The Public Works Dept. in my town has one of these. It looks like it's from 1950 though. I only saw them use it once, and that was in the parking lot at town hall / police building. It was a small lot, and parking was at a premium. That was 10+ years ago though. It seems now they just load it into trucks, and dump it in the parking lots at township parks if they need to get rid of snow. I think hauling it is faster than the small melter they have could melt it. Plus, the parks don't get much use in the winter. It seems like it's more trouble to use than it's worth.
It was neat though, they'd park it curbside, in the lot, load it up, and the water came out a fire hose they connected to it, that they ran right into a storm drain.
I guess if you do alot of hauling off site from your accounts, this could be an alternative. Add up the time to load trucks, the hourly rate for the trucks and drivers, for them to go dump, the hourly charge for the loader and operator, fuel costs, having a place to dump the snow, and it may be worth it. If you could get a good portion of your commercial customers to go for it, it could be profitable I guess. You could do it after plowing is done, to keep crews busy between storms. Parking spots would have to be VERY valuable to the accounts to warrant this though. Having very little melt between snow falls could make them more likely to want this service, since they lose more parking with each storm.
I can only imagine how much a unit like this would cost!
~Chuck
