Spartan Mowers Releases 2025 Product Lineup
Jessica Schwartz
Snow Work And Staff Safety
This information from the Snow & Ice Management Association (SIMA) appeared in a past year on turfmagazine.com. The advice remains timely, especially as many contractors are facing lower than usual staffing this year, or have new employees on board who may not be experienced with the rigors of the work. Read on… Winter can be vicious to snow and ice removal teams. Long hours, tough climate conditions and the perceived snow warrior mentality to power through can literally be a danger to your health. It is tough to consider attention to health and wellness when snow is flying, customers are complaining, and there is no end in sight. But if you don’t, your crews can get locked into a cycle of poor nutrition, sleep deprivation and fatigue—all of which have been scientifically proven to have negative physical and cognitive consequences. Not only are there physical ramifications, but damages and injuries related to fatigued driving and poor self-care can be costly. Identify the major risks and seek better ways to mitigate them—break the cycle before it breaks you. Nutrition And Hydration Stopping for meals may not be an option during a snowstorm, so many rely on fast food and energy drinks to keep going. Poor nutrition can lead to increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and other long-term health issues. Plan in advance some time for your team to stop for short breaks to refresh, grab a healthy snack, and stretch. Require your teams to drink plenty of fluids ...
Snow Work And Staff Safety
This information from the Snow & Ice Management Association (SIMA) appeared in a past year on turfmagazine.kinsta.cloud. The advice remains timely, especially as many contractors are facing lower than usual staffing this year, or have new employees on board who may not be experienced with the rigors of the work. Read on… Winter can be vicious to snow and ice removal teams. Long hours, tough climate conditions and the perceived snow warrior mentality to power through can literally be a danger to your health. It is tough to consider attention to health and wellness when snow is flying, customers are complaining, and there is no end in sight. But if you don’t, your crews can get locked into a cycle of poor nutrition, sleep deprivation and fatigue—all of which have been scientifically proven to have negative physical and cognitive consequences. Not only are there physical ramifications, but damages and injuries related to fatigued driving and poor self-care can be costly. Identify the major risks and seek better ways to mitigate them—break the cycle before it breaks you. Nutrition And Hydration Stopping for meals may not be an option during a snowstorm, so many rely on fast food and energy drinks to keep going. Poor nutrition can lead to increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and other long-term health issues. Plan in advance some time for your team to stop for short breaks to refresh, grab a healthy snack, and stretch. Require your teams to drink plenty of fluids ...
Snow And Ice Services On The Horizon
By Phill Sexton Who in their right mind thinks of planning for winter in July? In my own career, I’ve learned by experience and from other professionals to consider July 5th the start of the winter planning season. For some “snow only” firms throughout North America, July might be considered a late start preparing for the next winter season. But, whether you are a “snow only” operator or a landscape or turf management company providing snow and ice services to a subset of your clientele, the standards for resource procurement, training, and preparation are the same. The Snow & Ice Management Association (SIMA) has developed a timeline for winter operations, and their clients—typically facility managers and property managers. Utilizing this timeline (see opposite page) as an industry standard will help you to organize your sales and operational responsibilities into categories of focus. Setting Up Sales Renewals of existing contracts are best to initiate at the tail end of the existing snow season. Yes, a common reason for not doing this is: “My clients don’t want to talk about snow until later in the summer or in the fall.” This then gets pushed till the beginning of the next season. My experience has been when you initiate the renewal process at the end of the current season and give clients an incentive for renewing during that time period, more often than not it’s what the client wants. You simply need to have the confidence to do this. RFPs (requests for proposals) ...
Breaking The Cycle
Courtesy of the Snow & Ice Management Association (SIMA) Winter can be vicious to snow and ice removal teams. Long hours, tough climate conditions and the perceived snow warrior mentality to power through can literally be a danger to your health. It is tough to consider attention to health and wellness when snow is flying, customers are complaining and there is no end in sight. But if you don’t, your crews can get locked into a cycle of poor nutrition, sleep deprivation and fatigue — all of which have been scientifically proven to have negative physical and cognitive consequences. Not only are there physical ramifications, but damages and injuries related to fatigued driving and poor self-care can be costly. Identify the major risks and seek better ways to mitigate them — break the cycle before it breaks you. Nutrition and hydration Stopping for meals may not be an option during a snowstorm, so many rely on fast food and energy drinks to keep going. Poor nutrition can lead to increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and other long-term health issues. Plan in advance some time for your team to stop for short breaks to refresh, grab a healthy snack and stretch. Require your teams to drink plenty of fluids to help sustain energy and stave off fatigue. Mild dehydration can drain energy and fatigue you. Your body depends on water to flush toxins out of your vital organs, carry nutrients to your cells and provide a moist environment for ...
