Tank spraying of de icing agents???

[Greenman2ooo]

This is directed at anyone, but I saw where NY
Snow Pros uses a liquid magic tank on his truck. I'm unfamiliar with liquid de icing agents.

How much would the magic cost and what type of rates is it used at? How is it used? Can liquid magic be used as a lone de icing agent (Would I need to spread granular as well?) How much would a liquid applicator cost? Where might I view one on the web?

Thanks in advance.

[JCurtis]

call John Parker at Taconic Maintenance ( NYSnowpros)

914-485-4200

HE IS THE MAN WHEN IT COMES TO MAGIC O

THE SECRET TO lQUID APPS IS ROAD TEMP AND TIMING

[plowking35]

Raod temp, air temp, and humidity are all huge factors with any liquid deicer/anti icer.
In fcat one story is as related as so. A consultant was called in to discuss liquid applications to a DOT.Now this man knows more about deicers than just about anyone.
Well he takes them to an inetrsection and has the truck lay down a nice coating of liquid deicer. I dont remember what type, I believe cal chloride.I also think it was a warmer humid day. Well the liquid deicer started pulling moisture from the humid air, and turned the whole intersection into a gooye slimy mess, and caused an accident. they has the sand the snot out the roadway to pick up the liquid. So it just shows that even an expert can really mess up with liquid deicers. Stay with the granular.
The main problem with them is education and know when to do what. What magic does, is coat the granular salt. You apply the salt with a spreader and no problems. Very easy to switch to, and even easir to use. The tank John has is to spray bulk storage of salt.
Call John or myself, we will be happy to extole magics virtues.
John Allin, why arent you using this yet? I cant belive with all the time spent with J Parker he hyasnt converted you yet. Its like a religion with him.
Everyone chant in unison.
Magic
Magic
Magic...................

[Greenman2ooo]

I may have the use for bulk salt, but no place to store, treat, etc. So I'm likely going to be limited to bag products. I see bagged magic is 3x as much as regular salt, so it would have to be better than mag which, from what I understand, is the same ingredient that magic deposits on salt (magnesium) so I don't know what to think, here.

[plowking35]

Magic is 50% mag chloride and 50% distilled solids. The distilled solids work great as a deicer, but the mag is a better carrier for the distilled solids.
What is great about it, is that you can coat salt with it.You cannot coat salt with mag, or calicium, it will activate the salt on the spot, and then run out of your pile. That is why they use mag and cal as prewet agents on salt spreaders.
Also the magic coated salt will work down to -10 degrees and work much longer than straight salt, with longer residual effects and no refreeze.
The bagged produst is more expensive than salt, but mush less than calcium in bagged form. Nad alot better for plants, concrete and people. You can eat magic salt and nothing will happen. Ask anyone from the BBQ I ate some. Cant do that with cal chloride.
Dino

[Alan]

Sure you can,, once!

Well,, form my somewhat limited testing last winter, I can say that Magic salt definately works better, faster and colder than straight salt.

By the way, unless you are really tight for room, you can come up with bulk salt storage for not much money. I've got about $500 invested in a bin that will hold 12-15 tons. Loading out is relatively easy, about 5 minutes to load 700 lbs with an electrically powered auger, same way I fill it in the first place. That auger makes a great way to coat the salt with Magic.


[Edited by Alan on 10-07-2000 at 01:41 AM]

[John Allin]

We can't get magic0 here, or we WOULD be using it.

The Magic dude (not Parker) wants us to carry it, but we have no-where to store enough of it to make it worth bringing it in. I got enough going on right now. I don't want to be a distributor.

[Matt]

John we are talking to a supplier out of the Buffalo area for magic salt here in Jamestown. If you would like the contact name let me know and I will E-mail it to you.

Matt

[John Allin]

Oh yeah. Please do. I wonder what he'll charge to come spray our piles?? I'd love to start using that on our salt piles. I'm certain we'll give our customers much better results with it, from what I know.

