Steve NW WI
Unwanted Riff Raff.
Hey Spidey - put your skates on before you head out for the paper, eh?
Snow in the south!
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Yeah... I just looked at the radar and outside.
Got a little freezing drizzle fallin' right now, ultra-thin coating on the vehicles... surly gonna' be an interesting trip to town this morning.
And the center of your "approximate location" circle is pretty spot-on... maybe a touch southwest, but the girls I run around with wouldn't know any better.
Those trucks with the sanders forward of the rear wheels are cool... but I ain't seen any 'round here. The state boys don't use sand, mostly liquid chemical... and as has been noted, they'll try and treat the state roads before crap even gets here if they have enough forewarning. The city has at least one sander with the spreader(s) mounted out front... way out front on on the bumper (I installed the two-way radio in it). The city uses a lot of sand at intersections and known problem spots, sometimes mixed with ice-melt chemical depending. For the most part though, city side streets are just covered in hard-pack until spring breakup.
Now the county boys... heck they use a bit of everything depending on the type of road and how much it's traveled. I know they've got a couple (rear mounted) sand spreaders that requires raising the dump box to feed it, like @Steve NW WI posted...
They also, using standard dumps, just chain the tailgates open a crack and let the stuff drizzle out the back as they drive. Our crushed limestone roads (the vast majority of county roads) rarely get sand, and never get chemical, that would create a huge mess. Rather they rely on hard-pack and just keep it roughed it up with teeth on the maintainer blade. But it can be two or three days before they get to some of them... even longer depending. The more remote and less traveled your road, the longer it takes to get to ya'. In the past I've lived where we didn't see a maintainer for a week if it kept snowing because the "farm-to-market" roads and school bus routes get first priority... if it snows every day they just don't have time to get to ya'. Occasionally, especially in late winter/early spring as the hard-pack is constantly melting and refreezing on the crushed limestone roads they'll put some sand down on the steep(er) hills... but it don't seem to last very long, it all just washes to the bottom. People generally learn to avoid such roads if possible... or... stud/chain up if they can't avoid 'em.
My road is actually a section of the old, old Hwy 218 (in other words the course of the road has changed twice since it was part of 218), still paved, lightly traveled. If it's a weekend or during a time when school ain't on we won't see a county truck until late morning/early afternoon... but I have a kid riding the bus, so during the week the road gets at least one pass through before 7:00 AM. That's one advantage to haveing kids I'll bet a lot of ya' haven't thought about... huh??
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Got a little freezing drizzle fallin' right now, ultra-thin coating on the vehicles... surly gonna' be an interesting trip to town this morning.
And the center of your "approximate location" circle is pretty spot-on... maybe a touch southwest, but the girls I run around with wouldn't know any better.
Those trucks with the sanders forward of the rear wheels are cool... but I ain't seen any 'round here. The state boys don't use sand, mostly liquid chemical... and as has been noted, they'll try and treat the state roads before crap even gets here if they have enough forewarning. The city has at least one sander with the spreader(s) mounted out front... way out front on on the bumper (I installed the two-way radio in it). The city uses a lot of sand at intersections and known problem spots, sometimes mixed with ice-melt chemical depending. For the most part though, city side streets are just covered in hard-pack until spring breakup.
Now the county boys... heck they use a bit of everything depending on the type of road and how much it's traveled. I know they've got a couple (rear mounted) sand spreaders that requires raising the dump box to feed it, like @Steve NW WI posted...
They also, using standard dumps, just chain the tailgates open a crack and let the stuff drizzle out the back as they drive. Our crushed limestone roads (the vast majority of county roads) rarely get sand, and never get chemical, that would create a huge mess. Rather they rely on hard-pack and just keep it roughed it up with teeth on the maintainer blade. But it can be two or three days before they get to some of them... even longer depending. The more remote and less traveled your road, the longer it takes to get to ya'. In the past I've lived where we didn't see a maintainer for a week if it kept snowing because the "farm-to-market" roads and school bus routes get first priority... if it snows every day they just don't have time to get to ya'. Occasionally, especially in late winter/early spring as the hard-pack is constantly melting and refreezing on the crushed limestone roads they'll put some sand down on the steep(er) hills... but it don't seem to last very long, it all just washes to the bottom. People generally learn to avoid such roads if possible... or... stud/chain up if they can't avoid 'em.
My road is actually a section of the old, old Hwy 218 (in other words the course of the road has changed twice since it was part of 218), still paved, lightly traveled. If it's a weekend or during a time when school ain't on we won't see a county truck until late morning/early afternoon... but I have a kid riding the bus, so during the week the road gets at least one pass through before 7:00 AM. That's one advantage to haveing kids I'll bet a lot of ya' haven't thought about... huh??
