Two simple steps to never over salt again.
Upgrade ANY salter with GPS driven salt management. Tracks salt usage too!
Use your phone or tablet for in truck salt management and reporting.
NEW this season! Salt Coverage Calculator AND Salt Logger
Salt Coverage Calculator is an inexpensive mechanical wheel chart that is customized to a particular salter and suggests optimum speed and conveyor settings for specific event environmental conditions.
Salt Logger is an Android based app that incorporates the Salt Coverage Calculator within an interactive salt management environment. It works on any Android based phone or tablet. .
- Salt Logger uses each salter's calibration rates and the event's environmental conditions (surface temp, precipitation and temp trend) to suggest an optimum coverage rate.
- Salt Logger also tracks usage via the phone (or Tablet) GPS ground speed and your active conveyor setting.
- Event reports (Excel format) are created and ready to be emailed back to the office.
- Report data meets ISO-9001 reporting requirements.
- Upgrade ANY manufacturer, ANY model and ANY size salt spreader.
- Great Flexibility! Each device can manage any salter from a list of five of your calibrated salters. That means all operators will be applying salt at the same coverage rate regardless of what salter or truck they are using.
- Great for routes! Each phone can manage up to 15 customer sites. Salt usage reports for the Event are time stamped with salt usage, task (pre-app, deicing or ice checking), coverage rate, truck id and driver name.
Salt Logger is a trademark of Northeast Snowfighters, Inc.
Salt Coverage Calculator
Step 1: Find the Salt Coverage Rate
Step 2: Pick your Salter Settings and Speed
Step 2: Pick your Salter Settings and Speed
- The wheel is divided into three segments.
- Snowing
- Icy Rain
- No Precip
- Find the segment for your current precipitation status.
- Spin the dial to the current surface temperature that you are salting.
- Select the Snow Salt Coverage rate for the current temperature trend.
Step 2: Pick your Salter Settings and Speed
Step 2: Pick your Salter Settings and Speed
Step 2: Pick your Salter Settings and Speed
- Flip the Salt Coverage Calculator over.
- This is your customized Coverage Rate Chart based on your salter's Calibration Table.
- Slide the RED index line up or down to the coverage amount selected in Step 1.
- Choose your conveyor speed and ground speed combination that is most fitting to your site conditions.
- Set your conveyor speed and drive at the chosen MPH.
- Notice how much farther your salt goes.
How to use the Salt Coverage Rate Chart
- The RED index line is positioned on the line for 400 lbs/Acre coverage. This is the amount of salt your salter will disburse while salting at several different ground speeds.
- In order to disburse 400 lbs / Acre, you need to choose a conveyor speed and its associated ground speed. Each arc line has a circled number on it. That is the conveyor setting. If you would like to drive 10 MPH then your conveyor setting must be "6" in order to disburse 400 lb / Acre.
- If the drive lane is congested and you can only drive 7 MPH, then you need to reduce your conveyor setting to "3" to disburse 400 lb / Acre.
- Note that the highest conveyor setting of 7 (for this salter) will disburse less than 400 lb / Acre if you drive faster than 11 MPH.
- We acknowledge that you won't be able to maintain a fixed speed for your whole run. We don't consider this to be a problem since you are undoubtedly saving a significant amount of salt just by using the Salt Coverage Calculator. And that's the point isn't it? To save snow salt and be environmentally sensitive to over salting.
NOTE: These coverage rates are most likely lower than what you are used to. Lower rates mean that the melting cycle will be extended from what you are used to. Please be patient. Over salting produces quicker melting cycles but wastes material and impacts the environment. Melt cycles vary but often exceed an hour when using these lower coverage rates. We do not recommend re-applying another round of salt if the melt cycle has been less than one hour except where pedestrian and/or vehicle safety concerns indicate that you do so.
What Can The Salt Coverage Calculator Do?
1. Reduce Your Snow Salt Cost
First and foremost you should be moving your ice management strategy towards SALT BRINE. We understand that it takes time and experience to convert from granular salt to brine but please get serious about using SALT BRINE as your primary ice managment tool.