Yes. Please email it to me.

Thanks Matt.

[John Allin]

Actually (and I just thought of this) we have a couple of 1600 gallon poly tanks sitting empty out back that we could store the magic product in, and then just pump it into the salt building and spray it ourselves. I saw that set up at John Parkers place one of the times I was out there.

Yup. Now I'm REAL interested in that address/phone number.

[Chuck Smith]

Congratulations John, you're finally a Senior Member now!;)

~Chuck

[John Allin]

Alan,

Can you describe that auger system you have??

We just purchased a new (used) salt truck this afternoon, and our Bobcat 853 JUST gets over the top. We talked about rigging up a conveyer belt system to load this (and the other trucks) instead of using the skid steer fully extended.

I'm interested in the system you mentioned above.

[John Allin]

Yeah... I wondered if it would turn at 100. Feels like I'm really "in" now.

Unfortunately, I'm also now addicted to this thing. Peggy's not thrilled that I feel that I have to "check in" before we hit the sack for the night.

Now... you guys aren't better than ..... nope. skip it.

[n y snow pros]

John the distributor they are talking to is probably Rochester jet blak.I beleve they have several locations one of which is inBuffalo and of course one in Rochester.The guy you want to speak to is Jason.I dont have the tel# handy but there in the book.I will e mail it to you on monday.
Greenman,dont confuse Magic as just salt with some mag on it ,it is much more than that and that is why it costs more than mag or salt and why it works at lower temps,has a residual effect,and much safer for the environment.If you use salt presently you are obviously trying to reduce the risk of any ice and know that salt works well.But once the temps drop below 18 degrees you may as well keep the salt in your spreaders and wait for the temp to rise because salt is virtually useless.If you coat that salt with Magic WELL, its like telling Santa Clause he over slept and its 3:oo am and the red fat boy just had a fire lit under his butt and man hes blazin a trail to get all those presents delivered.Bottom line Magic has the same effect on snow and ice.I dont know how to be more frank than it kicks butt.

[Edited by ChucksChevyPages on 10-07-2000 at 03:57 AM]

[Chuck Smith]

John,

This is what I expected the SIMA message board to be like. Hopefully, after the site makeover, more guys will read and post there. When I asked for this forum to be created, it was long before I was a SIMA member. After seeing the activity on this, compared to SIMA's... well, you know, you POST here, and I haven't seen any recent posts from you on the SIMA board.

Actually, that was a topic of one of my newsletter articles, Information. I basically talked about how many great resources there are on the internet, and how many great networking tools there are for people in the Snow & Ice control biz on the web. Sooooooo many resources on the web if you know where to look! That's another reason I created ***********************.com... to help educate, and share resources!

If your wife is mad at you for reading this board so much, then you DEFINITELY are a Senior member now!

Welcome to the "Wife's Mad at Me" club!

"Will you get off that damn computer and come to bed!"

~Chuck

[iowastorm]

Okay, I'm actually going to make a serious post (nobody pass out). FYI: some of you might remember that I started a thread a few weeks ago concerning CMA (calcium magnesium acetate) by a company called Cryotech, here in Iowa (where we grow potatoes). We're going to start using it this year on have sold 7 of our high paying clients on it. As some of you may know the CMAK is a clear liquid is a very low corrosive anti/de-icer that can be used in place of salt and contains no chlorides or sodiums. The dry CMA also breaks down into a clear liquid base and has the same benifits of liquid CMAK. Our position is that the liquid product will dramatically cut down on shoveling/snow blowing time w/ proactive use and I really think that despite that more significant up front costs, it will save out clients on long-term maintenance and us on staffing and hourly expenses. I will give updates on the progress of this product and in no way wish to offend the Magic Salt crowd (don't worry, I bowed when I typed the words Magic Salt).
More later on this . . .

