Bren Landscaping is available for snow and ice removal.
We focus our snowplowing on Fairfield and Westport to ensure that we do not spread ourselves too thin during big storms. In our other landscaping service areas (New Canaan, Weston, Norwalk) we refer and work with reliable snowplowing colleagues.
New Customers
We only take new snowplowing customers if you are in one of our current customer’s neighborhoods. Please give us a call or email us and we’ll quickly determine if we can take care of your snowplowing.
Please call (203.373.1327) or email (dennis.brenlandscaping@gmail.com) for service.
The Blizzard of 2013… How did your crew do?
Blizzard by the Numbers:
- Fairfield got 35″ (plus drifts up to 6 ft), Westport got 24.5″ (plus drifts).
- we started plowing 12 noon Friday
- finished at 330am Monday
- we got all of our customers out for work on Monday, most were out by Sunday afternoon, 1/3 by Saturday evening.
- that included going back to open the ends of the driveway after the town trucks came by — usually more than once!
STORM STORIES
Over the past few years, I’ve found that snowplowing is a great way to measure whether you are working with the right landscaping company.
Many companies can cut grass pretty well. Fewer can prune trees and shrubs properly and beautifully. Fewer still can design truly unique, beautiful landscapes. But blizzards weed out, so to speak, the weaker companies. The bargain guys who do not have the knowledge, equipment, nor crew to get you out on time.
I was trained to snowplow giant corporations (GE, Cartus) and shopping mall parking lots. Learning how to ensure an 800 parking spaces lot is kept clear and safe will ensure that we know how to keep your driveway and walking paths clear. The key: start early, bring in more equipment and manpower than you think you need, multiple passes are much better than one big snowplowing at the end. Plus, in extreme cases (e.g., blizzards) call in back-up support early. We will get the job done correctly.
Calling your company to say, “I’m snowed in”, when your colleagues — or your boss! — have found a way to get there, doesn’t cut it.
Snowplowing is not rocket science, but experience, smarts, the right equipment, and the ability to lead a good crew certainly makes a difference. We will get you out on time.
Our Timeline for the Blizzard of 2013
As we do for most snow storms, prep for the Blizzard of 2013 storm started early in the week with getting the plows, trucks, shovels, ice melt, chainsaws (for fallen trees), fuel, and crew ready.
The snow started at 730am Friday morning. We were ready!
Plowing started at noon because there was already two inches of wet snow. We usually start plowing at three inches, but this storm was forecast to be huge so we wanted to staying ahead of it was essential.
Here’s the rest of the Timeline:
Friday, 2/8/13:
7:30am – final prep
9:00 — call in first half of crew
12:00 — begin plowing
3:00 — remainder of B.O.S.S.* crew joins us, snow is really falling.
- *B.O.S.S. = Beasts Of Snowplowing & Shoveling (c)2013
6:00 — finish first pass of current customers
6:00-7:00 — dinner at my house with crew, watching all TV station forecasts
7:00-11:00 — plow, plow, shovel and plow
11:00 — blizzard, white out conditions. We couldn’t see past our plows so the entire crew stayed at my house to ensure we could all be ready to go out when the white out conditions abated.
The wisdom of this was reinforced Sat morning when I spoke with other companies that tried staying out through the blizzard, but ended up getting stuck (they called us to help get them out of a driveway) or taking up to 4 hours to go from Westport to Fairfield.
3:15 am — awake to find 18-20 more inches on the ground in four hours! It is still coming down heavy, wind is near blinding, and the road is impassable because it has not been plowed… four foot drifts at this point.
5:45 am — wake crew, start feeding them. They’re big guys and have big appetites. It was like feeding a football team!
6:45 — side roads and main roads are impassible so we develop new plan
7:30 — to test a possible method for dealing with 35″ of snow plus snow drifts, three crew shovel ahead of the snowblower to knock the snow down low enough so that the large 26″ snowblower can work at capacity. Snow is too high on the road for plow trucks to work effectively.
8:00 — 9:15 begin working on first customer. Driveways are taking up to 10 times the effort. That’s okay, we are all rested and well fed.
9:15 – 9:30 — I begin calling my B.O.S.S. men, the Shackleton crew as we shovel and snowblow our way to the next house.
9:30 – 10:30 — work on and finish 2nd driveway
10:30-12:00 — finish 3rd driveway
12:00-1:15 — lunch
1:15 pm — a town truck goes up the middle of my street! Woohooo! We throw on gear, start trucks, plow our way out of my driveway to the center of the road… we’re free!
From that point on, it was just work, work, work, food, water, and more work until we finished at 3:30 am Monday morning.
