Information about the Arlington County ban on gas blowers

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At this time we use the Stihl BR600 blower, the cost is about $575 per unit and lasts about 3-4 years with repairs and regular maintenance.  We still have 2 units in use that are over 7 years old.  These units weigh about 24 pounds and can run all day with refueling and blow with 31.7 newtons of force

Under the new rules in Arlington, we will start to use the Stihl BGA 300 at $750 per blower which only blows with 26 newtons of force but weigh about 36 pounds or  50% more than the more pwerful gas blower. This increase in weight will be physically taxes on the employees.  we expect the work to go slower and reduce the number of hours the employees work each day.  Due to this inefficiency, we might not be able to get the leaves out to the street prior to the vacuum schedule as in years past.  This blower will require the use of multiple AR3000L batteries that cost $1,400 per battery and $200 for a charger.  Each battery will only last for 1 hour at full power.   We estimate it will require each employee to use 6 batteries per day during the leaf clean up season.  From our estimates, the cost to replace one gas powered blower will be about $10,350.  $750 plus 6 x $1600.  For a 3 man crew the cost of 3 blowers will increase from $1,800 to approximately $31,500.  Just like your cell phone, these batteries will degrade with heavy use and need to be replaced often, which will further drive up the ongoing cost

In addition to the cost of the new blowers, we will have to build a charging station capable of charging 40+ batteries at a time.  Our initial estimate for this type of power set up is over $40,000.  On top of this we will need to purchase 3 diesel powered generators (Generac XD5000E) which costs about $4,500 each in order to charge batteries while we are working during the day.  These generators will run from dusk until dawn (yes, while we are driving from house to house and stopped for lunch in additional to while we are at your property and parked in front of your neighbors house).   On top of this we will need to designate an employee to wait until all staff is done for the day, collect all the batteries, take them to the charging center and plug them in.    Someone will have to return to the charging center at night to unplug the batteries when they are fully charged and load them up each morning to distribute to the staff which will lead to an increase in overhead costs.  This particular cost will add about $1,250 to our overhead per month.  We are considering multiple different ways to address these increased costs in the future.  Some of the changes we are considering are:

An annual or one time battery fee of $800-$1,000

Increased hourly labor rates in Arlington

Increased mowing prices in Arlington

No longer mowing bi-weekly or skipping a lawn (absolute minimum of 3 mowings per month) 

Increasing the minimum leaf clean up hours from 2 per visit to 3.5 hours per visit

Lack of confidence in getting leaves out to the street prior to the posted vacuum date

Increased Spring Clean up and mulching costs

We hope you understand that these are not decisions we want to make but are forced to make in light of the County ban on one of our most useful and efficient tools.  We expect this conversion to cost more that our entire fleet of equipment (mowers, string trimmers, aerators, hedge trimmers, edgers and hand tools).  We also expect this to take a significant physical toll on our employees as they will have to carry heavier blowers and use rakes more often.  Please feel free to reach out to me directly if you have any questions.   We want to make sure we have an open line of communication with you throughout this process.