In the meantime you should make every effort to reduce the volume of granular salt you put down before, during and after the storm proper. Salt Logger is the ultimate tool for that purpose. Salt Logger in a tablet app running on an in truck computer which guides the driver towards conservative snow salt usage. It also documents the environmental conditions and tracks the salt usage on a customer by customer basis for reporting purposes. (www.saltlogger.com)
We talked to a lot of contractors at the 2018 SIMA show in Cleveland and were impressed with the intent of most contractors to reduce their salt consumption for environmental reasons as much as for reducing cost. What was perplexing to most of them was the difficulty in figuring out the coverage rate needed for a storm and then translating that to a salter setting that would actually deliver that amount of salt.
Salt Logger uses two tables: one, a table (derived from the Minnesota DOT coverage tables) to get a salt coverage rate needed based on the current environmental conditions and two, a table to establish the conveyor setting and ground speed needed to deliver that coverage rate (based on the salter's calibration table). The majority of contractors simply said "just give my driver a way to get the salter settings without deciphering the complexity of matching two tables."
As you have seen above, the Salt Coverage Calculator does that in two easy steps.
Most likely, the average contractor is putting down 600 to 800 lbs of salt per acre in a typical storm. The average used to be over 1,000 lbs per acre but everyone has been working to lower that number. In reality less than 300 to 400 lbs of salt is needed when the temps are in the high teens and low twenties.
Let's do some math.
By using the Salt Coverage Calculator, you could reduce your salt consumption 30% by just knowing the numbers. That means that every 10 tons of snow salt consumed last season would be reduced to 7 tons this season just by deploying the Salt Coverage Calculator in every salt truck. Using a conservative price of $60/ton for salt, that's a $180 savings on every 10 Tons used last season. How many tons of salt did you use last season? Do the math.
The Salt Coverage Calculator may well save you more money this season than any other tool on the market.
2. Reduce Your Environmental Impact
We have all read about the impact of snow salt on the water ways and lakes throughout the snow belt. It's real and it's an accumulating impact season over season. It's up to us contractors to take action to reduce the impact of snow salt on the environment as much as we can as quickly as we can.
SALT BRINE may well be the biggest step we could take to reduce the impact. Unfortunately, the environment will continue to accumulate the impact of salt during the time it takes us all to get on the optimum Brine program.
We don't have to wait for Brine to reduce the impact of salt on the environment. Conserve the amount of salt usage as quickly and to the maximum extent possible without sacrificing vehicular or pedestrian safety by using the Salt Coverage Calculator.
Deploy the Salt Coverage Calculator in every salt truck in your fleet and know your numbers. Know a target coverage rate based on the current environmental conditions and know the salter settings needed to deliver that coverage amount. Reduce your environmental impact of snow salt by 30 to 50%. Do it this season. The environment can't wait.
Calibration Table
We Customize the Coverage Rate Chart For Your Salter
- We provide a customized Coverage Rate Chart with each Salt Coverage Calculator.
- Just email us the Calibration Table for your salter like the one shown here.
- All we need is the number of pounds of Product discharged per minute for each conveyor setting (Min to Max) for the Gate Opening specified.
- We suggest each setting run for two minutes and then divide the weight by two to get the pounds discharged each minute.
- We will take this Calibration Table and create a customized Coverage Rate Chart for your Salt Coverage Calculator.
- Each change in data or product will require a new Coverage Rate Chart.
- If the spinner width is increased to 12 ft, a new Coverage Rate Chart is needed.
- If the gate setting is increased or decreased a new Coverage Rate Chart is needed.
- If you begin pre-wetting your salt a new Coverage Rate Chart is needed.
- If you have multiple Coverage Rate Charts, just slide out the Coverage Rate Chart and insert the appropriate new chart. The coverage wheel on the front side of the Salt Coverage Calculator will still be valid regardless of which Rate Chart is inserted.
- Don't throw away the old rate chart, you never know when you may need it again.
You can use the PDF form shown below to send us your calibration numbers. Easy Peesy!
Send to: dick@saltcoveragecalculator.com