[n y snow pros]

Iowastorm,you are not offending me or anyothers by using CMA it is a great product,and you should have great success with it.Magic is not the only product.So dont feel you have gone in a different direction .In fact i would like to here how it works for you and the various experiences you have with it.Good luck with it and i am sure you will notice a difference in your service.Caution! make sure your supplier explains all of the precautios if you use CMA or any other chemical in liquid form.If he tells you there are no problems please call me as should be warned.
John Parker 845-485-4200

[John Allin]

Chuck,
Tammy and I met with the web people yesterday (Friday) and we got some great stuff going on. The revamped site should be up and running by Christmas. The intent is to make it great for SIMA members. I don't think it will take much away from this forum, but we intend to make it so that SIMA Members can do much more there than we are capable of doing here. Surveys, specifics on products, purchasing of SIMA products, critiques of upcoming and ongoing projects, decal sales for those that want them (even REALLY large ones), etc.

We're excited by the possibilities, and look forward to giving the membership what it wants and needs with regards to an interactive site.

[OBRYANMAINT]

I AM ALSO INTERESTED IN THE LOW BUDGET SALT STORAGE W/ AUGER TO LOAD

[Greenman2ooo]

Wow, has this thread taken off!

Anyway, Dino, you say bagged magic salt is cheaper than other bagged premium ice melters. Can you point me to pricing and a Midwest Distributor. I saw in Milwaukee they wanted almost $10 a bag which is the same as any other premium product. Salt is <$3 a 50lb. bag around here, so when it is warm enough, obviously I will just use salt.

Next year, maybe the BBQ will attract people from all over the country if burgers are served rather than magic salt! :p

[Chuck Smith]

No one has mentioned buying liquid Magic, and treating your own piles. Not only that, but you can actually treat it in your spreader. That way, you only use it exactly where you want to. You wouldn't have to treat your whole pile. You also wouldn't need to buy the bagged Magic. You could buy those "$3.00" bags, and treat it when you need to.

More info on Magic at http://www.magicsalt.com

John (nysnowpros) even has pricing info on the site, and will ship anywhere in the continental US. Not sure how much shipping is.....

~Chuck

[Chuck Smith]

And here I thought the Magic in the dish was just for looking at. I had no idea it was a desert! Also, I didn't see ANY burgers, just hot dogs n' donuts! Guess we got there too late.....

;) Chuck

[Greenman2ooo]

Chuck-

Excellent idea, didn't know that would be possible. Would a back pack sprayer work well for something like this, or would I have to do app with something else.

Actually, I have a 25 gallon electric sprayer that would work well if the back pack didn't work.

I think I like that idea much better. Treating my own salt, didn't think about it as a possibility for small loads. Any ideas on technique for treating in spreader would be appreciated, although it sounds like John could answer most of those questions.

Also, any idea how use of magic salt reduces volume of salt needed? I hear rates as high or higher than 15lbs per thousand square feet for plain salt. At that rate, I will spend more time loading a tailgate spreader than spreading the material it seems.

Let's say I have 15 accounts with an average of 30,000 square feet. That would be 450,000 square feet. Multiplying 450 times 15 (lbs per 1,000) we come up with 6,750 lbs of salt. Divide that by 50 lbs and we come up with 135 bags of salt per cycle. That would be over ll hopper loads of salt in a 600 lb. hopper. Also 5 trips to storage are necessary since an empty 3/4 ton pickup can only haul 1500 lbs.

Sounds like an unusually large amount of salt and trips back to storage for such a small number of accounts. Are my figures off as far as usage rate??? I know my measurements are correct.

I guess my question is, do I need a V Box spreader to do this volume of work, or do I need to rework my numbers on usage? Certainly those of you who use tailgate spreaders don't have to refill this often, do you??? :confused:

[Edited by Greenman2ooo on 10-07-2000 at 06:06 PM]

[diggerman]

I think you are way shy on the amount a 3/4 ton pickup will haul we have a V Box spreader that weights around 300 to 400 pounds and we load it with sand until it runs over the sides.Its a bit hairy at first,but I know that it is way over 1500 pounds.

