Have you considered adding anti-icing to your snow and ice management operations? You’re not alone. Many other contractors have been debating the same question. In most cases, the answer is straightforward: anti-icing is an essential tool of the trade, allowing snow professionals to optimize their storm management and deliver level of service goals in the timeliest manner. Used appropriately, anti-icing will increase operational efficiency, reduce material cost and boost profits. The challenge is in effectively integrating it into your operations.
Anti-icing is one of three fundamental snow fighting strategies: anti-icing, deicing and snow removal. It is a proactive, preemptive strategy of spraying a light application of a liquid deicer directly to the pavement just prior to or at the onset of a storm. This bottom-up strategy inhibits ice from bonding to the pavement, similar to the way butter coats a frying pan and keeps food from sticking. It is commonly reported that it takes four times more salt and 50 percent more resources to break an already established ice-to-pavement bond than to prevent it in the first place. In most cases anti-icing has been proven to significantly reduce the time, labor and materials required to clear the surface after a snow event.
So why are many contractors reluctant to adopt this essential tool? Some will tell you salt is cheap and works fine, the equipment is too costly, that it won’t work in their region, or their customers won’t buy-in when actually it is fear of change that is the primary obstacle. No matter the excuse, it’s time to park your misperceptions and follow these six steps to anti-icing success.
1. Get the Necessary Training
As with any profession, the snow professional has to know the tools of his trade, how and when to use them, and stay abreast of innovation in technology, or he is setting himself up for failure. Anti-icing technologies have been around for decades and their value validated thoroughly. There is an abundance of information out there for the forward thinking professional. Most of it originates in the municipal sector, but private sector industry associations and leading manufacturers are beginning to offer value added training and educational resources on liquid applications tailored to the commercial market. All the commercial contractor has to do is tap into them.
2. Educate Your Customer to Get Their ‘Buy-In’
There is a long list of benefits to the property owner from anti-icing which are a good starting point for a discussion and to obtain their “buy-in” for using liquids on their properties. Here are a few tips for approaching the subject with the property owner:
- Assess the property with the customer, identifying priority target areas and concerns.
- Understand the customer’s real motivation, and prioritize their needs. Even though a customer may stress cost, it is often not their primary concern.
- If cost really is their top priority, ask them to consider the potential cost of lost business due to slower result times, increased risk of slip-and-fall liability, and increased costs from property damage resulting from excessive salt usage, all mitigated by anti-icing. Anti-icing also provides a huge benefit for LEED certified properties.
- Discuss the types of materials to be used, as well as the timing of operations and outcomes the customer can expect. It often helps to have pictures that show the difference between a surface that has received an anti-icing treatment and one that has not.
As a professional you should retain the right to use the best tool for the job, especially when using it improves the outcomes for the customer, so obtaining property owner ‘approval’ may not always be necessary, depending on the type of contract involved. Utilizing anti-icing strategies provides the contractor a wider window in which to execute snow fighting operations and affords greater flexibility within some types of contract structures to deliver level of service goals at an equivalent or lesser cost.
- Time and Materials: This is the most challenging contract type to incorporating anti-icing services because, if billed in the customary way, both materials and time decrease. However, if executed properly, the contractor should be able to service more accounts in the same timeframe. Establish a rate and determine if it is an applied or unapplied rate.
- Per Push/Per Event: Liquid applications can be priced in a similar manner as other services. Regional supply of certain deicers may be a factor in pricing.
- Seasonal or Lump Sum: This is the easiest contract type to include liquid strategies without major changes. Be sure to include provisions for seasons that fall short or exceed a reasonable threshold.
Original article can be found here: http://www.sima.org/resource/library/newsdetails/2017/08/29/six-steps-to-anti-icing-success
