How Humber College Ditched Bag Salt for Bulk Liquid

Scott Iles has spent almost 20 years in Humber College's grounds maintenance department, and for the last four he's been running one of the larger liquid and treated salt programs on the Liquid Network. What started as a way to escape back-breaking bag salt (three to five tons moved by hand, per storm) has grown into a dialed-in system: treated salt on walkways, liquid brine in the parking garage and on interlock, and roughly 6,000 gallons of on-site liquid storage. Antonio and Scott dig into the real learning curve, the smell problem nobody warns you about, why liquid holds up in freezing rain, and what Scott would tell anyone still on the fence.

What You'll Learn

• Why Humber moved off bag salt after years of manually loading three to five tons of material per storm
• How Humber split the work: treated salt on walkways and stairs, liquid brine in the parking garage and on interlock
• The smell and tracking issue that hit hard in year one, and the simple fix (pulling spray back 10-15 feet from doorways)
• Why equipment and filter maintenance matters more than people expect, especially after summer storage
• Why liquid performs surprisingly well in freezing rain, and where pure liquid still can't fully replace granular
• How Humber got through last year's salt shortage by leaning harder on brine
• What moving to 6,000 gallons of bulk storage changed about their day-to-day operation

Timestamps

• 0:00 — Welcome and guest intro
• 0:53 — About Humber and Scott's 20 years in grounds maintenance
• 1:40 — Humber's two campuses, and the North Campus Scott manages
• 2:05 — How it started: back-breaking bag salt and a trade show connection
• 4:58 — Dialing it in: the pre-storm playbook Humber runs today
• 5:52 — Where treated salt goes versus where liquid brine goes
• 7:59 — Getting the contractor side moving toward liquid too
• 9:40 — The sugar beet blend, and the pressure of sitting next to the Humber River
• 11:28 — The smell problem nobody warns you about
• 15:34 — Why liquid holds up better than granular in freezing rain
• 16:25 — The one thing pure liquid still can't do in the Great Lakes region
• 18:42 — Getting through last year's salt shortage
• 20:30 — Six thousand gallons: what bulk storage changed
• 23:15 — What Scott would tell someone about to make this decision

Guest Bio

Scott Iles is superintendent at Humber College's North Campus, the larger of Humber's two campuses, where he has worked in the grounds maintenance department for almost 20 years. Humber's grounds maintenance program dates back to the college's founding in 1967. About four years ago, after a colleague connected with Eco Solutions at a trade show, Humber moved away from bag salt toward a treated salt and liquid brine program. Today Humber runs roughly 6,000 gallons of on-site liquid storage and applies both treated salt and liquid brine across its walkways, parking garage, and interlock areas.

Links

• Learn more about the Liquid Network: theliquidnetwork.ca