Roof Snow Removal

Morton savoring new salt barn

Village Board member Jeff Kaufman says the village's new road salt barn will end a decades-long problem and save the village money.

"We can't keep operating this way. It's not good for our public works employees or residents," he said. "Our road network has grown 20 percent since 1990, but our salt storage capability hasn't grown with it."

The barn, with a price tag of nearly $450,000, will be built at 450 Detroit Avenue in the village's public works garage area.

Construction will begin this summer and should be completed by the end of October.

About 2,000 tons of salt can be stored inside the 60-by-64-foot structure with 12-foot concrete walls.

"Our trucks park in the garage area. This will become home base for our snow removal operations," said village street superintendent Mike Ingold, who has been campaigning for a barn for at least two years.

Morton's current salt storage facility has been used for at least 30 years. It's a bunker-type, three-sided structure with a half-roof off Penn Street, about two miles from the public works garage. It can hold a maximum of 200 tons of salt.

Rain and snow that falls on the salt often freezes, causing the salt to chunk up while it's being spread. Workers have to stop what they're doing and break up the salt.

"We won't have do that anymore. Our salt will be nice and dry," Ingold said.

Now that the village can store more salt, it can take advantage of lower prices by joining Tazewell County's seasonal salt purchase. The village may save about $20 per ton next winter on the 1,500 tons it purchased.

"Tazewell County's salt is delivered in one trip, which is included in the price. We haven't been able to get 1,500 tons at once because we had no place to store it," Ingold said.

Another savings for the village will come in salt transportation costs, about $3 per ton. Salt had to be picked up at area docks and trucked to the village each time it was needed.

Docks are normally not open nights, weekends and holidays, so scheduling pickups also was a problem.

"If we got a bad storm over a holiday, like Christmas, we could run out of salt," Ingold said. "We go through 200 tons on a long weekend."

The Village Board awarded Foundation Service Corp. of Hudson, Iowa, a $58,971 contract to build the foundation for the barn. William Aupperle & Sons of Morton was awarded a $388,462 contract to construct the facility.

Snow Removal Tool -Sno-Knife, Roof Snow Removal Tool, 10ft, other ...

Snow Removal Tool : Sno-Knife, Roof Snow Removal Tool, 10ft, other models 15 or 20ft.found in Tools and Hardware Description

The Sno-Knife SK-P2 Kit 10 ft. model includes a 24″ x 18″ high-density polymer head, 2-5 ft. snap-together, high-quality aluminum poles and grip. When used correctly, the unique front edge design will not damage shingles and can be used on virtually any roof covering. Slide the Sno-Knife under the snow and let IT and gravity do the work. Made in USA.

In the past two weeks we received 4 1/2 foot of snow in the high country of Arizona (7600 feet) and I was concerned about that amount of snow on our two story roof. During the storm and after, snow rakes where hard to come by. So…I decided to order online and during my research for the best type I came across the SnoKnife and decided to give it try. Well…this tool works great and although I could not get the entire two story roof, since I was on a ladder and I had concerns about the amount of snow coming off. As this tool was able to remove very large sections of the 3 foot thick snow. Whereas a rake can only get so deep in the top layer of snow and you then have to pull it down and then you have snow building up under the rake as you pull it down. Another thing with this tool is you can work from the side and not have large chunks coming down on your head. I did use it on an addition that is a single story and was able to slice and dice large sections that I was able to just push off from the peak…instead of my neighbor who worked up and down the roof with his snow shovel. So…if you are looking for something to remove the snow from your roof…I highly recommend the SnoKnife. And…the price is not that much for what the local hardware stores are getting for rakes.

Snow engineering : recent advances, proceedings of the Third International Conference on Snow Engineering : Sendai, Japan, 26-31 May, 1996

Snow removal and ice control technology, selected papers presented at Fourth International Symposium, Reno, Nevada, August 11-16, 1996

Handbook of snow, principles, processes, management & use

Snow loads, a guide to the use and understanding of the snow load provisions of ASCE 7-02

HVAC design data sourcebook