I HATE ROAD SALT

[JDgreen227]

I got a chuckle about using sand as it's better than salt.

Sand has salt in it, otherwise the sand would freeze solid and would not be usable. We typically mix salt with sand at any where from 4-1 to 8-1. Thus, for every 4 yards of sand put down, we use 1 yard of salt.

Salt, used straight in this area is layed down at 300-500 lbs. per lane mile.

Sand is spread by the yard, I typically spread sand at about 1.5 yards per mile depending upon road condition. Some nights, it was 2 yards per mile. So, at 1.5 yards per mile, I'm using more salt using salt sand than if I had just laid down straight salt.

When we spread salt, we spread it in a narrow strip in the center of the road. When we use sand, we have to spin it out for coverage, thus using more.

Furthermore, traffic will blow sand off the road/ice within hours, then we return to reapply. Salt once laid down turns to a brine which creeps under the ice breaking it up.

As for temps, a lot of conditions apply, wind, sun, angle of sun (Dec. or March?), air temps but especially road temps all fall into play. We always tried to have the salt down by 5 am for morning traffic to work it in. Lay salt on a Sunday morning at 18 degrees, it doesn't work well. Lay it down with the same temps on a monday with traffic going to work, big difference, works much better.

When I started with public works and snow removal I was a huge sand fan, after seeing how things work from behind the scenes, I've changed my thinking. Salt, when used correctly, is the way to go.

Need more? Sand ends up in the ditches, brooks and lakes causing silt, choking off plantlife and adding phosphorous. It also causes us to re-ditch roads at a much faster pace than normal, often twice as often as roads with no sand.

Salt on the other hand disipates. I will try to find the study from University of New York(?) that studied salt on roads and it's effect on the environment. They found that by late April the salinity of the run-off had returned to normal levels on salt only roads, while sand treated areas carried silt yearround into the bodies of water.

Also, as a 7 generation maple syrup producer, we have lost hundreds of trees to roadside salt. After looking at all the info available, I'll take the properly applied salt over the salt/sand mix whenever possible.

Just my 2 cents, hope it helps.

VERY well stated by someone who clearly knows what they are talking about...my major gripe about salt is what I mentioned at the origin of this thread...salt ruins cars no matter how well automakers build and rustproof them, one of the reasons we drive our Saturn in winter is supposedly the plastic body panels will not corrode and the unibody is said to be one of the most resistant to corrosion of any cars made. I will find out...still have my '93 Olds Cutlass Supreme ragtop, looks factory new BECAUSE it has NEVER seen a salted road.

 

[Jstpssng]

I don't like the salt because it does a lot of damage to vehicle metal. I'd rather see them use sand. Here in NY I see they have started using a liquid brine spraying truck on state roads. I don't know if that will be any better. Salt is salt whether liquid or solid.
I have heard that the state of PA uses only sand and no salt. Salt does have its merits of melting snow and ice.
You can easily see the difference in a vehicle driven for 20 winters in NY compared to one driven 20 winters say in FL.
We have a huge parking lot at work. It is commercially plowed each snowfall, then the maintenance guys go out and salt the lot to prevent freezing (which hopefully prevents slips and falls and lawsuits). They won't use sand because it clogs the storm drains in the lot.

They've been doing that for several years here. Plan on replacing brakelines quite frequently (or with coated lines)if you have an older vehicle. It is rather nice though to have bare roads after a couple days w/o precip.

I found the OP's post very similar to my frequent rant's against ABS; this is the only feature I anm aware that increases your stopping distance while claiming to be a safety feature. When I put on the brakes I want to STOP; not have a computer kick in just as the brakes are about to do their job.

 

[Egon]

Egon, is that actually true or not....?

We get salt spread on the roads here too.

 

[dex3361]

Salt destroys roads and bridges. I live on a rural road that is what we call tar and chip. Tar and chip holds up pretty well until someone decides we need some salt dropped on it. I usually clear the one mile state road instead of waiting for the state road crew to do it. It was a week after our last snowfall and the road was clear and here comes the state road crew with the plow down scraping a clear road and dropping salt on a tar and chip road. This spells disaster for the road. It was not even 2 days until the destruction began. Now after a week the road is crumbling. Anywhere the salt made its way through the base it is turning to mush. I get disgusted at this waste of money. When spring comes they will gravel the bad places and then spend thousands of taxpayer dollars on patching the road just to get it back where it was. The money could be better spent. I called the State Road Dept and asked them to please not salt our road. The lady I talked to said it was a new driver and they should have known better.

