The Weemow Lawn Service mows its customers’ lawns and provides lawn maintenance starting in the spring, through the summer, and into the early fall. During the winter, the service doesn’t operate, and Weemow’s owners, Jeff and Julie Weems, find part-time jobs. They are considering the possibility of doing snow removal during the winter. A snow blower and a shovel would cost them $700. Since Jeff would do all the work, with occasional help from Julie, their cost per job would be about $3.
a. If they charge $35 to clear a normal-size home driveway, how many jobs would they need to break even?
b. Based on past winters, Jeff and Julie believe they can expect about six major snowfalls in the winter and would be able to work all day for the two days immediately following the snows, when people want their driveways cleared. If they are able to do about 10 snow removal jobs per day (and they believe they will have that much demand because of their existing customer base), how much money can they expect to make?
c. Another possibility for Weemow is to remove snow from business parking lots. Weemow would need a small tractor with a snow plow, which costs $1,800, and would have to hire someone on an hourly basis to help, which with gas would cost about $28 per job. Jeff and Julie estimate that they could do four of these large jobs per day. If they charged $150 per job, would this be a better alternative than clearing individuals’ driveways?
d. If Weemow wanted to do both (b) and (c), Jeff and Julie would need to hire one more person to do the driveways, while Jeff worked with the other person on the parking lots. This would add $15 in cost per driveway job. Should they do this?