working(or not) in the winter!
 

Hi

Due to the nature of oh's job, the company close down for approx 8 weeks over the winter. I was just curious if there is anybody else that does this, and if so what do you do over the winter months ?

Bec

Re: working(or not) in the winter!
 

skii
snowboard
make snow men
curl up by the fire
go ice fishing
:D

Re: working(or not) in the winter!
 

Thanks for that ! That might be what he wants to do, but me being mrs sensible;) is thinking that he should be out earning money! After all is that what men are for:)

Re: working(or not) in the winter!
 

On a serious note its hard to say without knowing what his skills are. However I know someone here who grows bluberries. Obviously there isnt much work to do on the farm when all the blueberries are burried under snow so he does forestry work instead.

Another alternative is to buy a pick-up truck and snow plow attachment and do snow plowing (driveways and the like) during the winter. The guy that plows our drive charges about $30 a go.

Re: working(or not) in the winter!
 

Snow plowing is something we had considered. He is a digger driver (heavy equipment operator), and would be more than able to that. It also gives him the excuse to get the truck that he keeps banging on about!

Re: working(or not) in the winter!
 

beccaj

Where are you moving too? 8 weeks seems short shutdown for heavy equipment operations. I lived in the Ottawa Valley and they ran from mid/late May Until Oct or Nov if it was late winter.

I hired a Heavy Equipment Operator who told be he got 6-7mths of work a year. Then he would work for the local authority driving snow clearance truck or work in the forestry business and then spend some time on welfare(Dole) on a number of times.

Where are you in Kent? We moved back just outside Dover and really like living in SE Kent. Lovely countryside/climate for us and good communication networki.e trains/roads/channel tunnel etc

hudd

Re: working(or not) in the winter!
 

That's that sorted then - he's tailor made for life in Canada! ;)

Re: working(or not) in the winter!
 

A problem with that is the liability insurance. Our neighbour has a giant tractor and snowblower and used to have the contract to clear parking lots and so on for the township. He packed it in as fuel+insurance was more than they'd pay.

Re: working(or not) in the winter!
 

The stingy barstewards!

Re: working(or not) in the winter!
 

My family operated a seasonal business (garden centre & landscaping business) so I'm used to this sort of thing. They started up a snow plowing portion of the business for something to do in the winter months.

So during the summer we had guys working on the landscaping crews, and in the winter some of them would do snowplowing (not exactly full time though). Inevitably there was always some guys that would just go on unemployment though. Our break for winter was a lot longer (usually Nov -April) so it's no wonder.

An 8 week break isn't too bad. The snowplowing could work out well. Or he could just use some of it for vacation time, because I imagine he would work pretty good hours over the summer.

Re: working(or not) in the winter!
 

i operate excavators and various heavy plant here as part of my job, although i didn't apply for this type of work in canada i did speak to a few construction firms in alberta and asked the obvious question, "what do you do in winter?" the general response was that they work straight through and weather dosn't effect employment! thing is in the UK to work with anything water and cement based i.e mortar/ concrete would be impossible at -10 let alone -40! i sort of got the impression they was telling me what they thought i wanted to hear rather than how it actually is, i might've been wrong but work and weather certainly played a big part in me accepting a job on vancouver island.

Re: working(or not) in the winter!
 

I know up in Fort McMurray they keep on digging straight through the winter. I'd imagine the equipment is much bigger.

Re: working(or not) in the winter!
 

Thanks for all you replies!

I am concerned that my hubby has been told the shut down is only for 8 weeks when in fact it will be longer. And i'm not sure if he would be able to claim welfare being on a twp:(.

As you can imagine 8 weeks or longer is a long time to be without employment and I would much prefer that he had work all year long just for piece of mind.

Out of the 2 companies that offered him a position only one closes down, but yet they are doing the same thing so I found this really confusing:confused:

Re: working(or not) in the winter!
 

What? You didn't know? EVERYTHING closes down for the winter in Canada. With the exception of Vancouver and Toronto, everyone hibernates in huge communal igloo.

Re: working(or not) in the winter!
 

Hi recently got pr and now doing lots of research ,found this and wondered if you could give some advice. I have been driving excavators for 25 years in the uk Hitachi,Cat's jcb's,hymacs ,komatsu etc,worked on housing sites commercials,road building and private work. Not sure wether to live in Bc or Alberta,concerned about finding permanent 12 months of the year work,I have never been out of work yet,winter or summer and can't bear the thought.I don't know wether i am a workaholic or just greedy!Seriously i am worried that i won't be able to provide for my family.I have also been building houses,extensions,walls block paving ,fencing,pvc you name it ,evenings and weekends ever since i left school but have only got an nvq for bricklaying.Do people need or use handymen? I could ask questions for ever,but i won't.Any thoughts would be extremely well recieved. Many thanks