Denver Pressure Washing During December 2011

I’ve made several posts on the challenges of running a pressure washing business in Colorado during the winter.  Every winter we have to shuffle, adjust and adapt to what nature sends our way.  We have to keep our guys working and the cash flow stronger than a trickle.  We can stay busy when it snows because we snow plow, but when the temperatures are too cold to work and there isn’t any snow to push, we don’t have many options.

This past December was particularly difficult for any pressure washing company in Denver.

The first week averaged 17 degrees lower than normal. We had a heavy snow storm the first and third weeks and our drivers got some good hours out of them, but with all the snow on the ground the temperatures stayed below average until the last week of the month when the temps warmed up enough for us to catch up on some of the work lost.

It seemed as though all our work days were shortened to five or six hour days.  It wasn’t until the last two days of the month that we were able to do any of our early morning and overnight sidewalk pressure washing and restaurant pressure washing accounts.  Those two nights were the only nights all month that didn’t drop well below freezing.

December was brutal and we did the best we could with weather conditions we had, but all said and done we only had a few days of work for the whole month, and many of those were short days.  We’ll survive.  Maybe with all the layers we’re wearing to keep warm no one will notice the belt-tightening of a lean winter.