Gary Thorington for ProMelt Winter Liquids

Speaker: Gary Thorington, Superintendent of Highways, Town of Windham

Gary Thorington: So 2023 to 24 was the first full season that we used ProMelt winter liquids in our de-icing program by adding the liquids to our road salt. It greatly enhanced the performance of the salt, especially at colder temperatures, mostly in the peak of winter. January February when temperatures really drop, it definitely increases the ability, of your road salt to de ice. It also saves a lot of time on the road by adding the liquids. It saves a lot of time on the road checking to see how the de-icing process is working. It's kind of one size fits all where, no matter what the storm be it, snow, ice, freezing rain. You can use the same application and the same process pretty much for every event which simplifies the decision making. That typically a superintendent or foreman crew leader would have to do or make so greatly reduces the amount of time on the road. And also, the thought process on how you're gonna attack each storm

Gary Thorington: So ProMelt winter liquids tend to differ slightly from the other liquid products that are on the market today. I would say Magic Zero is probably my favorite of the liquids that Innovative Surface Solution offers. It's a Molasses base, which does a couple things. It makes it very user friendly for the environment, extremely less corrosive than the traditional other liquids that we would mix with our salt. And also being a sugar type based liquid, uh it tends to be tacky and sticky. so when you blend that with your salt, the finished product that you're laying down on the pavement is actually has a tendency to cling more so to the roadway, which entail makes your de icing much more effective. And prolongs the residue that lays on the surface and will a lot of times save you from having to go out and treat again or for a longer period of time. So dramatically cuts down on the amount of material putting out. And the day where we're all trying to be creative with salt reduction adding I'll just say magic zero to your tool belt uh would be very beneficial.

Gary Thorington: So I think here in Wyndham, the biggest success we got out of adding ProMelt liquids. to our de icing program is the cost savings. if we spend about $4000 on liquids last year, we've saved about 45 to $50,000 in operation costs. by adding the liquids, we now spend less time on the road. So your savings , are shown quickly in fuel usage, parts maintenance repairs, tire wear, all the expenses that go along with, the amount of time that your vehicles are out doing snow removal and de icing. So that's probably the most successful thing I've seen. and also probably by adding liquids to your program, and cutting down on the abrasives or eliminating them. There's a lot less clean up in the spring and also, less maintenance, shoulder maintenance mainly on hills and corners where you typically would lay down a lot more abrasive. So it's a no brainer. If you add some liquids to your program and reduce the amount of abrasives you put out, you're gonna have huge savings. Pay you back immediately.

Gary Thorington: So on a scale of 1 to 10 of how likely I would be to recommend ProMelt liquids to other people. Gotta go with a 9.9 again, 9.9, nobody's getting a 10.