[Greenman2ooo]

Diggerman-

Thanks for your input. The guy at the gravel pit tells of guys hauling 1.5 tons with a 3/4 or one ton truck, but I don't want to abuse my vehicles that way. You may get away with it, but I would hate to have trouble in the middle of a snowstorm. Even if I take your advice and haul slightly over a ton, that's still three trips to reload by hand.

I figure they would rate the vehicles at a ton or a ton and a half if thats what they could carry without possibility of reducing service life of the vehicle. If others of you have a different opinion, let me hear it. Maybe I'm too cautious, but I doubt it.

I'm a one man band here. I may be fortunate enough to get a backup for my plow vehicle, but right now I have one newer 3/4 Ton 4x4 that I have recently purchased and need to baby it to make sure I don't disappoint any customers due to downtime.

Diggerman- For all I know, you have 20 some vehicles in your fleet, but certainly you have more than my one. My truck is my fleet so I have to make decisions accordingly.

[iowastorm]

That's why I have reservations about putting a v box into a 3/4 ton truck: after the weight of the box, you don't have much weight left for sand before you're overlimit. This is just my opinion, but I really think the v boxes are more productive and wear less on larger trucks.

[diggerman]

I would definantly not recomend putting as much sand or salt on your trucks as I do I only have, at the most seven in town miles to go to any of my accounts,so this is not a high speed over the road trip.I guess my point was more that a V box will hold four to five times as much as a tail gate spreader(600pds for the tailgate,1500 for the 3/4 ton).So in my opinion ,do you need a v box spreader for the quanities you are talking about,yes.How you load it is up to you,but the need to be responsive during ice or you will have an accident or worse yet the ice will melt before you get there.

[Greenman2ooo]

Thanks Diggerman-

How do some guys get away with using tailgate spreaders??? I'd like to find a way if I can. If using a tailgate spreader would be foolish, then I obviously need another plan, though.

[n y snow pros]

This is my favorite thread yet, but i see its moving off the subject a bit as it somehow went into SIMA logos and wieghts on spreaders.Thats ok both are also good topics,so let me put my 2 cents in here.First Chuck the new SIMA logo you designed,i got the message but did not see your version so i cannot comment on it.I am sure its good and SIMA definitely has to get on the stick with the present logo its a sleeper.Second i cant wait for the SIMA website to develop as i think it will bring alot of people from here to there and bring more SIMA members to use this means of communication and the end result is they will show up here at lawnsite.I think it will make this site even more popular.
John A.,the thing i notice about the SIMA site is that the questions asked are on the bottom of the page rather than the top so you have to go backwards to go forward on the site.This makes it confusing for someone like myself who needs his 8 year old son to show me how to turn on my computer.
Now my favorite subject,Magic.I am not sure where the idea of mixing magic in your sander came from but i believe it to be from Alan from Vermont as he has a unique way of loading and mixing his sand/salt/and magic,or any combination there of.It sounds like a great idea and as far as mixing it in your sander i think Alan would be the expert on that one because i still dont understand how he does it but then i have to see it to understand it.You can try an eletric pump /spray system or something that will give you low pressure and high volume.This is opposite of typical fertilizer or tree sprayers because they work on high pressure and low volume.I think if any of you are going to try Magic and have a hydro seeder i bet this might work for mixing purposes only.
Those of you who have not used chemicals before and who want to try Magic or anyother chemical.USE THE CHEMICAL BY SPRAYING IT AHEAD OF TIME ON YOUR SALT OR SAND/SALT.DO NOT USE CHEMICALS ON THE ROADWAY FIRST.There is an educational process here that needs to be followed if you use any chemical straight,and this is why taking the Magic in liquid form and spraying your salt with it is the most benificial,economical,and safest way to use it.We can ship 55 gallon drums which will mix about 7 tons of salt and use it this way first and gain some experience with this product.How to mix it is another story which i dont have all the pieces to.We mix with a loader and spray with our spray tanks,but those of you who want to do small quantities ask Alan how he does it in small quantities as he has a system that works for him.It may not work for you but im sure you would be able to come up with something ,its really pretty easy.

