IN CERTAIN PLACES WE ARE DEPENDENT ON SNO-N-ICE

Dipl.-Ing. Ueli Knobel spoke to Hermann Landolt, head of winter road maintenance for pedestrian and traffic areas at Zurich-Kloten Airport.

As head of winter road maintenance at Zurich-Kloten Airport, Hermann Landolt (41) is responsible for ensuring that the access roads and pedestrian walkways to the airport are passable even on wet and cold winter days.

What goes through your mind when you think of "winter services"?
We have just completed our first internal winter service training course. All our equipment is lined up and ready. Winter maintenance is a tough time, but also an interesting one.

What products do you use to combat ice?
Road salt, alcohol-based liquid de-icing agents and, for the last three winters, SNO-N-ICE. We had quite a lot of trouble with road salt because of the corrosion of reinforced concrete.

  Thanks to SNO-N-ICE, we no longer have any problems with corrosion of reinforced concrete  

Hermann Landolt

Had...?
Yes, wherever we weren't allowed to spread salt in the past because there was a risk that the reinforcement in concrete structures would be attacked, we can now spread SNO-N-ICE without any problems. That makes our winter road maintenance much easier.

How did people become aware of SNO-N-ICE?
It was at the Suisse Public trade fair in Bern. A delegation discovered the "SNO-N-ICE" stand. We then received documentation and a can of SNO-N-ICE as a sample.

What was the initial reaction to the new de-icing agent?
Of course, we were amazed at the pink colour and asked ourselves the question: Is the product really better? But we were basically open to the new product and tried it out.

And what was your experience?
We had to learn to use SNO-N-ICE in a targeted way to achieve the best benefit. It takes a little longer to take effect. The gritted areas must be walked or driven on, but then the effect is convincing and it also lasts longer than normal road salt. In any case, we have far fewer complaints than before. And some customers, such as Gategourmet, are now explicitly requesting it.

What is all treated with SNO-N-ICE?
These are all surfaces that could cause problems in terms of corrosion. These include areas where the spreading of salt is absolutely undesirable for this very reason and pedestrian passages and overpasses, which are susceptible to icing.

What is your experience in terms of consumption?
The spreading dosage is the same as with conventional salt. The big advantage is that you don't "over-spread". This means that de-icing agent is not spread where it is already lying because you can see it because of the colour.

What products do you use to spread SNO-N-ICE?
We spread by machine with a spreader attached to a carrier vehicle and we also spread by hand where we can't drive the vehicle. We obtain SNO-N-ICE in big bags and palletised in sacks.

How much SNO-N-ICE is spread each winter?
Around 10 tonnes. Depending on the intensity of the winter and especially because of the many new buildings such as multi-storey car parks, connecting bridges and pedestrian walkways, demand is rising sharply.

Would you recommend SNO-N-ICE to others?
Yes, of course I would. I have already recommended SNO-N-ICE to the fire brigade in my municipality, for example. But SNO-N-ICE has to be applied with expertise, otherwise you might be disappointed. My employees and I wouldn't want to be without SNO-N-ICE, we simply depend on it in certain places.