Speaker: Rick Walden
Who are you, what is your job title and where do you work?
Rick Walden: I'm Rick Walden, highway superintendent for the town of Adams Center.
Before working with Innovative Surface Solutions, what challenges were you facing in your winter maintenance operations?
Rick Walden: Before we started with innovative, we just had dry salt, straight salt, no mixtures, no nothing added, and we were finding a lot of times that the wind was blowing it off the road, it wasn't holding to the lanes, it just blow off to the shoulders, wasn't working as well, and it didn't work at a cold temperature like innovative's new Magic-0 does. That seems to work really well. I use it all the time. It's on the roads every day I go out. We don't use any straight salt no more, mainly because it stays on the road, and the next time it snows, as long as we don't get a heavy downpour and wash it off, it will stay on and reactivate itself when it snows again. So it keeps it from refreezing till we can get back on the road to get it scraped off.
Can you describe what it was like working with Innovative Surface Solutions as you implemented using premium winter liquids?
Rick Walden: Yes, we started working with Innovation Solutions about 8 years ago. We saw it at a show. They explained to us a little bit what was going on, how it works, what the solution was designed to do. They came up here and told us how it worked, showed us the mixing ratios, and we gave it a try, and it's, it's worked really well for us. We've been on it now about 8 years.
What improvements or results have you seen since switching to our products?
Rick Walden: Yeah, since we switched to innovative, we've had pretty good results with it. Um, it stays on the road a lot longer, and it does keep it from refreezing a lot, as long as you don't get a heavy rain to wash it off. We normally put it down at like 2:20, and then the rest of the day we'll run 120 on our trips. And then typically, next day if it snows or even sometimes as far out as the week, as long as it hasn't rained. It'll reactivate again as soon as it starts snowing. The road will stay wet and slimy, so we can go out and scrape it off and not get the hard packed. And it has worked at colder temperatures. We've seen it melting at 10, 15 below 0 here. So, it, it needs the sun to do that, to make it work at that temperatures, but once the sun hits it, it reactivates and works really well.
If another municipality or contractor is facing similar challenges, what would you tell them about your experience with Innovative?
Rick Walden: Yes, we've had really good luck with Innovative, and I would recommend it to other municipalities. Matter of fact, I have. We've got a couple of them that started on it this year, and so far, from what I've heard from them, they're real pleased with it. They butt up against us, and they kind of see how it was working on our roads, wanted to try it, and they tried it, and so far they've been happy with it.
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