[plowking35]

Ok Alan has an auger, what he does is load the salt to the bin via the auger, it moves slow enough that he can manually dump the magic liquid into the auger channel, and as it churns its way up the auger it gets a very nice coating.
As far as in the hopper, I would think that load a bucket into the hopper, and then dump some magic into the hopper. Repeat as needed till hopper is full.
Most smaller v boxes, will pull from the front, so as it churns down the apron chain it will help coat the salt. I dont think will be as benificial but may work. In a tailgate spreader, I would just use bags, or pretreat at a storage location and then load 5 gal buckets to load the spreader.
Now usage rates are varied, and no one has an exact number for you, temp and precip amounts, types, and rates will all effect usage rates.
Now I have yet to see a 1.5-1.9 yd v box weigh under 700#, most are around 850-900.
My 3/4 ton has 1 ton springs plus load boosters and then we only load level. It is way to hairy otherwise.
A tailgater will work fine, but get a two stage, and be prepared to load alot. In your case, with 1/2 million sq ft, I would own a v box. Even if you had to load by shovel, the unloading would be a lot easier.
Dino

[iowastorm]

Was that a sales pitch or what? Dino, you guys should be test marketing the Magic product at your local ice skating rinks . . .preferrably during a public skating session. I'd pay money to see that.

[JCurtis]

Met with John Parker today ( Thanks John )
at his yard, was very impressed. Will be buying bagged Magic for our sidewalks, as soon as I convince my boss.

As far as how using Magic on your salt reduces the quantity of salt used, John and Norm (the Connecticut distributor) say that you can on average reduce salt amount 20 to 30 percent. Simply, that means if you use 80 tons a season at a particular site, with Magic, you will be using approx. 50 to 60 tons. ( simply because of the residual effect, and John states (Guarantees????) you will eliminate BLACK ICE.

This doesn't mean that you as a contractor will lose money, it means a savings to you. Less salt used ( or wasted do to caking ) les call backs, which results in less fuel used, less maintenance, less payroll, and your equipment will last longer ( possibly doubling the life of s V box spreader.)

SOUNDS LIKE MAGIC TO ME...

Sounds good to me.

[Alan]

I just got back from four days away, which is why I didn;t answer any questions about my methods. It's 12:30 AM on Wednesday right now and I'm heading for bed, but I will try to describe waht I'm doing so far and what I hope to be doing by this winter

[Alan]

The auger I use for loading and mixing Magic is nothing more than a grain auger from the local CT Farm store. They have then in 4, 5 & 6" diameters. I'm only using it to load out into a tailgate hopper so it works OK for small stuff. The bin is only a 12' truck box so I'm not dealing with a huge storage facility either. I hang the end from a section of channel iron that is laid on the roof of the bin and hangs out in space. That lets me back the hopper under the discharge end of the auger. The intake end just sits on the floor and I scoop salt down off the pile and just let the auger pick it up as it can. As I deplete the pile I move the auger back into the bin. To load the bin in the first place I turn the auger around and back my dumptruck up and dump out of my coal chute doors into a hopper that the auger sits in on the ground. This whole thing was done on the cheap with whatever was either convenient or cheap/free. While it works good for 700 lb. loads it would get really old waiting to load several tons. John Allin was wondering about loading out a big truck this way. I think I'd go with a conveyor for that. One of the salt sheds near here uses a conveyor to unload railcars and it must be able to handle a mess of material to be practical in that application. I would think that a conveyor with a hopper on the loading end would work pretty good. Make the hopper big enough to "hit" easy with the Bobcat bucket and run the conveyor fast enough to be able to run material out so that you wouldn't be waiting for it to empty the hopper for another scoop. You'd need some sort of deflector to keep a fast conveyor from slinging salt far and wide but that's easy enough to make. Check with places listed under Material Handling in the phone book. If you know anyone in the pit or quarry business they might be able to shed some information about conveyor sizing and capacities.

