Scarifying Ice

[Luke'sScreenName]

Yes for maneuverability it is very tempting to put ob front chains.

 

[Andre Belliveau]

Hello kcoburn. I have a similar situation as you except prehaps you get colder temperatures. The one thing I could suggest is to get chains with studs. I have TRYGG chains with 8 mm studs [ice chains]. The grip is incredible. Also, plain chains are good but more plain chains are worst. The studs are the key. Bear claws will work but the ride will ruin you back. Bear claws are for in the woods. All the best.

 

[BKBoiss]

I haul logs on hundreds of kilometres of ice roads in the winter, we have hills that will make your backside take a bite out of your seat. All the graders have (or are supposed to have) ice blades, you could get a blade already made or buy a cheap straight edge and notch it to rip up the ice, with this you will need to angle the blade, add some weight to it and use tire chains. The 'ice magnets' that were pictured above are exactly what we all run on our trucks, just running up and down the road with them and some weight will help chew up the ice. Another thing we use on some of the worst hills or corners is just a sprinkle of 1" screened gravel, the rocks will melt into the ice just a bit with the sharp edges sticking up and works really well.

 

[Jay4200]

Does your town use "salt sand" on the roads? Find out where they get it. This is what is used around here. Sand with a little salt mixed in to keep IT from freezing.

AND the salt melts the sand into the ice and fuses the sand into the ice surface - otherwise the sand just slides around and/or off of the ice (AKA: p*ssing in the wind).

 

[DFB]

We have a fantastic heavy, coarse, BLACK road sand used here lately, almost could call it a gravel, that melts ice well as the sun warms it.

I use very little salt mixed in where the sun doesn't shine much...salt melt only increase freeze up in places that get little sun plus it lets the sand sink deep into the ice and you again you lose your traction as the water migrates to the surface and refreezes.

Obviously salt does help considerably to break up ice quickly, especially in the sun along with the fact that there is somewhere for the melt to also drain away.

And another thing salt really does well though but only to a point, is that it keeps your sand buckets, piles, barrels, whatever you have from freezing while in storage. Though when I ran sanding trucks for a town landscaper we had freeze ups more often than I care to acknowledge even with mixed if the trucks were left loaded overnight in well below freezing temps with a load on


Much of southern Vermont is a low salt use zone...even on the major highways. My town is one of them. I have to say there is a distinct difference in blacktop road quality after a storm transitioning from VT. into Mass, seriously like night and day. But most of Mass that I enter into has very little home water supply all municipal . I personally prefer NOT to salt my drive heavily. I don't get a lot of sun maybe 3-4 hours at best in the dead of winter. It is shaded most of the day by big pines during the winter months and only gets late day sun.


I have to laugh at this...see down at the orchard where I work the wind blows constantly because we are at the base of the highest mountain in all of Mass. The woman owner related me a story of her late old man fighting freeze up on the hilly access to the property way back when they had their home up there. That old generation would dig the dirt from their cellars (barely anyone had concrete floors back then) to use on the driveway. He was out there throwing it around and time and time again and wind would take it away as fast as he could put it down... so he says to the old woman "I'm gonna fix that" and he got the water hose out and watered down the driveway so that the sand would freeze and stay put!