old snow in a flat and somewhat open area away from buildings and trees and clear of drifts, wiped clean "every 6 hours if possible"; where drifting occurred it says to take around 5 readings and average them, and to record snowfall to the nearest tenth of an inch.

A clause that borrows the method: accumulation is measured by the Contractor on a flat, open part of the site away from drifts, averaged across several readings, at the start of each visit; the Contractor's reading governs unless the Customer disputes it in writing the same day.

Service window and response time: the clock the customer reads

Your customer already lives under a clock. Minneapolis gives a house 24 hours after it stops snowing to clear its sidewalk and every other property 4 daytime hours (8 a.m. to 5 p.m.); the city inspects, clears what is still covered and bills the owner. Your window has to be shorter than the city's, and your contract has to say when the clock starts.

Write the start as the end of snowfall, with your own number of hours for lots and a separate one for walks and entrances. For a storm that keeps falling, say what happens during it: lanes and entrances kept open on a return interval, the full clean after. SIMA's key claims documentation list includes a site map that marks priority areas, pedestrian access routes, hours of operation and the order in which areas are serviced; attach the map to the contract.

What is included: walks, salt, hauling and the lines left out

• Every surface by name and the service it gets; the exclusions are the sentences you will read aloud in a deposition.
• Lots and drive lanes: plowed, with the stacking spots on the map, away from hydrants and exits.
• Walks, steps and entrances: shoveled or blown, full width, with the walks that are not yours named.
• Deicing: which surfaces, which material, on what rule, and whether a salt-only visit is billable.
• Hauling, loading docks, dumpster pads, fire lanes: named in or named out.
• Between-storm patrol and refreeze checks: in or out, because the hours between visits are where the falls happen.

When a customer tells you to skip an area or hold salt, the instruction belongs in the file: SIMA's list of key claims documentation includes a follow-up email for when a property manager or owner gives you direction that may affect your liability later, its example an instruction not to service a certain area.

Slip and fall clause: what the contract can promise and what it cannot

No clause makes a fall someone else's problem; what the contract does is define the duty. A snow liability column in Landscape Ontario says "The contract is the primary source of the snow contractors' obligations" and that failing to meet them "will be evidence that the snow contractor failed to take reasonable care." A missed window is evidence against you.

So the clause is a scope clause in disguise: the Contractor is responsible for the services listed, on the surfaces listed, within the windows listed, and not for conditions between visits unless patrol is included, for excluded surfaces, or for areas blocked by parked cars. The word guarantee appears nowhere.

Snow removal indemnification clause: the Colorado limit

Customer forms often ask the contractor to cover the owner's mistakes. Colorado's Snow Removal Service Liability Limitation Act draws a line: when the provider is prohibited, by express contract terms or in writing, from mitigating a specific snow, ice or other mixed precipitation event or risk, a clause requiring the provider to indemnify, hold harmless or defend the receiver for the receiver's own acts or omissions is void as against public policy, and the same prohibitions run the other way.

The act covers plowing, shoveling or other snow removal, deicing and the incidental equipment work, and leaves out public roads and public bodies, public utilities, deicing at public airports, and insurance policies, surety bonds and workers' compensation. The clause to write in any state: each party is responsible for its own negligence and that of its employees and subcontractors, and neither indemnifies the other for the other's own acts.

Snow removal insurance requirements the customer will ask for

A commercial customer asks for three things: a certificate of insurance, additional insured status for the owner and the manager, and wording that makes your policy primary and non-contributory, meaning yours pays first. Send the customer's insurance paragraph to your agent before you sign. Colorado's act does not apply to insurance policies, so the additional insured requirement is separate from the indemnity limit.

Per push vs seasonal contract: the price model and its clauses

Per push pays for each visit, seasonal pays a fixed sum for the winter, per event pays once per storm however many visits it takes. How to price a seasonal snow plowing contract works the arithmetic; each model needs its own clauses.

• Per push: define a push (one full clearing after the trigger is met), say whether a return during a long storm is a second push, and price a salt-only visit on its own line.
• Seasonal: the season's dates, the cap (pushes or inches after which a per push rate applies), what is owed in a winter with no snow, and the installment schedule.
• Per event: snowfall separated from the next by a stated number of hours without accumulation, so a two-day storm is one event.
• All three: the deicing, hauling and hourly rates for anything outside the scope.

In MakeHay, a snow quote carries the model as line items in your units, per push, per month or flat per event, and the customer approves and signs it online from a link (get a quote approved and signed). The contract goes to the same customer for e-signature through their portal link, no app and no password (request documents and signatures), and a seasonal account bills as recurring service. The snow plowing page shows the starter price list.

The price model on the quote matches the clause set in the contract.

The plow log is the record: what each line has to carry

The Landscape Ontario column says the best preparation is "to keep accurate, contemporaneous, and detailed documents of your snow removal activities," SIMA says to save the forecast you acted on because it "will not be available again," and the column lists what a plow log holds: the time of removal, the equipment used, the precise location, the contractors who performed it, the weather and the temperature; the salt log adds the type and amount of salt or ice melt and the spreading equipment. Snow plow log template is built on those fields.

The clause: the Contractor keeps a service record for each visit showing the time, the surfaces serviced, the material applied and the conditions observed, and provides a copy on written request. Keep it longer than your state's time limit for an injury claim.

Damage to turf, curbs and mailboxes: who marks and who pays

A plow finds every edge the snow hides. Before the season, the edges, islands, drain grates, speed bumps and sprinkler heads are staked and the Contractor photographs the site as the baseline. The Contractor repairs damage its equipment causes to marked or visible features, is not responsible for unmarked features under the snow, and repairs scraped turf along the marked edges by a stated spring date.

Snow contract cancellation clause and auto-renewal, under the law

A contract that renews itself is convenient for both sides and regulated for one of them. New York's General Business Law section 527-a makes it unlawful for a business making an automatic renewal offer to a consumer to skip any of these: terms disclosed clearly and conspicuously before consent is asked for, affirmative consent before any charge, an acknowledgment the consumer can keep with the terms, the cost, the cancellation deadline and how to cancel, and a cancellation mechanism as easy as the sign-up, in the same medium. For a paid term of a year or longer that renews for six months or longer, a reminder goes out at least fifteen days and not more than forty-five days before the cancellation deadline.

That is one state's consumer rule; a driveway customer is a consumer, a property management company usually is not, and other states set their own windows. Apply the strictest rule you work under to everyone: the term's dates and the renewal sentence on the first page, a dated reminder before each renewal, cancellation by one email, a mid-season settle-up at the per push rate, and the Contractor's own right to end service for non-payment or an unsafe site.

Crew safety lines the contract should allow for

OSHA's winter weather pages tell employers to clear walking surfaces and spread deicer as quickly as possible after a storm, to put workers in insulated, water resistant boots with good treads, and never to clear a snow blower jam by hand; its cold stress page says to schedule frequent short breaks in warm dry areas and to work in pairs. Add a sentence that the Contractor may pause service when conditions are unsafe and will resume when they are not, with the pause noted in the log.

Good to know: This is general information, not legal advice. The statutes quoted are Colorado's and New York's; your state's rules differ. Have a lawyer in your state read the contract once before the season.