Self Storage- Snow Ice Removal

[Henry Clark]

Made it thru 3 rounds of negative temperatures, wind and snow.  About to get a week at least of 35 highs and maybe 15 lows.  Will be nice and warm.  Plus, some of this snow and Ice needs to melt.

We have 7 locations within 40 miles radius of our house.  3 in 1 town we get a local person to plow.  The other 4 we do ourselves.  We could hire out, but want it done timely.

For the last three years we have rented a skid steer for three months.  About $700 per month with 25 hours per month.  Any extra hours would be $50 per hour.  Used to own a skid steer but needed it less and shipped it down to Belize for our Teak plantation.

We use both a Snow Bucket and a Snow Pusher.  The Snow bucket on the left will move twice as much as a regular bucket due to the three higher sides and depth of the bucket.  The Snow Pusher on the right which you don't lift the snow, can move about 3 times as much as the Snow Bucket since it is wider, taller and you can push snow in front of it also.  The front lip of the Snow Bucket can be tilted straight down to the ground and used to scrape snow away from the buildings.

Our snow fall has been about 6 inches, then 12 inches, then 4 inches.  To keep from hitting the building, our first pass will be slowly along the building about a foot away and we will push and turn towards the middle of the driveway and leave several piles.  Will them come back in the middle and use more speed and force to push the snow to each end of the buildings. No chance of hitting the buildings.

Once the snow is pushed off the driveways.  We can take our time later with the Snow Bucket to move it and make more room at the ends of the drives to push more snow if we get more.  We ran out of room and spent several days just moving snow to get ready for the last snow day.

In the picture above, the driveway is 25 foot wide.  These buildings are oriented East to West facing the street.  This was done for both Security reasons.  The police and neighbors at night can see down the well-lit rows after hours.  But also, this made for longer and cleaner rows. 

This East to West orientation however is bad since the sun only shines on the south facing sides.  Thus, you get ice buildup on the right or north facing side.  If they were oriented south to North, both sides would get sunlight and tend to melt the ice.  The ice comes from both the snow on the ground, but also as the roof melts, its water falls to the ground and freezes as the temperatures drop at night. So, you might get ice forming for 3 to 4 days while the snow on the roof melts off. What we should have built was a single sloped roof to the South in this application. Then no water flowing off into the Shade side or north facing.

Now to get rid of the ice we have used 3 different things. 

When you have NEW concrete the first year they recommend don't use Ice Melt.  It will cause the concrete to flake.  We used bird seed and cracked corn.  Gives a little rougher footing for traction and the darker color absorbs heat and melts the ice at higher temperatures.

Normally we use Coarse Salt crystals or Solar salt.  Not the pellets.  This is cheap and melts snow well at temperatures say 20 and higher.

When its real cold you have to use the Ice Melt which can work down to -15 degrees.  More expensive.

How much can a slip on the ice by one of your customers cost?  $110,000.  Even if you take the steps.  Even if they parked on top of the only ice patch on the entire property.

We have cantilever gates which have Rollers along the ground. Snow and ice get into them.  We will pour Windshield wiper fluid on them to clear the ice and snow away from them so they will roll easily.

Start small and Make Your Big Mistakes Early.