Private Gritters

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noel123ie

Registered User
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162
Hi all

I live in an estate in Glanmire Cork City badly affected by the ice

Do you know of any individual that will do private gritting for our estate

Many Thanks
Noel
 
Not answering your question directly, but I have emailed my local council to see if they will provide a salt/grit box for our street, as there is a very steep hill which was impassable over the last few weeks.

I am not expecting a positive response to be honest, as they have recently refused to change faulty street lighting bulbs, saying it was the responsibility of the developer.

Have you considered buying a box and grit yourself? I looked into it, and a 200litre box is approx £100 and the salt/grit approx £185 for 1/2 tonne. If you could organise the residents to chip in and share the cost it would be easily achieveable. I'm considering doing the same thing myself.
 
RMCF said:
Not answering your question directly, but I have emailed my local council to see if they will provide a salt/grit box for our street, as there is a very steep hill which was impassable over the last few weeks.

I am not expecting a positive response to be honest, as they have recently refused to change faulty street lighting bulbs, saying it was the responsibility of the developer.

Have you considered buying a box and grit yourself? I looked into it, and a 200litre box is approx £100 and the salt/grit approx £185 for 1/2 tonne. If you could organise the residents to chip in and share the cost it would be easily achieveable. I'm considering doing the same thing myself.
Click to expand...

great idea how does this box work you buy it and put it somewhere on estate is it?

Problem is how do you spread if the roadway is frosty?

I was thinking of hiring guy with jeep and trailer and spreading with shovels

Where are these available?

Thanks for reply
Noel
 
Well to be honest, my idea of buying it was only to use it on the steep hill to make it passable by people living at the top of the estate. Others, who live on the flat, would just have to take it easy on the ice as usual.

I don't think if you were to spread it on every road surface on an estate that it would last very long, to be honest. But you might then get people complaining that grit/salt is spread outside some houses but not theirs.

My logic was to buy a box ourselves, place it on the street at the highest point of the hill, buy a load of salt/grit (probably in bulk from likes of B&Q or Homebase), fill it up and tell residents to spread it when they feel its needed.

If you think that it might cost €400 or so, then thats not a great amount between a load of residents, as lets be honest, the councils are never going to grit private housing estates, are there?
 
Just as an alternative (given that the market is likely to push up the price of grit), we used dishwasher salt which not only worked in a very short space of time but has also meant ice free path for the last 4 days (today will be a test).

One simple pack of Lidl's generic brand went pretty far and has done the trick. If a few can club together to get a good stock in, you'd get some results and may be easier to get hold of than grit.
 
We've been using ash from the fire (cold ash that is) and it's excellent. Although not too many open fires these days.
 
I have seen quite a bit of ash spread over the estate recently, so it must work.

As for the grit boxes, I am sure if you want to proceed and do-it-yourself then the likes of the major hardware stores (B&Q etc) should stock grit boxes.

This crowd is in Lisburn, so I am sure they would do some sort of postage deal to RoI
[broken link removed]
 
I used a bottle of that ?? table salt that is availble in every shop in Ireland. Brushed off the light snow and spread it. Covered two tracks about 5 metres long with a light dusting, then some plastering sand and it has stayed clear for the past week where all around has about an inch of snow.
 
My husband has been attempting to grit access road and driveways in our area (Dublin Mountains) for us and our neighbours as a private individual - not being paid. There are one or two elderly neighbours housebound in the area. He has a 4 wheel drive jeep and a trailer and planned to get the grit/salt and do it himself. Salt in large quantities is sold out in Homebase / B&Q, etc etc. Grit in builders suppliers etc. going the same way.

I emailed our local councillor who gave me the name of a guy in the roads dept. depot to see if he could give us some grit or salt to enable us to do it ourselves and the contact said "the County is working on minimal supplies as deliveries of salt due from Limerick never made it yesterday. The Council has 11 gritting trucks out at the moment and are now using a 4/5's salt mix themselves as stocks are so low. Stocks of salt, despite Government protestations, are simply not sufficient at the moment."

Hubby has since managed to get hold of a quarter of a tonne of mix - don't know details yet. One lady down the lane hasn't left house in a week and hasn't been able to get shopping in. Myself and the kids are having a fab time with the snow and walking up and down the trek to the shops / pub etc but it's just not fun when you're not able bodied.

A.
 
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