Is water in short supply where your ice arena is located? Or are you looking ways to reduce your arena’s waste as much as possible — including the amount of water going down the drain? If so, you might want to consider harvesting — and re-using — the resurfacing water from the snow melt pit.
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Tracking is an important way to see how improvements you’ve made are making a difference at your indoor ice arena. Tracking run time hours on your compressors is just part of the story…
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To be honest with you, I was shocked when Les Quinton, the Parks & Recreation Manager at the Oilfields Regional Arena, in Black Diamond, Alberta told me his operations team probably does just four hours of ice maintenance a month. It was my second visit out to Black Diamond, Alberta in the past two weeks. Over the past year, I’ve spoken at length with Les, who’s been working for the municipality of Black Diamond for over 20 years, and I’m rather impressed with how meticulous he is and the extraordinary things they do at their arenas. In fact, I...
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If you’re building a new indoor ice arena, it’s relatively easy to build energy efficiency methods into the design. For older buildings, however, retrofitting to make your arena more energy efficient isn’t all that easy. After all, there’s so much that can be done, it’s sometimes hard to determine where to start. One relatively easy and inexpensive starting point is the light switches. If you’re still using on/off toggles to operate the lights, consider making them key-controlled light switches. Making the, um, switch will help you — and your team — be in control of which areas of your...
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A few weeks ago, I had a chat with an operations manager who told me there are three products on the market that are game changers for ice making: Zamboni FastIce, REALice Cold Water Resurfacing System* and Level-Ice. And, with last week’s BluEco announcement, I would venture that list has been expanded to four. Here’s why: Zamboni FastIce From ice-resurfacer manufacturer Zamboni comes FastIce – an add-on for ice resurfacers that builds ice — fast! It has a high-pressure pump that connects to a series of spray nozzles to deliver a fine mist of hot water that freezes on...
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