Setting a snow trigger depth for your route and your equipment

Why every marginal snowfall becomes a phone call

It snows a little overnight. Not much, but some. The customer expects the lot done by opening; you had it in mind that a dusting was not a visit. Neither of you is wrong, because nobody ever wrote down the depth at which you turn up.

That is the first of the five ways our snow contract says a season goes wrong: no trigger written down, so every marginal snowfall becomes a phone call and half of them become an argument. The page that ends it is the trigger-depth and service-standard page, Section 4 of the contract. This guide walks through it.

Why the contract prints no number

You will not find a trigger depth in our contract, and you will not find a response time. Both are blank on purpose. The contract calls them the two most consequential numbers in a snow contract, and both are a commercial judgement about your route, your equipment and this site.

A depth copied out of a template becomes a promise you did not make, and it is the one you will be held to on a night you would not have gone out. So the number has to come from you, site by site. What the contract does is make sure you answer every question the number depends on.

The four questions

Section 4 answers four questions, and a trigger is not set until all four have an answer:

• At what depth do you come?
• Who measures it?
• Where do they measure it?
• What does 'cleared' mean when you leave?

The depth itself

Start with one depth for a plough service. Then ask whether walkways and steps have a different one, because a lot and a set of steps are not the same job and not the same risk. Ask whether the trigger differs by area, and whether any area is zero-tolerance, with no trigger at all.

This is where your route and your equipment come in. The contract asks for the depth at which you start clearing during an event rather than after it, and the maximum accumulation before you return during a long event. Only you know how long your route takes, which truck reaches this site and when, and what that machine can move in one pass. Those answers are what make a depth one you can actually keep across the whole route, not only at this address.

Who measures, and where

A depth nobody agreed how to measure is a depth both sides can argue about. The contract records who measures, exactly where on the property it is measured, and what it is measured with. It asks whether a named weather station or service is the agreed reference, and — the line that saves the most calls — what happens when the site and the reference disagree.

Pick one spot and name it. A drift against the building and the middle of an open lot will give you two different answers from the same snowfall.

The edge cases that cause the calls

Most arguments are not about the depth. They are about the nights that do not fit it. The contract makes you decide each one before the season:

• Whether drifting counts toward the trigger
• Whether blowing snow with no new fall triggers a service
• Whether freezing rain or ice with no snow triggers a service
• Whether a refreeze after a thaw triggers a service
• Whether the customer may ask for a service below the trigger, and what it costs
• Whether you may service below the trigger on your own judgement, and whether that is charged
• Whether a service continues after the trigger has been met once in one storm
• What counts as one event, and when a second event begins

The last line is the one that decides invoices. A storm that stops for six hours and starts again is one event or two depending on what you wrote. Write it.

What 'cleared' means

The second half of Section 4 is the service standard, and it matters as much as the trigger. It records how soon after the trigger you begin, how soon after the snow stops the site is finished, the priority order across the site, and whether any area must be open by a stated time of day.

Then it asks what cleared means for a driveway or lot, for a walkway and for steps, the width cleared on walkways, whether you clear to bare pavement and where that is not possible, and what you do about packed snow and ice bonded to the surface. It also covers whether you notify the customer when a service is complete, whether photographs are taken, and what you do when conditions make safe operation impossible or an event is beyond normal capacity.

Tie the trigger to the price

The trigger and the price have to agree with each other, and the contract's pricing page lets you quote one site three ways: a seasonal price, a per-visit price, or a per-inch price in tiers. Fill in the one you are using and write NOT APPLICABLE across the others, so the contract says one thing rather than three.

Each basis has its own trigger questions. A seasonal price records whether events are capped and what happens beyond the cap. A per-visit price records whether a visit below the trigger is charged differently, and whether a second visit in one event is charged. A per-inch price records how the depth for a tier is established and whether tiers apply per event or per visit — which only works if Section 4 already says who measures and where.

De-icing has its own trigger

Salting is a separate service with a separate risk, and the contract writes it as a separate addendum with its own trigger: when material is applied, whether anti-icing before an event is included, whether a refreeze triggers a further application, and which areas never receive material. It also asks for the temperature below which your material stops working, taken from its maker, because that differs between blends. A customer who declines de-icing initials that decision in writing.

Write it down every visit

A trigger is only worth what you can show. Section 9 is the service log: one row per visit — date, time arrived, time left, depth, conditions, areas cleared, material and quantity, operator — filled in before the truck leaves the site, not at the end of the week. It records what the depth reading was taken with and where, and it records the visits where you decided not to service, and why.

The contract calls this the most valuable page in the pack. It is the page an insurer asks for and the one that turns a disputed invoice into a settled one.

Changing the trigger mid-season

It will happen: a customer wants the walks done at a lower depth after the first bad week. The contract's rule is that a change to the scope, the trigger or the price goes on the change table and is signed by both people before it takes effect. In its own words, a trigger lowered over the phone in January is a promise nobody can prove was made, and it is the promise you will be asked about in April.

What the trigger does not decide

A trigger depth decides when you turn up. It does not decide who is responsible if somebody falls on a surface you serviced. That is your state's law, mostly common law, and our contract deliberately prints no standard, test, timeframe or threshold from any state's slip-and-fall law. Where the snow may be pushed is your city's rule. The contract asks you to fill those in before the season, and to write the insurance and responsibility section with your own lawyer and your insurer.

Where to find these pages

Everything above is in our Snow Removal Service Contract: the trigger and service standard (Section 4), three pricing bases (Section 5), the de-icing addendum (Section 6), the service log (Section 9) and the change table (Section 11.1), with a pre-season condition survey and stacking-area page besides. Fill Section 4 once before the season, not during it. It is a fill-in PDF you type into, and updates land in your account at no charge.