Articles written by guest contributors

3 ways dust is hurting your business

By Joel Guth, IQ Power Tools

You let the dust fly. You know it’s a problem, but you don’t have a choice. The fact is you run a business and you have to get the job done. We know the problem, because we were contractors before starting iQ Power Tools Company. And we’ve spoken with thousands of other contractors. But most of them don’t realize how much dust is costing them.

Here’s how dust is hurting your business.

Dust makes a huge mess

It’s no secret. You know how much dust comes off a dry saw. That dust gets everywhere: all over the job site, vehicles, people and property. The alternative is cutting wet, which can make a bigger mess.

All that mess isn’t just inconvenient. If you have to pay one guy to clean up dust every day, for 1 hour, at $15/hour, that adds up to $300 a month.

Sometimes it’s worse. Have you ever had to power wash a house or a patio? Pay for a homeowner’s or neighbor’s car wash? Clean windows? Most of us have experienced at least one of these – and the cost it adds to the job.

Dust eats up time and profits

Dust can force you to cut away from your work area. If your guy has to walk outside or across the job site for every cut, doing 150+ cuts a day while hauling materials, he’s going to spend an hour or more just walking back and forth. That wasted time costs another $300+ a month.

Using those figures for cleanup and wasted time – which are conservative for many contractors – that adds up to $600 a month or $7,200 a year – eating straight into your profits.

It’s a hazard to your people

Silica is awful for you and your people. It can reduce lung capacity, increase the strain on your heart, cause silicosis, lung cancer and all sorts of nasty stuff.

When it’s hot it builds a coat of sweat mixed with dust on your skin so thick you can scrape it off. You go home at night blowing sludge out of your nose, rubbing it out of your eyes, smelling and tasting dust.

You depend on your people. Dust is a harmful, uncomfortable nuisance to them, reducing their capacity, endurance and motivation. And underperforming workers hurt your business.

The iQPC912™ Dust Control Power Cutter – an alternative that takes the dust, the mess, the cleanup expense and the health hazard out of the equation.

If there were no dust

Without question, if you’re cutting concrete and masonry, dust is hurting your business. It makes a mess that leaves clients and potential clients (neighbors) with a negative attitude about your work. Then, to add insult to injury, you’ve got to pay extra man-hours to clean it up. Add that to the time wasted cutting away from your work area, and your cost adds up to thousands of dollars annually.

And finally, don’t look away from the damage breathing in silica dust does to your health and to your people. There are alternatives available that take the dust, the mess, the added expense and the health hazard out of the equation. Explore the alternatives and do something about it.

After 30 years as masonry contractors Joel Guth and his brother Paul started iQ Power Tools for 1 purpose: to build smart, tough power tools that eliminate the dust problem. Visit iQPowerTools.com