Maintaining a 9,156 mile highway system, traveled more than 26.1 billion vehicle miles a year, is a formidable task for the Colorado Dept of Transportation. The familiar bright orange CDOT maintenance vehicles blade surfaces and shoulders; repair slopes, fences, road damage, and potholes; and clean drainage structures as part of regular year-round highway maintenance. Their use in snow and ice control involves plowing, sanding, de-icing, and controlling avalanches.
Richard Marquez manages all 50 structures and buildings in the 182 x 100-mile Alamosa section, where winter temperatures of well below zero are commonplace. Not surprisingly, it's winter that puts everyone to the test — greater wear and tear on vehicles and equipment and occasional breakdowns, with mobile mechanics having to go out and make repairs on-site.
"Equipment is out 24 hours a day," says Marquez. "If we have a bad storm come in it takes 24 hours to keep the highways open."
Improving the Atmosphere
Standing inside CDOT’s heavy maintenance shop in Alamosa, it's hard to realize Old Man Winter is on the other side of the huge bay doors. Mechanics repairing a plow blade are working in summer-like comfort under Solaronics infrared heaters. Marquez explains that CDOT continually looks for ways to improve the atmosphere for its employees, adding that 40 buildings in the Alamosa section alone now have infrared heaters.
"It's specified wherever it's needed for good value, reliability, and efficiency. We want our employees to feel good about where they work and take pride in their environment and equipment," he says. But he and his mechanics admit it wasn't always this comfortable in Alamosa. Unit heaters were original equipment in many of the buildings.
"It's almost a losing battle," Marquez continues. "In the morning when the three or four large doors open and the equipment rolls out, it doesn't take long to lose all the heat out of the shop. The heater is always running and it never really heats the building. It would be warm right under the heaters but in such a large shop it would be cold elsewhere, especially laying down and crawling around on a cold concrete floor when the plows come in and a blade needs changing."
With Solaronics heaters, recovery is quick when the large doors close. "We can warm the shop back up to where the crews can work comfortably," he says.
"One aspect about our heating that is different," Marquez explains, "is that the trucks get packed with ice and it accumulates on the bottom. Plows return for de-icing and go back out again."
Benefits of IR Heaters
Anthony Garcia, project manager for longstanding CDOT vendor Vendola Plumbing & Heating of Alamosa, explains how the low intensity Solaronics heaters are ideally suited to heat these buildings and help de-ice vehicles: "Positioned near roof level and out of the way of CDOT vehicles, they quietly beam infrared energy that is converted into warm, radiant heat as it reaches work surfaces, machinery, tools, concrete floors, and people below. Just like how we are warmed by the sun, the heat is retained where it's directed, so people are comfortable and tools, equipment, and floors are warm to the touch."
Energy-efficient Solaronics heaters are CSA International Design Certified to ANSI/CGA standards and are fueled economically by natural gas or widely available propane gas (LP). Customarily specified for new construction and retrofits to existing commercial and industrial buildings, they achieve savings of up to 75% of fuel costs compared to conventional warm air units, according to Tom Lester, the company's vice president of sales and marketing.
Compact, silent fans are the only moving parts. The heaters utilize a patented reflector design for optimum infrared dispersion and have a reflectional efficiency exceeding 90%. Each reflector section is constructed of Brite finish aluminum and can be precisely angled to direct the heat where needed.
CDOT’s maintenance and vehicle storage facilities require especially long runs of heater tube, but that's not a problem for the Solaronics heaters, claims Brian McLane of Air Purification Co, Solaronics' Colorado/Wyoming representative. "Lengths up to 70 ft can be utilized, with inputs up to 200,000 BTUH."
Marquez recently ordered Solaronics' new True Dual 2-Stage heaters for the Wolf Creek West facility near Wolf Creek Pass, after Garcia explained the benefits of the patented energy-saving technology. Says Garcia: “Unlike other systems claiming 2-stage operation, both air and gas flows of the Solaronics system provide precise air-to-gas ratios at both the high- and low-heat stages for optimum efficiency.”
"It only made sense that it would be more efficient," says Marquez. "Why run a heater full blast all the time when you only need half the heat?"