 

[Furu]

There are elements of accuracy in all the above statements. I have been interested in how nice the roads are to drive up here in Alaska since I have been working up here for the past years. And if you want to talk lots of snow and low temperatures, do a comparison and see what snow and cold temps really are. They use just a fraction of the salt that is used outside the state and have a fraction of the problems seen outside as well. See the link for more info about how much salt should be applied to sand/salt and why they have to use it and how to minimize the salt mix in sand. The link is from the Anchorage area but applies throughout the state. In Fairbanks they use even less salt.
http://anchoragecreeks.org/media/publications/road_sanding.pdf

 

[Pilot]

Atgreen's comments are informative, but what he says about sand filling ditches is questionable. He says they spread 1.5 yards per mile. You would have to spread the sand a lot of times to become a problem--a mile is 1760 yards long and ditches are usually on both sides of the road.

Also, around here, they often go back and sweep it up after the need has passed, so only a portion ends up in the ditches. I presume they put it back in the storage area for reuse. OTOH, we only get snow a few times a year and sometimes only in the higher elevations.

Sand works fine out here in Oregon and also worked well where we were in Montana. Driving in Oregon is worse than Montana because most of our snow is heavy and wet, whereas in Montana it was usually dry and traffic cleared the roads in about 24 hours.

 

[atgreene]

Atgreen's comments are informative, but what he says about sand filling ditches is questionable. He says they spread 1.5 yards per mile. You would have to spread the sand a lot of times to become a problem--a mile is 1760 yards long and ditches are usually on both sides of the road.

Also, around here, they often go back and sweep it up after the need has passed, so only a portion ends up in the ditches. I presume they put it back in the storage area for reuse. OTOH, we only get snow a few times a year and sometimes only in the higher elevations.

Sand works fine out here in Oregon and also worked well where we were in Montana. Driving in Oregon is worse than Montana because most of our snow is heavy and wet, whereas in Montana it was usually dry and traffic cleared the roads in about 24 hours.

We do not reuse the sand. If you have ever seen the sand that is swept up, you'll understand why.

As to the amount of sand, my town spreads about 2500 yards per year on approximately 50 miles of road, that's obviously 50 yards per mile. When washed down the roads and ditches to the low spots, it collects at the "catch" areas at each culvert until those are full, allowing sand and silt to fill the culverts. Take 4-5 years of sand washing into ditches and you see the problem. Some areas on the mountain that get sanded heavy and have lots of wash should have the culvert ends cleaned yearly, I'd be happy to show you some pics to prove it. I teach road maintenance and erosion control, I've spent a lot of years watching and learning and I was only trying to pass on what it is like around here.

 

[atgreene]

Do I see a slight contradiction here or did I miss something?

By using the proper amount of salt, less salt is used than salt sand mixed. I may not have made that entirely clear, but if you do the math, salt spread in a narrow path does it's job better than salt sand mix spread across the width of the road. More of the salt stays in the center of the road and tends to be disipated before it reaches the ditches. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

 

[QRTRHRS]

I got a chuckle about using sand as it's better than salt.

Sand has salt in it, otherwise the sand would freeze solid and would not be usable. We typically mix salt with sand at any where from 4-1 to 8-1. Thus, for every 4 yards of sand put down, we use 1 yard of salt.

Salt, used straight in this area is layed down at 300-500 lbs. per lane mile.

Sand is spread by the yard, I typically spread sand at about 1.5 yards per mile depending upon road condition. Some nights, it was 2 yards per mile. So, at 1.5 yards per mile, I'm using more salt using salt sand than if I had just laid down straight salt.

When we spread salt, we spread it in a narrow strip in the center of the road. When we use sand, we have to spin it out for coverage, thus using more.

Furthermore, traffic will blow sand off the road/ice within hours, then we return to reapply. Salt once laid down turns to a brine which creeps under the ice breaking it up.