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zogger
Tree Freak
Just saw the first sand truck go by. Still ice on the roads but might peak close to or above freezing this afternoon. All my pipes are frozen now, zip water. Gonna have to haul water for a bit here, heading out soon. Won't know until everything thaws out what sort of damage I have.
mainewoods
Addicted to ArboristSite
Good luck on the pipes. Hopefully froze just enough to stop the flow and no further damage. More than likely on a 90 degree elbow or a T, Hair dryer time!
zogger, I know this is gonna' sound weird... but cracking open every faucet (and anything else) in the house, both hot and cold, is your best chance to avoid pipe breakage.
It ain't the ice that normally breaks the pipe, it's the increase in water pressure between the ice block and closed faucet, toilet, washing machine, dish washer, or whatever.
The ice will expand in the direction of least resistance, meaning downstream and thereby increasing water pressure in the pipe.
Eventually water pressure gets high enough to cause freezing water to expand radially as well as longitudly, and the pipe will break at the slushy end of the blockage where the new ice is forming, not in the solid center of older ice.
If you have your own well pump and pressure tank, shut down the pump and release pressure from the pressure tank as well. Ya' gotta' give that expanding ice somewhere to push the water or... well... it's a-hell-of-a-mess.
Good luck man‼
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It ain't the ice that normally breaks the pipe, it's the increase in water pressure between the ice block and closed faucet, toilet, washing machine, dish washer, or whatever.
The ice will expand in the direction of least resistance, meaning downstream and thereby increasing water pressure in the pipe.
Eventually water pressure gets high enough to cause freezing water to expand radially as well as longitudly, and the pipe will break at the slushy end of the blockage where the new ice is forming, not in the solid center of older ice.
If you have your own well pump and pressure tank, shut down the pump and release pressure from the pressure tank as well. Ya' gotta' give that expanding ice somewhere to push the water or... well... it's a-hell-of-a-mess.
Good luck man‼
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Steve NW WI
Unwanted Riff Raff.
Our area doesn't often see ice storms. Mostly, we just get snow. Here, the locals use salt/sand mix (shown in my pic above) on hills, curves, intersections, etc. Locally, IE, my township, has the luxury of having a big tax base from city folks' lake cabins/summer homes. Our roads are pretty much all blacktop, and kept pretty clean throughout winter. No fancy front spreaders, and although the equipment does have chains, they spend most of their time rusting. (Probably due to the fancy radial tires they've got on everything!) Further into farm country, the budgets get smaller and you'll see more "minimum maintenance roads" - roads that get plowed when they get around to it, generally roads without a house on them between intersections.
County/state/US/Interstates (all cleared by the counties here in WI) get pre-treatment, that helps a lot with the "nuisance" snows like the 4" we got this morning. Interesting fact: Our county uses a whey based solution that would otherwise be a waste product from the local cheese plant. After treatment is straight salt, and again, all rear box trucks. The pre-treat is hauled on the same trucks, in saddle tanks that fit alongside the outside of the dump box. Generally, the main roads are bare or very close to it within 24 hours after the snow stops. The boys up here just get it. It's one thing I don't grouse about much - probably partly because I grew up riding with Dad in the grader when we'd get a snow day, he spent 25 years working for the township.
Not suprisingly, some of the biggest, baddest snow removal equipment that gets used to keep airports and mountain passes cleared comes from here in Cheeseland. Oshkosh (now part of the Freightliner group) has been building cool toys over on the other side of the state since we quit pulling sleighs behind horses to get around in the winter.
County/state/US/Interstates (all cleared by the counties here in WI) get pre-treatment, that helps a lot with the "nuisance" snows like the 4" we got this morning. Interesting fact: Our county uses a whey based solution that would otherwise be a waste product from the local cheese plant. After treatment is straight salt, and again, all rear box trucks. The pre-treat is hauled on the same trucks, in saddle tanks that fit alongside the outside of the dump box. Generally, the main roads are bare or very close to it within 24 hours after the snow stops. The boys up here just get it. It's one thing I don't grouse about much - probably partly because I grew up riding with Dad in the grader when we'd get a snow day, he spent 25 years working for the township.
Not suprisingly, some of the biggest, baddest snow removal equipment that gets used to keep airports and mountain passes cleared comes from here in Cheeseland. Oshkosh (now part of the Freightliner group) has been building cool toys over on the other side of the state since we quit pulling sleighs behind horses to get around in the winter.
Dalmatian90
Addicted to ArboristSite
Rear mount salt spreaders in Louisiana:
Remember reading when Connecticut started plowing state highways, something like 1909 (we were one of the first states to do so)...they promised in all rural districts they would leave at least 4" of packed snow on the road to allow sleighs and sleds to continue to be used.
