The advantages of living in your own home compared to an apartment are obvious, but you have to take care of various utility problems on your own. For example, maintenance of facades and sewers, as well as snow removal in winter, including getting rid of ice on paths and sidewalks. To avoid injury and not risk your health, you need to carefully choose how to deal with ice. Some known methods can be either dangerous or ineffective, so it is important to carefully evaluate the pros and cons of each method before using it.
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When living outside the city, we strive to avoid the negative impacts of the urban environment and enjoy clean air, water, healthy products and other benefits. However, sometimes we don’t think about the consequences of our actions and end up harming both ourselves and the environment. For example, thoughtless use of fertilizers in the garden, burning garbage, or choosing methods to deal with ice on the territory of a private home can have negative consequences.
Salt and Other Chlorides
Sodium chloride, or common table salt, is known to effectively melt ice, and many people use this readily available product on their property. The principle of salt is that it lowers the freezing point of water, preventing the formation of ice, and therefore snow slurry forms on surfaces sprinkled with it, which does not freeze. This does make the surface less slippery, but there are drawbacks to this method and it’s worth thinking carefully before using salt to de-ice an area.
- Salt can damage shoes and be harmful to the paws of pets that roam the area.
- If there are microcracks on a concrete path, then melted water can penetrate into them, freeze and lead to the destruction of concrete.
- Snow porridge with salt can cause corrosion of metal parts of cars if it gets on them.
- In the spring, when snow and ice melt, salt can leach into the soil and harm the roots of perennial plants and lawn grass.
- This method is effective only in light frosts down to -15 degrees.
Such a number of disadvantages makes one wonder whether salt can be replaced with other chlorides. It’s possible. Calcium chloride, which is safe for plants, can be used to de-ice sidewalks, but its effectiveness at low temperatures leaves much to be desired. A more effective option is magnesium chloride, but it is expensive and harmful to the environment.
After the salt melts the ice crust and makes it loose, it is necessary to immediately clear the paths of the resulting snow and ice, otherwise they will freeze again when the temperature drops.
Abrasive Materials
To ensure safety on icy surfaces, it is not necessary to use solvents. You can roughen the ice by using abrasives such as sand, fine stone chips, or oven ash. The choice of material and method of sprinkling paths depends on the availability of the material and its characteristics.
Sand
It is better to prepare sand in the summer by collecting it on the river bank in a couple of buckets, since it is usually not sold in small quantities. Sprinkling sand on hard ice is practically useless, since the sand can be blown away by the wind. To avoid this, sand is often mixed with salt: the salt melts the ice, and the grains of sand freeze into it.
In addition to making walkways look sloppy, sand can cause other problems: it is difficult to remove in the spring, it clogs drainage channels when ice melts, it sticks to shoes and gets into the house.
Crushed Stone
When choosing a product for spreading ice on the territory of a private home to prevent slipping, many owners purchase crushed marble or granite. These materials have similar problems to sand, but are more expensive. However, stone chips are better fixed on ice and do not collapse underfoot. In addition, it can be collected and reused after the snow melts.
Wood Ash
The most accessible and inexpensive abrasive for those who have a solid fuel boiler installed at home or in a bathhouse. Unlike sand and stone chips, which do not harm plants along paths, wood ash can also serve them as fertilizer.
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Industrial Reagents
Today, there is no need to think about choosing a product for sprinkling ice paths on the territory of a private home; you can simply purchase special anti-icing reagents in the store. Most are salt-based, sometimes with the addition of sand or other abrasives. These products also contain additives that allow them to work at low temperatures and not cause corrosion to metal surfaces.