Chemistry 101: Rock Salt And Liquids
By Wilf Nixon Rock salt is everywhere in winter maintenance, which makes it important to understand how it works when we use it, and what it can (and cannot) do. Let’s start by dispelling the myth that “liquids don’t work.” The first thing to know about rock salt is it is soluble in water. It can’t work effectively until it forms a liquid solution! Rock salt + water = Brine. That solution will have a lower freezing point than pure water. How much lower that freezing point depends on how much rock salt is added to the water. 2.2 pounds of rock salt + 1 gallon of water = Solution that is 23 percent salt by weight. 6.02°F = The lowest freezing point we can get from mixing salt with water under ideal situations (e.g., in a laboratory). In practice, out on the road or on a parking lot, don’t expect to see brine effectively melting ice at those low temperatures. It’s not designed to melt ice Rock salt does not melt much ice — but it does not need to in order to be effective. What if we have a one-acre lot with a pavement temperature of 23°F? If we spread 200 pounds of rock salt over that parking lot, it will melt about one-hundredth of an inch of ice — not much, but plenty to stop the snow or ice from freezing to the surface. Even with that low of an application rate, rock salt will achieve its ...
Bagged To Bulk
By Erich Oelschlegel, ASM Our company, Suburban Snow Plow, has always been a snow-only family company. My father bought a used Jeep in 1973 that came with a plow. He began plowing on the side; and apparently, the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. When we’re not plowing, my siblings and I are telecom project managers, school teachers, web designers, students and stay-at-home moms. As seasonal workers, we relied on bagged salt, which is the usual starting point for most snow removal companies. As a product upsell, bagged salt is fairly profitable and initial costs are low, especially for servicing residential properties. Tailgate-mounted spreaders are reasonably inexpensive and also provide sufficient capacity to service larger lots, although refilling may be required midway. Bag counting provides an easy way to calculate and monitor salt usage. Storing and handling is a breeze, requiring only a forklift to load, unload and move materials around. However, there have been growing pains. When we started using brine, the mixer took up half of the garage. When we outgrew the other half, bagged salt pallets had to get stacked against the fence line. In the 2017-2018 season, our property count grew by 50 percent without much growth in available equipment. Routes got noticeably longer and trucks started coming back mid-shift for a second pallet of salt. Nationwide shortages threatened availability, not to mention long lead times from order to delivery. Clearly, bagged salt could only scale so much and would not be able ...
Seven Steps To Reducing Your Salt Use
Not ready or can’t make a big investment in equipment that can help you reduce your company’s salt usage? It’s OK to start small and to grow and invest as you’re able – even the most basic steps can result in big gains. 1. YOU HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE Examine your current operations to identify areas of weakness or opportunities for improvement in material inventory and tracking, product types, application rates, calibration processes, etc. This could take awhile to identify and correct, so be patient! A hastily implemented plan can result in failure or unrealistic and unrealized expectations. 2. BABY STEPS They say: “Go big or go home!” But that may not be the best rallying cry when it comes to wholesale changes in your salt management program. Consider clients who might be receptive to experimentation with application rates, alternative products, etc. Once you have success on one site, expand your horizons. 3. EXPAND YOUR PRODUCT TOOLBOX Consider treated products that can be used in colder temperatures and when dealing with longer-duration storms can generally allow you to use less. If treated salt is cost prohibitive, consider purchasing a liquid product to prewet your salt stockpile. Take it a step further by adding a system to your spreaders to prewet salt at the spinner. 4. GET YOUR FEET WET Research anti-icing as a prestorm tool to reduce bonding of snow and ice. Do your homework and test and train before starting with liquids. Again, start small. Sidewalks are a great ...
Salt Accounting 101
By Douglas Freer, CSP Management consultant Peter Drucker once said, “If you can’t measure something, you can’t manage it.” This is relevant to managing your assets, and in particular, ice control chemicals. In today’s increasingly competitive marketplace, finding efficiencies and room for improvement can provide an advantage in your business space. Next to labor, your ice control chemicals may represent the largest variable expense. How do you manage your inventory to ensure you get the best return? Are you using too much product, or could you use less and get the same results? How much shrinkage (theft) or spoilage (waste) do you have? Do you know? If you don’t have a system for managing your inventory and product, you can’t determine “normal” usage and benchmark to determine if you’re ahead or behind expectations. What is salt accounting? Salt accounting is the process of measuring and tracking ice control chemicals purchased and used during a season. The salt accounting system produces data that informs your decision-making related to operations, sales and expenses. More simply, salt accounting is a check register for your ice control chemicals. You make deposits (credits) when you take a delivery of material and withdrawals (debits) when you use material to service your sites. At a minimum, your salt accounting system should tell you how much material you purchased and when you used it. This system can be improved if you record where the salt is used by having drivers collect data for each site serviced. One size ...
