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Ice Removal Suggestions

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rshackleford

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2009
Messages
400
Location
North Dakota
Our company helps maintain water depots in the winter time. The depots have 20 x 20 concrete pads that get covered in ice. Sometimes there will be 18" of solid ice on the pads.

We have been hauling backhoes and excavators to the site and using the buckets to chips the ice away. This requires some sort of a semi to accomplish.

Anyone have any suggestions for smaller equipment that might work? some sort of skid steer or mini excavator attachment?

thanks.
 
stumpjumper83

stumpjumper83

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 13, 2007
Messages
1,979
Location
Port Allegany, pa
Occupation
Movin dirt
skidsteer and a roadsaw, cut 2' blocks and use a mini excavator to handle the blocks. Or even a large demo saw.

Put a stump grinder on a mini hoe or skidsteer.

borow a trackdrier from your local nascar track

how many depots do you have to maintain?
 
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Summit

Member
Joined
Jul 8, 2010
Messages
15
Location
Idaho
would the water have a place to drain away to? how far apart are they? what about a thawzall machine? or several? (they go thru a lot of fuel thou). a mini with a hammer? woul;d have to be careful though.
 
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Sharky

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
97
Location
Juneau Alaska
The jet heat or thaw machines that circulate hot water through hoses that zig zag under a heat blanket covering the area to be thawed. They will thaw 18'' of ice by the next morning. Maintain it regularly and it can be done much quicker. Fuel cost will still be less than equipment costs and moves. Put the heat to it and leave.

Then again, if your in a thief infested area, it may not be such a good idea. We used heat blankets or thick visqueen with space heaters or toga heaters to thaw hundreds of frozen super sacks (3000# sacks) of sand on remote winter concrete jobs. Did it all winter and worked great. Burn about 25-35 gallons a day in fuel ea. One heater for a 20x20 would be suffucient.
 
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rshackleford

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2009
Messages
400
Location
North Dakota
This is really frustrating to not get email notifications!

stumpjumper83 said:
skidsteer and a roadsaw, cut 2' blocks and use a mini excavator to handle the blocks. Or even a large demo saw.

Put a stump grinder on a mini hoe or skidsteer.

how many depots do you have to maintain?
Click to expand...

those are good ideas. i have never used most of these items so i will have to research them.

there are about six to maintain.

xcavate said:
The answer is a heater to melt it then some salt to get the melted water to a catch basin.
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there is a lot of traffic at these depots so i think a heater would be too slow. also it gets pretty cold here. tonight it is supposed to be -25 F so i think at times it would be hard to keep enough heat on the pad.

245dlc said:
Asphalt milling machine on a skid-steer http://www.bobcat.com/attachments/planer_standard might work.
Click to expand...

this might work really nice. i bet the cost is sky high to buy. does it require a high flow skid steer?

Summit said:
a mini with a hammer? would have to be careful though.
Click to expand...

i am afraid the hammer might get to aggressive and start getting into the concrete.

dsichewski said:
mini ex with hammer was my first thought.....what putting frost pick on the mini ex?
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do you have an example of what a mini ex frost pick would look like?

the truck drivers often spill a hundred gallons of water on the pads at a time so that is why the ice gets so built up. i will try to get pictures next time i can.
 
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rshackleford

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2009
Messages
400
Location
North Dakota
we do have one depot setup for heated pads but we haven't had time to get the boilers running yet. just too much work and not enough time!
 
S

Summit

Member
Joined
Jul 8, 2010
Messages
15
Location
Idaho
sounds like you could use some help then. no pic's?
sounds like shoulda built them with heat tape.
 
R

rshackleford

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2009
Messages
400
Location
North Dakota
Summit said:
sounds like you could use some help then. no pic's?
sounds like shoulda built them with heat tape.
Click to expand...

yes we do need some help. looking for qualified people to work for us. you find a place to stay and then we can talk employment.

i agree that they they all should have been built with heat of some sort.
 
D

dirty4fun

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2010
Messages
1,188
Location
N. IL
To bad they didn't put tubes for hot water heat in the concrete. Would of been real easy to thaw that way.
 
B

BDFT

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2010
Messages
265
Location
Northwest BC
Go buy a 6' iceblade. The kind that are used on graders and plow truck underbelly plows. Put two or three bolts through two or three bolt holes and then grab it with your 4-in-1 bucket just below the bolts. You've just turned your skid steer into a hell of a ice ripping machine. Make a few passes with the blade and then clean up with the bucket.
 
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