Important upkeep

Keeping up with equipment maintenance is a priority for the team at John Richmond Landscaping in Richmond, Virginia. They’ve enlisted the help of a freelance mechanic and an organization system that allows them to keep track of what needs fixed and keep them on schedule.

To start, the mechanic comes by each morning before roll out to pick up any damaged machines. To make this process as efficient as possible, crews are instructed to mark broken machines with a colored tag at the end of each workday. Those pieces of equipment get set aside and loaded onto the mechanic’s truck the next morning.

“If it's not tagged as broken, which a lot of them sometimes don't get tagged, we can't get it fixed for them unless they put it up for him to retrieve,” says Tom Belden, the landscape manager and sales at John Richmond. “There's always something every day that gets picked up because it’s broken or need maintenance done on it.”

On the off-season, John Richmond’s mechanic stores all the equipment in his own shop. It keeps everything in one place and allows him to evaluate the condition of each piece. Belden says they rely on his expertise at the beginning of the season to decide what might need replaced.

Belden says, “When it’s time, he comes and tell us which ones are still worth doing preventative maintenance on and which ones are trash."