Like Dino said, I added Magic by hand into the hopper for what little salt I treated last winter. That won;t be very handy for this year as I will be treating a lot more material at one time. I'll get some sort of pump for it this year, although I'll still be monitoring and controlling the flow by hand. My method of regulating Magic rate is real technical, add enough to get good brown salt coming out the other end. Seems to work OK, not what I'd do if I was treating many tons, but for the 12 ton or so that my bin holds it works well enough.

John Parker mentioned that I was treating in the spreader. I think he misunderstood me on that, I'm trying to come up with a method to do that. What I've got in mind is a positive displacement pump of some sort, driven off the spreader cross auger. I should be able to determine the delivery rate for slat by weighing the salt delivered for a given number of revolutions on the cross auger. That will tell me how many pounds per turn I'm dropping. From that I can figure how much Magic I need to apply per turn on the auger. Then I can search for a pump that I can drive by chain and sprocket off the end of the auger shaft. If I can find a pump that works out right I'll plumb in a couple of feed tubes in the auger trough and let he augers mix Magic as they carry salt to the spinner drop point. No matter what the slat delivery rate is the pump would deliver the right amount of Magic "per turn" so it should be self regulating.

Too many projects, too little time.

[John Allin]

Welcome back Alan.... and thank you for the detail. That is what I was looking for.

[Matt]

John,
I am sorry I didn't see your reply about getting you the info. on the supplier in the Buffalo. I hope that Mike has gotten in contact with you, I spoke with him yesterday and gave him your information. If you do start spraying are you going to do so for just your own use or possible selling to others. Just wondering, the travel time for me to either Buffalo or Jamestown would be about the same. Thank you for inside track on the cvs and will be calling shortly.

[John Allin]

That dude from Buffalo called yesterday. I just haven't taken the time to call him back, but I will do so before the weekend.

Thanks Matt.

We got your numbers, and should have that all wrapped up by the weekend too.

Thanks again.

[Snow Pro]

John -

How can cybersex with a bunch of snow plowing dudes possibly be better than spending time with Peggy? She's pretty awesome. Why don't you get her on here and we could all.... never mind. Give her a big squeeze for me.

[Chuck Smith]

Snow Pro,

I tried to check out your web site, but got this message:

Sorry. No Such Address.

If you clicked on a link...
You may have found one of the millions of links to Web sites that have gone out of business or moved without leaving a forwarding address. It's like having the former address of someone you've lost touch with. Unfortunately, this is very common on the Internet. There's no remedy for this.

If you typed the address...
Make sure you type the address exactly as it was given to you.
Check the spelling.
Don't type any spaces.
Use slashes (/) instead of backslashes (\).



What's up? Do you have a site? Typed the URL wrong in your profile here?

~Chuck

[plowking35]

John as long as Peggy has equal time at a precious moments web forum, I dont forsee a problem. BTW you will at least a 20% increase in profits to pay for the 2001 precious moments to be released, so make sure that first union contract pays off.
Dino

[Aspen Snow]

Be nice to John, we all know who wears the pants around there.

[John Allin]

Yeah... she's definitely into the Precious Moments thing, in a big way.

And, make no mistake about it... I wear the pants.....

(believe that ??)

[BRL]

Nope!
Chuck, Couldn't you have just said "the site address ain't workin'. Can you give us the correct one?" Iowa might get dizzy reading that one after a night of beers.

[Chuck Smith]

It was easier to copy and paste the error message.
Snow Pro has that dead link in his signature all over this forum. Was hoping he'd have a site up soon, or maybe he typed it in wrong.

~Chuck