Ice Bucket for a Skid Steer - Handling Winter Material

In short: An ice bucket is a reinforced, sharp-edged bucket designed to break up and load frozen snow, ice and hard ground. A standard loading bucket slides across hard surfaces, while an ice bucket bites into the material and keeps its edge longer.

How does an ice bucket differ from a standard bucket?

An ice bucket is built from thicker steel and has a reinforced, sharp lower edge. It's designed to repeatedly cut through hard, frozen material, not to lift soft soil.

• Stronger cutting edge: withstands repeated cutting into packed snow and ice, where a standard bucket quickly goes blunt.
• Suitable shape: the bucket's floor and walls are shaped so material slides out easily even in cold conditions.
• Not limited to winter use: also suits loading hard compacted ground, salt-sand mix or crushed stone.

When does an ice bucket make sense?

• Clearing snow from car parks and yards: once snow is packed and partly melted and refrozen, it becomes hard and difficult to move.
• Removing an ice layer: for example from yards and driveways, where a standard plough can't cope with the ice.
• Frozen storage areas: when material such as sand or gravel is stored outdoors and freezes on the surface.

See the range on our skid steer ice buckets page.

Ice bucket versus snow plough and sand spreader bucket

An ice bucket is not a plough. A plough pushes snow aside, while an ice bucket breaks up and loads hard material. For pushing a large volume of softer snow, a V-plough suits better, and for de-icing after clearing it's worth keeping a sand spreader bucket on hand too. In many operations, all three work together: the plough pushes the loose snow, the ice bucket handles the hard layer, and the spreader bucket takes care of the slipperiness.

What else should you pay attention to?

• Mount compatibility: the ice bucket must fit the machine's quick-attach, see our loader mounts.
• Machine power: cutting hard material needs more power than lifting soft snow, so the bucket must match the machine's class.
• Maintenance: check the sharp edge occasionally and sharpen it if needed to keep up cutting performance.

We'll help you choose

Describe your winter situation - car parks, roads or storage area - and which machine and mount you work with. We'll recommend the right bucket size and explain whether, besides the ice bucket, a plough or spreader bucket is also worth considering. Get in touch via our contact page.