Winter Maintenance - Keeping ahead of the trend - Forum

It has been quiet some time since I last posted on here and I thought it was about time I gave something back to the LJ community.As autumn is settling in and winter is just around the corner we are finalising our plans for this years winter maintenance contracts. Winter maintenance is something over the last 4 years we have got steadily more and more involved with.When we first decided to get into larger scale winter maintenance one of the main things we looked at long and hard was what applicator to buy now most people go out and buy a gritter, something like a Snowex that does on the back of a van etc, mounted on the hitch plate, and indeed we had done that initially for a few small contracts. But at this point we were looking to get into a whole new league and with everything we do we strive to be at the forefront, this was no exception. So we decided to go predominantly liquid.At the time liquid spraying in the UK only really took place at air ports and the like. So we spent a lot of time doing research looking at information from all over the globe and decided that the way forward was to build our own de-icing and anti-icing sprayer. Not only did we decide to build a sprayer but also to build a brine maker to produce various brines to go into the product we put down. After several years of honing and tinkering we have gained a wheat of information on small scale production and application of liquid products and would like to offer any of you guys any help with going down this road or any other winter maintenance route.As always there are a few more tweaks to our set up we would like to make, however we are pretty happy with out current liquid set up.We currently can produce around 1000L of product an hour (mainly limited by water supply) and cover an acre of general car park/roadway in less than 10mins.Like I say if I can be of any assistance to anyone please do not hesitate to ask.

Thanks for reply Will. I am not looking anything major, just office car parks and the odd private garden. Problem we find with salting is that we can't get round everyone early enough.

Will - WB Design & Construction said:

Hi Colin, yeh so using a bowser in the winter is great for dual purposing, and can certainly be converted to do the job, but 12v is where the problem comes been there and done it and yes it can be done but a pump of the right spec is always the issue I started out on 12v and was fine to begin with if a little slow, but as I decided to up the ante and efficiency I found that to get the output required the cost of a 12v pump was disproportionate to the price of a petrol one. Yes it can be done, and there are certainly times for it but 12v does have it's downside including power draw. With my current set up, I can treat roadways at 30km which is more than enough for most estates, but speed could be increased with a few mods not a problem.

Colin Hunt said:
This is interesting Will. During the summer I purchased a 600ltr bowser with 12v sea water pump that fits into my van or can be popped onto the back of our truck. The main reason for the purchase was for a planting project where water supply was going to be a problem. I also found it useful for watering planted areas, again where a hose supply can cause H & S issues. So what does this bit of kit do in the winter........nothing! Until now maybe.........over to you Will!!

Replies

Colin Hunt August 30, 2014 at 9:56am

This is interesting Will. During the summer I purchased a 600ltr bowser with 12v sea water pump that fits into my van or can be popped onto the back of our truck. The main reason for the purchase was for a planting project where water supply was going to be a problem. I also found it useful for watering planted areas, again where a hose supply can cause H & S issues. So what does this bit of kit do in the winter........nothing! Until now maybe.........over to you Will!!
PRO

Stephen @ SJS August 30, 2014 at 2:12pm

Be interested to know what solution you are using ? Sounds as though it might be suitable for some applications that we do as stuff we use at present pretty expensive.
PRO

Will - WB Design & Construction August 31, 2014 at 3:38pm

Hi Colin, yeh so using a bowser in the winter is great for dual purposing, and can certainly be converted to do the job, but 12v is where the problem comes been there and done it and yes it can be done but a pump of the right spec is always the issue I started out on 12v and was fine to begin with if a little slow, but as I decided to up the ante and efficiency I found that to get the output required the cost of a 12v pump was disproportionate to the price of a petrol one. Yes it can be done, and there are certainly times for it but 12v does have it's downside including power draw. With my current set up, I can treat roadways at 30km which is more than enough for most estates, but speed could be increased with a few mods not a problem.

Colin Hunt said:
This is interesting Will. During the summer I purchased a 600ltr bowser with 12v sea water pump that fits into my van or can be popped onto the back of our truck. The main reason for the purchase was for a planting project where water supply was going to be a problem. I also found it useful for watering planted areas, again where a hose supply can cause H & S issues. So what does this bit of kit do in the winter........nothing! Until now maybe.........over to you Will!!
PRO

Will - WB Design & Construction August 31, 2014 at 3:42pm

Hi Stephen, well I have the ability to make and use a whole host of recipes all of which come out cheaper than anything I can buy of equivalent quality. If you can give me an idea of what you are using, what you are paying, what conditions you are looking to use it in how much you use and at what rate you put down I can probably give you some more tailored advice.

Stephen @ SJS said:
Be interested to know what solution you are using ? Sounds as though it might be suitable for some applications that we do as stuff we use at present pretty expensive.
Colin Hunt August 31, 2014 at 4:22pm

Thanks for reply Will. I am not looking anything major, just office car parks and the odd private garden. Problem we find with salting is that we can't get round everyone early enough.

Will - WB Design & Construction said:
Hi Colin, yeh so using a bowser in the winter is great for dual purposing, and can certainly be converted to do the job, but 12v is where the problem comes been there and done it and yes it can be done but a pump of the right spec is always the issue I started out on 12v and was fine to begin with if a little slow, but as I decided to up the ante and efficiency I found that to get the output required the cost of a 12v pump was disproportionate to the price of a petrol one. Yes it can be done, and there are certainly times for it but 12v does have it's downside including power draw. With my current set up, I can treat roadways at 30km which is more than enough for most estates, but speed could be increased with a few mods not a problem.

Colin Hunt said:
This is interesting Will. During the summer I purchased a 600ltr bowser with 12v sea water pump that fits into my van or can be popped onto the back of our truck. The main reason for the purchase was for a planting project where water supply was going to be a problem. I also found it useful for watering planted areas, again where a hose supply can cause H & S issues. So what does this bit of kit do in the winter........nothing! Until now maybe.........over to you Will!!
PRO

Will - WB Design & Construction August 31, 2014 at 6:55pm

The beauty with liquids is they are best put on before the event, what is the pump output?
PRO

Will - WB Design & Construction September 1, 2014 at 5:16pm

Hi Stephen, I have just done some sums you may be interested in. We are now producing our basic formula for less than 7.5p/l which means we can build and supply a machine with a payback of just 22120L produced compared to buying in. For us that is less than half a season. If you had the facility to handle and store bulk salt. I reckon it would half the rate/L.

Will

Stephen @ SJS said:
Be interested to know what solution you are using ? Sounds as though it might be suitable for some applications that we do as stuff we use at present pretty expensive.
PRO

Stephen @ SJS September 1, 2014 at 10:16pm

Hi Stephen, I have just done some sums you may be interested in. We are now producing our basic formula for less than 7.5p/l which means we can build and supply a machine with a payback of just 22120L produced compared to buying in. For us that is less than half a season. If you had the facility to handle and store bulk salt. I reckon it would half the rate/L.

Apologies for not getting back sooner, paying a good bit more than that as use Ice Melt , are you mixing salt with water to make your solution ? If not wanting to post on open forum send me a message & will get back to you.
Cheers