Drying Sand for spreading

[hwp]

Does anyone have a way of drying sand in relatively small quantities for use in a spreader? I use a pre-mixed sand/salt mixture on my driveway when it is icy. Whenever I do so I need about a quarter of a cubic yard. I refilled my sand bin at the end of last winter expecting it would be nice and dry when I needed the sand this winter. Not so - it is still too moist to flow out of the hopper of my spreader. I am using a Buyers SUV spreader (see attached). So I am looking for a way to dry the sand/salt mixture in lots of about a quarter of a yard so that when I put it in the hopper of my spreader it will flow nicely out of the hopper onto the spin plate. I thought about putting it in the oven of my wife's stove for a couple of hours but I don't think that would go over very well.

 

[755inNY]

I don't think the oven would work very well. How about tossing a few shovel fulls in the clothes dryer. The heat plus tumbling action should dry that sand out in a hurry /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I'm thinking you need to get dry air flowing over the surface of the sand to remove the moisture. It would help to have the air heated. Maybe put the sand in a portable cement mixer with warm air blowing toward the opening as the mixer tumbles the sand. Or, spread the sand out on a tarp and circulate warm air around it.

Good luck.

 

[GregMVT]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a bag of sand from Home Depot?

 

[LBrown59]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a bag of sand from Home Depot? )</font>



I keep 2 30 Gallon plastic garabage cans of sand in my shop.
When I need sand i just pop the lid off the can and shovel some out into a bucket. It seems to stay fairly dry this way.

For throwing it on slick winter walks and the driveway I mix sand and rock salt.
I use 3 or 4 parts of sand to one part salt.

 

[bher]

How do you like the Buyers spreader? I am thinking of getting one for use on my pickup truck and tractor. Do you have the single speed or variable speed model? As for the drying, I am thinking of something like a small concrete mixer and a propane burner. This would probably only be economical in the long long run vs. buying bagged sand.

 

[Deerlope]

The salt will always want to attract and retain moisture. So drying it is out of the question, instead try this, stock pile unsalted sand and salt separate, then mix up a batch when you want to use it. That is the way it was done where I worked. Sometimes just the sand was used because with the salt mixed in it tracks inside real badly.

 

[frank_f15]

sand is almost impossibe to keep dry, especially if u have rock salt mixed in.. most important that you keep hopper empty between uses, otherwise it will freeze and/or clump.

 

[BigAl]

Wow ! I like your rig !I did not know Kubota made anything like that .
Your problem is salt draws moisture so you are going to have a continous problem if you premix it with sand and try to store it .Can you attach a small air,hydraulic or 12 Volt vibrator to the side of the hopper so it can shake down the material to the spinner ? I have seen these on portable concrete batch plants at rental yards and they work real well .
Big Al

 

[hwp]

LB Thanks for the sugestion. I have been thinking about keeping a couple of tote boxes of sand/salt in my workroom in the basement of the house. It has a heated floor which would help keep the moisture content down. So I'm going to try it. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[hwp]

Brant - the Byers unit is OK. I got one of the first ones so it is single speed but that doesn't seem to be a problem. The biggest problem I have with the unit is that there is no agitator in the hopper. This isn't a problem with salt as it will flow quite readily, but with the sand/salt mixture retains moisture and doesn't flow as well unless it is quite dry. Another annoying thing is that the field coils in thye motor are held in place with glue and come loose with vibration, etc. It's not a big deal, you just have to take the motor to a repair shop and get the fields reglued - but it is a nuisance. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif