Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/745428
36 / NOVEMBER.DECEMBER.2016 RINKMAGAZINE.COM W e've all been there: mountains of snow has built up in our snow melt pits, ultimately overflowing the ice resurfacer room. In fact, this happens almost daily during the busy season. Unfortunately, all too often staff spend a significant amount of time after every ice resurface melting the snow by hand using a hot water hose. Not ideal when you have a million other things on your plate from October through March (if not longer). Some factors that contribute to this situation: • The snow melt pit is undersized and can only hold a few full ice resurfacer bins of snow. • The heating coil in the bottom of the pit and/or the heat exchanger feeding the coil are undersized, and can't heat the pit water adequately to melt the snow. • The heating coil has corroded over time and started to leak so it has been shut off, and in some cases removed instead of repaired or replaced. In the case of a leaking coil, the reason that it doesn't usually get repaired or replaced is because of the cost of doing so. However, repairing or replacing the coil in most cases will be far more cost-effective than continuing to flush hundreds of work hours and thousands of gallons of hot water down the snow pit drain every year. Figuring out the savings a properly functioning snow melt pit will provide to your rink operation is fairly easy. Simply add up labor costs, water, sewer and energy (i.e., electric, natural gas) used to heat the water for melting the snow by hand. A functioning snow melt pit also serves another very important The Pits How to deal with snow melt pits by STAR STAFF RINK ISSUES Snow Melt Pits RINK PHOTO; KASCO