History of Snowmelters
Necessity is the mother of invention and as everything is created for a specific purpose and motivated by a specific need. So let’s start at the beginning. Why melt snow? The concept of melting snow has been around and in use in many countries around the world since the 1800’s. It evolved out of necessity as snow removal from roadways, airport tarmacs, and other ground surfaces is a major task in geographic areas where snow accumulation negatively affects public safety, transportation and commerce. On ground surfaces, in geographic areas where snow removal is required either by statute, public convenience or business operations, significant resources are already being expanded to remove and dispose of the snow. However, substantial challenges still remain to dispose of the removed snow in a cost-effective, safe, and environmentally acceptable manner. Historically, it was common for areas having ready access to bodies of water, rivers or unused land for snow to be hauled and dumped into the water or onto the land. More recently, considerations regarding debris and particulate or chemical contaminants typically contained in removed snow have resulted in severe limitations on the legality of dumping removed snow directly into water bodies. Federal, state and provincial environmental agencies around the world have now instituted restrictive permitting and monitoring requirements, restricting or prohibiting the dumping of snow into water bodies or into land snow dumps. The difficulty in obtaining permits for land snow dumps has also subsequently diminished their availability and practicability.
In addition to the environmental difficulties and hazards linked with land snow dumps, the cost of real estate may make creating and maintaining land snow dumps prohibitively expensive. In many geographical areas, it is not cost effective to use tracts of land for snow dumps or to transport snow by truck or other means to distant land tracts that may be permittable and available. If it is not practical or feasible to haul removed snow then two basic alternatives remain; to pile the snow and leave it to melt naturally over time, or to melt the snow in commercially available Snowmelters.
Presently, conventional Snowmelters generally fall into three categories: the most efficient are the Submerged Combustion Type Snowmelters that apply a fossil-fuel (Diesel or Natural Gas) flame either directly to the deposited snow or to a water bath which melts the snow; the less efficient Snowmelters use heat exchangers, whereby deposited snow comes into contact with tubes carrying fluids heated by external boilers and melts; and the even more less efficient resistance heater Snowmelters comprising resistance heaters powered by external electric generators or other electrical power source, whereby snow comes into contact with the heated plates and melts.
Trecan Snowmelters use Submerged Combustion Technology, we have been in business for over 30 years and we have over 500 machines in operation thought North America and Russia.
