Business is booming for Metro Vancouver snow clearing company

While it’s a headache for commuters, not everyone is unhappy when there’s a dump of snow in Metro Vancouver. For companies like Burnaby Blacktop, it’s “go time” for their snow clearing crews.

“We are a fan of it because it keeps us busy,” said Burnaby Blacktop president Adrian Alblas.

He says for just a few months a year, his road paving company switches gears and gets into the snow business.

“We can flip overnight, we can have just everything just transformed overnight and we’re go time for just snow services,” Alblas added.

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Trucks are quickly converted for snow-clearing and salting and sanding for commercial and industrial properties.

It’s hard work and long days, with 12-hour shifts, 24-hours a day for dozens of employees.

“It’s good for the bottom line for sure. We get over a 1,000 calls in the month of December just for emergency calls on top of the hundreds of contracts that we already have,” he said.

After seemingly endless snow and extreme cold this month, crews are getting tired.

“Everybody likes it in the beginning but it gets very cold and tiring quickly,” he said.

He says one of the major perks of the job is how happy people are to see them.

“You can tell most people are grateful,” he said.

He says overall his team has been lucky with few illnesses, and is hoping that continues with a lot of work ahead after the recent snowfall Thursday.

But, while staffing shortages are top of mind, ongoing supply chain issues are a bigger challenge.

“There’s a salt shortage for the whole of Western Canada right now. We are really fighting to keep salt supplies up and ship it in from Saskatchewan and Ontario. It’s been a really tough year for that,” he said.

“If people do see a lack of salt on their properties just understand everyone is going through the same thing right now,” he said.