Precision in Tight Spaces: Sibom’s Skid-Steer Combination Spreader Revolutionizes Snow and Ice Management

In winter, heavy snowfall can accumulate on roads, and the severe cold can cause ice to form, making roadways difficult to navigate. Currently, in addition to mechanical snow removal and ice-breaking methods, chemical methods are sometimes used for de-icing and snow removal. Especially when the snow accumulation is thick, if it is not cleared promptly, it can lead to traffic congestion or even accidents. Therefore, timely application of de-icing agents is essential to ensure road safety.

Workers are standing on the vehicles, using shovels to spread de-icing agents

The workers are manually adding de-icing agents to the spreader.

Snow melting agents are primarily spread using spreading vehicles or spreaders. Existing pavement de-icing vehicles or equipment can address the problem of ice formation caused by accumulated snow. However, current snow melting agent spreading equipment has the following issues:

1. Uneven distribution and inflexible spreading methods. These devices often cannot adjust for varying snow depths. For areas with shallow snow, de-icing agents are wasted, while for areas with deeper snow, the desired melting effect is not achieved, leading to material waste.
2. Snow melting agent spreading vehicles or machinery are large in size, making them unsuitable for narrower areas such as urban community streets, rural roads, and highway ramps.

Sibom’s Combination Spreader is a small, efficient snow melting agent spreader designed to be compatible with skid steer loaders. It features a frame, V-shaped hopper, de-icing agent conveyor system, hydraulic power system, and a rotating spreading system (distributing components: spreading chute, spreading disc). The V-shaped storage hopper is positioned above the spreading chute and spreading disc, which are connected to the hydraulic motor via a belt and gear system.

The hydraulic motor drives the gearbox, which simultaneously drives the main conveyor chain (located inside the hopper) and the rotating spreading disc. Once the de-icing agent is conveyed by the chain, it is spread by the rotating disc. During the rotation of the disc, the de-icing agent is evenly scattered onto the ground through the dispensing holes. The de-icing agent typically consists of fine inorganic salt powder, which is spread onto the snow to accelerate the melting process.

Sibom’s snow melting agent spreader combines disc spreading with targeted application, allowing the de-icing agent to be sprayed more precisely onto areas with thicker snow, based on varying snow depths.

In other words, it can use the spreading disc for wide-area, even distribution of the de-icing agent, and adjust the speed of the spreading chute to focus the spraying on areas with thicker snow. This reduces the waste of de-icing agent, saves materials, and more effectively and economically achieves thorough snow melting, improving both snow removal efficiency and results.

Sibom’s spreader is not only a winter road maintenance equipment for spreading de-icing agents but also a versatile machine for spreading seeds and other solid granular materials in agricultural and industrial applications. It has a wide range of use cases. The benefits include:

1. The skid-steer snow melting agent spreader is an automated snow removal device that integrates de-icing agent loading, conveying, and spreading. It is widely used for snow removal on highways, urban roads, airports, squares, community roads, and scenic area roads. It provides a convenient and quick way to remove snow and ice from road surfaces, ensuring smooth and safe road traffic, speeding up the melting process, and reducing labor intensity.

   Large spreaders cannot access community areas, but the skid-steer spreader can freely enter communities for spreading operations

2. The skid-steer de-icing spreader has a simple structure, offering easy installation and removal, high maneuverability, and lower cost, making it widely applicable.
3. The spreader’s hopper has a bucket-style design, allowing it to scoop up piled de-icing materials and other spreading agents directly from the ground.
4. A limiter can be added to adjust the spreading range, allowing control over the width and amount of de-icing agent based on the snow's width and thickness on the road. This makes spreading operations more flexible.
5. Equipped with a bag-breaking device for easy addition of bagged de-icing agent.
6. This spreader has a large-capacity hopper with a filter to prevent large particles or clumps from entering the hopper.
7. An integrated agitation device is installed inside the hopper to prevent issues like clumping, which could impede the spreading process.

In summary, the Sibom skid-steer spreader features a simple structure, easy operation, and cost efficiency. Utilizing the skid steer’s capability to pivot in place and operate within confined spaces, it enables targeted spreading in narrow areas. This equipment can replace manual spreading in restricted spaces, overcoming the limitations of larger de-icing trucks and providing municipalities and property management units with additional, flexible options for snow and ice removal.