Hello BP Community,
I have always had a long debate what is the best strategy when it comes to salting multifamily properties/small apartment buildings. The more units under one roof, the more efficient the cost of salting is, as you will pay the same cost for the sidewalks whether 3 people walk on it or 30 people.
I am not debating whether or not to plow or shovel the snow, only the salting component. Salting has always been very tricky to figure out what the best solution is. Of course, we want to provide clean parking lots and sidewalks for our residents and reduce slip and fall liability, however we also don't want to go broke on salting every year. Salting is also very rough to concrete surfaces, brick building masonry, etc. We have one historical building with sandstone window and door ledges that takes a beating every year with the salt, it eats away at the sandstone more and more every year. Salt is just to dirty/nasty! People track it indoors on their shoes, etc. Just a giant mess.
Salt is also expensive. Last year, we spent more money on salting applications than we did on the snowplowing services itself.
We also struggle to determine how much salting is truly necessary. Some tenants complain it is too much, and some tenants complain it is not enough on stairs, sidewalks, etc. We try to ensure the salt is applied enough to keep down dangerous/slippery ice and to keep the snow melted, but we don't want to go overkill having a "zero tolerance" ice policy like hospitals have, we just want to keep snow and ice down to an acceptable and safe level, without going over-budget.
For some of our buildings where salt seems to be really deteriorating surfaces (mainly building sidewalks and masonry stairs) we thought about using a different product (either calcium chloride or magnesium chloride) however while they are less damaging than pure salt, they are also more expensive (something we are trying to avoid).
What do you other landlords do that have midsize (10+ unit) buildings? Would it make sense not to salt at all, or only salt once or twice per week? We are finding it difficult to quantify into words how much salt our plowing company should be doing. If we tell them "use your best judgement" or "when extreme conditions are present" they always seem to go overkill. We would like to try to figure out a simple guidance we could write up in our plowing/salting contract that will make our monthly bills more predictable and less expensive. We are trying to negotiate fixed pricing this year for salt, however we still need to have the right guidance on what level of salt we need as they will likely base their pricing on roughly how much salt we tell them we need.
Ideally we would not salt at all and simply plow/shovel, that would avoid all damage to concrete, etc. caused by salt. But I am afraid not salting at all could leave several days per year very slippery and snow/dustings could accumulate very quickly since nothing would be there to melt it. We also don't want to physically go visit all our properties every-time we think there is ice just to give our plowing company a decision, that is the reason for outsourcing it to begin with.
I would love to hear others thoughts on your salting policies, what ice melt products you use, and how to minimize that cost!
