Are You Running on Empty?
by Karen M. Scally
June 8, 2011
Though the official start of summer is still a couple weeks away, the telltale signs of the season are already here where I live in Metro Detroit—the temperature is getting hotter (it’s 91 degrees as I write this), the days are growing longer … and prices at the pump are climbing higher.
Is it just me, or does it seem like rising fuel prices are becoming as commonplace as graduation parties in June? We’re at the point now where we’re almost conditioned to expect it—we know that when it’s time to fire up the grill, it’s also time for the price of gas to jump 75 cents a gallon.
This year, of course, the increase tends to stand out more than usual, with prices throughout the nation hovering around $4 a gallon. As we recover from the painful years of the recession, skyrocketing fuel prices have the potential to deal another blow to the construction industry. Just when we thought we’d hit bottom, companies are now having to find new ways to cut costs. Running on empty has taken on a whole new meaning.
Site Prep blogger Ron Kubitz recently touched on this in “How to Offset the High Price of Doing Business.” In this article, he offered some potential solutions for contractors, including training operators to use more fuel-saving techniques and keeping better track of your fleet’s fuel consumption, which could be done through an asset management solution.
As we look towards the future, it seems likely that higher fuel prices are here to stay, and contractors will need to find ways to deal with this new reality. So what are you doing? Are you investing in more fuel-efficient equipment? Are you changing your work habits at all? I’d love to hear your strategies.
Karen M. Scally
scallyk@bnpmedia.com
Karen M. Scally is the editor of Site Prep.
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