As for temps, a lot of conditions apply, wind, sun, angle of sun (Dec. or March?), air temps but especially road temps all fall into play. We always tried to have the salt down by 5 am for morning traffic to work it in. Lay salt on a Sunday morning at 18 degrees, it doesn't work well. Lay it down with the same temps on a monday with traffic going to work, big difference, works much better.

When I started with public works and snow removal I was a huge sand fan, after seeing how things work from behind the scenes, I've changed my thinking. Salt, when used correctly, is the way to go.

Need more? Sand ends up in the ditches, brooks and lakes causing silt, choking off plantlife and adding phosphorous. It also causes us to re-ditch roads at a much faster pace than normal, often twice as often as roads with no sand.

Salt on the other hand disipates. I will try to find the study from University of New York(?) that studied salt on roads and it's effect on the environment. They found that by late April the salinity of the run-off had returned to normal levels on salt only roads, while sand treated areas carried silt yearround into the bodies of water.

Also, as a 7 generation maple syrup producer, we have lost hundreds of trees to roadside salt. After looking at all the info available, I'll take the properly applied salt over the salt/sand mix whenever possible.

Just my 2 cents, hope it helps.

I spent three winters spreading salt on I-80, 1974-75-76, not much has changed I see. I used to "aggravate" (I won't use the P-word) drivers when we would trickle a narrow path of salt rather than spread it across both lanes. Wide spreading would only allow the salt to get blown off while the trickle would push out from tire heat.

Trouble is, people don't want to be inconvenienced. I really get a kick out of all the quarter backing after snafu where people get snowbound such as what happened near Buffalo a couple of weeks ago. You get too much snow and too much traffic and suddenly, all bets are off.

Seems like the first few snowfalls are a learning curve. Salt gets spread like there is no tomorrow then after a few storms, they get it right. I wish I had pictures of the T-800's my buddy and I were running years ago. We pulled in to the yard after a night running New York State with these totally off white trucks which were brand new and all black and chrome underneath. Everyone's looking and wondering where we had been. You could easily go through a gallon of washer fluid during a run.

 

[crazyal]

I have a friend who runs a local town garage. They mostly use sand over salt. They have a building they keep the sand in so it doesn't get wet and what freezing it does do can easily be broken up with a loader. They do have a sand salt mixture they use when needed and they do have salt for walkways.

The simple fact is sand is cheap, real cheap. Last year there was a shortage of salt so the price was even higher than normal. I think they were buying sand for somewhere between $2 and $3 a yard. I never asked about salt but since sand is local and salt has to be trucked in (from upstate NY I think) using lots of salt has a huge impact on their budget.

 

[reconman]

Road salt response. We are having the same problem with salt in Maine and I've done auto recon-detail work for 35 years and see the effects each spring. What is scary is the brake line damage I've seen first hand. Local auto shops are replacing all brake lines and fittings end to end on vehicles three years old. Salt doesn't make driving safer it just keeps the speed up!

 

[logdog]

Car magazines always talk about going to their local junk yard in Los Angeles and finding parts for whatever 60s and 70s rides they are building. In salt country those cars have long since returned to the earth.

 

[radioman]

I too hate salt as much the other guy, but as atgreene and QRTRHRS pointed out, people dont want to be inconvienced. they take winter driving as a granted right, not a privelage. I get peeved when I see too much salt being spread, but as atgreen said, its based on many variables and when used right, it will help. I need to have the roads salted as there are toooo many people driving like idiots for MY safety. I love the back roads where its got sand on it since the snow doesnt melt and I feel its safer for me to drive since there seems to be little or no idoits on roads.

Having snow tires on my car and driving defensively on snow covered roads is the way to go. I love driving in snow covered roads since there is nobody around and I am able to get from point a to point b without an indicent without being stressed with idiots on road.

I also hate the rusting on cars, but it goes hand in hand on how people drive and the jobs it creates.

 

[QRTRHRS]

You think salt and sand are harmful to the environment? Years ago, cinders from smelting operations were spread on the roads. Some of those operations went on to be declared superfund sites. I have to say though that the sun would melt those dark cinders into the ice very quickly and provide excellant traction.

