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We’ve written stories about our great ice tech crew before. It’s no secret that we like to brag about them and our fantabulous ice. Some earlier stories under “News”:
- Lonnie Karpick – “just helping out” (2021)
- Iceman Cometh (2021)
- We have GREAT ICE and we’re very proud of our Ice Techs!
- …by the way, LUCK has NOTHING to do with it (2025)
- A GIFT at any time . . . Hurry hard! (always)
But many of us don’t always get to see the “inside story” . . . or realize how hard they worked over the Christmas “break”.
Christmas is an opportunity to work on perfecting our ice and stones – there’s no one around . . . just the 3 Amigos!
They explained that changes in the ice are normal and a product of a number of factors: outside temperatures and humidity, the amount the heaters run (and the fact we had one inoperable), air flow, outside air coming in, and dehumidifier run time to name just a few.
Here’s what they did while the rest of us played or slept in:
- Boxing Day, after the 2 on 2 – pull the rocks and scraper off the ice
- turn the temperature of the ice plant up & the heaters in the ice shed up to a nice summertime 20+ degrees Celsius over several hours
- this melts the top of the ice so there is 10mm or so of water on top.
- Dec 27 – turn the plant and air temp back down and freeze the water layer (which is now flatter as the water levels itself)
- Dec 28 – scrape the ice as some dirt and impurities make their way to the surface
- flood to add another layer of water to help level the ice further
- Dec 29 – sharpen the rocks to make sure they pick up the optimal amount of curl on our newly flat and soon to be pebbled ice. The rocks were placed on the ice on some gutter guard (plastic mesh) to cool down so they don’t melt on the ice, along with our scraper with it’s nice new and sharp blade
- Dec 30 – brought in a lift to have our electricial and heating contractors fix the light that was out and the SW heating unit (fingers crossed it is still running)
- rocks come off the gutter guard and onto the ice; condition our new scraper blade
- pebble and scrape multiple times to make it just right.
All ready for the New Year and second half! Got rid of the wonky and back to flat and curly.
OMG . . . we’re exhausted just reading this list.
We hope you found this entertaining and informative. Feel free to ask any of our techs if you have any questions.