ice melting

[MossRoad]

Well, unless you drive fast and splash the heck out of your underside, salt products shouldn't cause a rust problem on your driveway or parking lots. And if you wash your vehicle once on a while in winter, it should be fine, too.

The only place I use any ice melter is our back walkway and a path to the garage so my wife doesn't slip and fall. I just use solar salt, the same thing I use in our swimming pool. I get it for about $4.50 a 50 pound bag and 1 bag lasts all winter and anything left I dump in our pool in spring.

For my in-laws, who are elderly and cannot afford a fall, I use Prestone driveway heat. I find it on sale in bigger bags. One or two bags last all year. Works really, really well! They have north facing house, so their front porch, walkways, driveway, etc... are always in the shade and never get sun, so its a must.

Prestone Driveway Heat 9.5 lb. Concentrated Ice Melt-95J-HEAT - The Home Depot

 

[tcreeley]

Well, unless you drive fast and splash the heck out of your underside, salt products shouldn't cause a rust problem on your driveway or parking lots. And if you wash your vehicle once on a while in winter, it should be fine, too.

The only place I use any ice melter is our back walkway and a path to the garage so my wife doesn't slip and fall. I just use solar salt, the same thing I use in our swimming pool. I get it for about $4.50 a 50 pound bag and 1 bag lasts all winter and anything left I dump in our pool in spring.

For my in-laws, who are elderly and cannot afford a fall, I use Prestone driveway heat. I find it on sale in bigger bags. One or two bags last all year. Works really, really well! They have north facing house, so their front porch, walkways, driveway, etc... are always in the shade and never get sun, so its a must.

Prestone Driveway Heat 9.5 lb. Concentrated Ice Melt-95J-HEAT - The Home Depot

I use the bucket to plow my 2 driveways. The plow truck throws up salt mixed snow the first 3 feet of my drive. I clear that every storm along with the snow/salt mix in front of my mailbox. The rims on my tractor get the rust. My walk behind snowblower that I use away from the road has no rust on it - with years of use. I am always putting oil on my rims to try and protect them. The tires pick up the snow in the treads lift it and the snow slides down before they have gone all of the way round. My tires come in wet from plowing. Impossible not to distribute some of that salt/snow mix on the tractor. Helps if I keep clearing the snow on the clean stuff I suppose - but I hate the calcium chloride. Impossible to protect a vehicle against it that is made with steel. Rust comes and stays and grows.

 

[6sunset6]

All right Here are pictures and an update on my research into melting ice
It turns out anything that gets sprayed has to go down before it snows or ice deposits. The solution gets sprayed down and the water evaporates leaving a thin film of what ever salt or sugar you have chosen. Temp is sort of fussy 20-35 dF Degraded results above and below. Good news is spraying can be done two days ahead. Now comes the fun part. What is the recipe.
I have chosen 10 gal of water with 20# of sodium chloride. Thats is just under the saturated solution mark. Over saturation solids come out and would clog the pick up filter. Then 2 gal more water with 4# calcium chloride . Saturation is just over 6# per gal so this is good. Then 1 gal of beet juice. There is some discussion about whether or not beet juice lowers the melting point . Some info says it does and some says it is just sticky. Anyway For this mix my cost is $1.36 per gal. The application is 1 oz per sq yard. My application for the areas I talked about previously is about 3 gal. Not bad if it works.
The remaining issue is spray nozzles. The pump is 1gpm at 40psi. Rather than 8 nozzles 12 " apart , the way the highway trucks do it, I think I am going to use a single broad cast nozzle and run a hose to the rear of the tractor and mount the nozzle on the snowblower. That way I can spray while driving away and reduce what lands on the equipment. Heck of a time to play with nozzles and spray patterns. Rock salt with chunks and junk in it takes a while to dissolve. CC goes in quick. Maybe hot water to dissolve the SC faster.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Beet juice must lower the freezing temperature as they use it in tires.

I have seen too much destroyed equipment due to salt to even consider it. It's terribly creepy!

 

[6sunset6]

oh yeah beet juice is really heavy 5 gal water 42 # 5 gal beet juice 53# Although 5 gal water with 10 # of salt would be 53# as well.

 

[Looking4new]

Hot water will dissolve the CC faster, too.

 

[6sunset6]

The first test of the Brine spray system. It is just starting to snow 2-4 predicted. Not enough for a real test but we will see. The first picture is the tank and sprayer nozzle on the front of the plow. It is a broadcast nozzle so where it is covers the width of the plow.
The next picture is the area I sprayed last night. The dark area is sprayed. This is on the north side of the Norway spruces. The driveway takes a long time to melt in the shade.
A side comment. The tractor headlites are completly blocked by any front end implement. I mounted a LED light bar on top of the cab , disconnected the cable under the hood, bought a mating connector and wired the high beam pins to the LED bar. The high beam circuit already ran thru a relay. The two high beams were 65w each and the LED bar is 120w so all is good.

 

[SandburRanch]

To prevent a slippery surface I'd use cat litter as opposed to any corrosive material and let the weather do the melting in the spring.

 

[clarky711]

Cut the spruces? I'm doing the same on my drive where they block the sun and it gets icy, although they are large white pines. Although I really want to wait for a large snow storm to help protect the asphalt.

 

[dnw64]

I HATE, HATE, HATE anything that will melt snow or ice.

You are very strange.

The best thing for melting snow or ice is the Sun. Been doing it for millennia and likely to continue doing so for at least our lifetime, even if you're a young'un, If you hate the Sun you will die (on principle, not necessarily practically, although everyone dies eventually, regardless of their perception of our need of the Sun).

To melt ice on your driveway use radiant tubing buried under the surface and solar collectors to transfer the heat from the Sun to the drive. It may be "somewhat" expensive* to set up, but very cheap to maintain. And no corrosion initiation.

*but what does it cost to replace that [fill in the blank] that slid off the cliff, or the rusted out [again, you name it]? Lose a Bentley and a Lambo (tractor) and you can quickly recoup your cost.