 

[grnspot110]

Missouri started using the salt solution (brine) several years ago, although I'm not sure they use as much as they used to. When they started using it, I had a lot more trouble keeping paint on my trailers than before. ~~ grnspot110

 

[Egon]

What is scary is the brake line damage I've seen first hand.

I've had three brake line rust outs in the last eleven years on my truck.

The bolts holding the shifter assembly to the frame rusted out.

Coolant hoses to transmission rusted out.

 

[crazyal]

You think salt and sand are harmful to the environment? Years ago, cinders from smelting operations were spread on the roads. Some of those operations went on to be declared superfund sites. I have to say though that the sun would melt those dark cinders into the ice very quickly and provide excellant traction.

You think that's bad what about the guy down in Missouri who spread Dioxin on the roads to keep the dust down.

 

[Sigarms]

First thing I learned when I moved to upstate NY was to make sure you bought a white car

After I got married in NC, had to trade in the regular cab Toyota pick up truck for at least an extended cab model. Truck had a little over 100,000 miles on it, but spent some long winters up north with it. Guy who I traded my truck into thought I had at least 250,000 due to the rust and condition on the bottom side. Had to explain to him that's what northern winters will do.

Truck I picked up was a local truck in Hickory NC, 7 years old, 65k on the odometer. Truck looked brand new, inside and out.

Southern cars last so much longer:laughing:

 

[dmccarty]

You think salt and sand are harmful to the environment? Years ago, cinders from smelting operations were spread on the roads. Some of those operations went on to be declared superfund sites. I have to say though that the sun would melt those dark cinders into the ice very quickly and provide excellant traction.

I was wondering if someone was going to mention cinders.

When we lived in L'ville back in the mid/late 70s there was some very heavy and frequent snow storms. The Ohio froze up enough for people to walk on which was crazy. I remember the road crews spreading cinders, salt and I think sand at the same time. The cinders worked real well.

In my area of NC they now are spreading brine on the roads which seems to work very well. DOT/cities/towns lay it down 24/48 hours in advance of the storm if they can and it really seems to work better than salt/sand. It stays on the road as well even with traffic before the storms.

A good five years or so ago we had a snow storm that hit in the afternoon during the work week. It was a surprise and the snow hit quickly. Brine could not be put out in time. People started leaving work and some schools let out early. The snow hit the road and with people driving on the snow it turned into one big sheet of ice. The snow amount was only 1-3 inches but the roads were ice rinks. Some kids spent the night at school. They just could not get home. Thousands of people got stuck on the roads and had to spend the night in their cars or if they were lucky, walk home. Some school buses were stuck on the roads as well. It was just a freaky set of circumstances.

I ran for it from work when I saw how bad it was going to be. Those other drivers on the road scare me. The only problem I had was after getting our oldest from school I had to go through a section of slopping road with a curve that head down hill. A medium duty truck with a large equipment trail started to slide down the hill and the slope which put him in my lane. I was able to get by as he was able to stop on the ice. He was crawling along when this happened but if you are on ice you are on ice. :laughing:

We got another 5 miles out of the Raleigh area and there was not a snow flake on the ground. The storm hit at just the right place, a big urban area, at the right time, with just enough snow to turn to ice. If the storm had hit a bit to the east or west it would have been no big deal. But it hit at the worst possible place.

I just do not drive for a couple of days after snow unless I have no choice. The snow and ice I can handle. But the crazy drivers are the real threat. One of the kids just had a scheduled procedure at the hospital just as a snow storm moved in. I was hoping we would beat the storm but it got here just as we left the house. The good news was that we left at 0500 so there was very little traffic. The snow was really heavy and blowing as well so visibility was limited. Very few cards on the road and most driving reasonably. But there were a couple of idiots driving at 55-60. :confused2: They were in UNC trucks so I guess they did not care since it was not their truck if they crashed it.

Later,
Dan

 

[SPIKER]

Hi again:

Someone mentioned the reason for dual brake boosters & seperate front rear lines was due to blowing a line would loose brakes in the old style. well the NEW style when you blow a line you still loose ALL brake power as well. DUAL brake master cylinders might help some but when line blows usually you will have next to no brakes what so ever. been there done that many times.

Mark