I would think on the pressure tank side the bladder would absorb the pressure increase. After all, that's what its there to do -- compress when the pump pressurizes the system.
Remember reading when Connecticut started plowing state highways, something like 1909 (we were one of the first states to do so)...they promised in all rural districts they would leave at least 4" of packed snow on the road to allow sleighs and sleds to continue to be used.
I would think on the pressure tank side the bladder would absorb the pressure increase. After all, that's what its there to do -- compress when the pump pressurizes the system.
zogger
Tree Freak
Even so, there's pressure... and the idea is to eliminate all pressure so the ice expands longitudly and applies the smallest amount radial pressure possible on the pipe. If there's, say, 45 PSI water pressure in the pipe and pressure tank, and the ice pushes water back into the tank, pressure will increase, which causes the ice to put even more radial pressure on the pipe. If water pressure in the pipe is zero (rather than 45 PSI), and stays at zero (because it's open at the pipe end), any radial pressure applied to the pipe by ice will be at least 45 PSI less, likely even more more.
See what I'm getting at??
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OK... back to this morning...
We get ice a lot... a whole friggin' lot... freezing rain that puts that slippery-azz glaze coating on everything.
We got ice this morning, put a glaze on top of the hard-pack, and then it friggin' snowed on top of it. Near impossible to walk out to the work van when I left.
Man I hate front-wheel drive on ice. Just ain't no friggin' way to steer the damn things under power, the front just has a mind of its own and wanders all over the ice.
The main road wasn't too bad once I got to it... but gettin' to it was an adventure, runnin' sideways more than runnin' straight.
There is the one little "hairy" spot; a 10 MPH left hand curve at the bottom of a hill, on a crushed limestone road... and using brakes ain't an option on ice unless ya' wanna' get real cozy with the ditch.
I took a picture with my phone just before I crested the hill... just before I gabbed the wheel with both hands. I went over the crest at a crawl, but likely was doin' something 'round 20 MPH, maybe a bit more(?) at the bottom (weren't looking at gauges). Used the same technique that's always worked before; stick the left front on the inside edge and whip around it sort'a half-azz sideways, bounce the right rear off the snow bank piled on the far side by the maintainer if need be.... then start breathing again and check your shorts. It sounds a lot more dramatic than it really is (LOL, it really ain't all that bad) and there ain't a "ditch" to go in on the curve down at the bottom, but if ya' try to "drive" around it and lose the front end into that piled snow... well... you're walking from there.
Anyway... here's the pic from this morning...
OH... ya' haf'ta make the curve, going straight puts ya' into the river‼
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zogger
Tree Freak
WS, I did all that everything except relieve pressure at the tank, I'll have to look at it and see how to do that. I took the hots off at the water heater, all the faucets are open, pump is shut off, etc. I didn't get a barrel of water moved today but a lot of jugs for cooking and drinking. I already had some, but got more in case this is extended. I'll do a barrel tomorrow. Tonight is supposedly the last cold night of this latest arctic blast, but who knows.
good luck zog. hope ya thaw out.
There may not be a way to do it easily, but if ya' can, it sure can't hurt.
I don't have a bladder in my tank, it's just the old steel tank.
There's a Schrader Valve in the line for adding to the air cushion in the tank, so I can easily use that to release pressure... otherwise I'd have to crack a line open or some such.
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zogger
Tree Freak
I am thinking about and decided to not mess with that. it isn't mine after all. I did go get a heat lamp and it is in the wellhouse now aimed at the tank and lines.
The only problem we had with too cold before and the pipes was an outside faucet where the heater tape strip failed and I didn't know it. That was an easy fix, just an addon pvc deal at the greenhouse.
zogger
Tree Freak
Oh ya, like that cold weather bootlegger bounce off the snowbank turn, pretty funny!
Steve NW WI
Unwanted Riff Raff.
Polk Co Wi, 2hours after the last flakes fell today. Da boys are on it:
MNDot, slacking a bit. We got about 5" this am:
MNDot, slacking a bit. We got about 5" this am:
Eric Modell
ArboristSite Operative
he lives in he Dennison area.So... Eric Modell, what part of Iowa is your stepson from??
You do realize we've been trying to give everything south of I-80 to Missouri for decades, right?
We can't figure out why you guys won't take it... we figure it's a win-win for everyone...
'Cause it would raise the average IQ of both states
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(sorry... just had'ta)
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zogger
Tree Freak
blackdogon57
Addicted to ArboristSite
Nice pics. Let us know when we can have our geese back !
zogger
Tree Freak
Oh, be sending them back another month and change I think..I'm keeping the arctic fox though....
KenJax Tree
Terraphobic
Well 2"-4" more tonight and 6"-8" more Saturday
Sent from my Autotune Carb
Sent from my Autotune Carb
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