I’m no longer going to use pavement de-icer (rock salt, road salt, ice melt).
For now, at least.
That’s because, upon inspection, much about the modern road salt/pavement de-icer market confuses me.
But in my defense, I had a lot of help, getting confused. The whole retail “de-icer” market pings my bullshit detector in some strong and unpleasant ways. Not just the simple stuff (“melts as low as … ). More importantly, “pet-safe” and “eco-friendly” have quietly morphed into their mealy-mouthed “safer” and “friendlier” versions. And not in a good way.
Road salt is a deep topic, but I have to start somewhere.
As described in Section 1 below, I did not intend to fuse the principles of homeopathy with those of winter pavement maintenance. That happened entirely as a result of my own stupidity.
But, per Section 2 (next post), I had a lot of help being stupid about it. Pavement de-icers are arguably the worst consumer product I’ve ever seen, in terms of manufacturers’ claims and deliberately misleading marketing.
Plus, Section 3, the practical use of chemical pavement de-icer is complicated. Even absent all the baloney presented by sellers of de-icers, there’s a lot to unpack. I’m not sure I understand the chemistry part of it, yet, let alone the weather’s contribution.
And, Section 4, most (perhaps all) commonly-used de-icers are crap for the environment, especially the aquatic environment. I can’t complain about the taste of road salt in the drinking water if I’m spreading this stuff on my own driveway.
This is just the first of several posts on pavement de-icer.
Part 1: Driveway homeopathy
1A: The hasty but satisfying post-hoc conclusion
Source: Good ol’ clipart-library.com, which has upped its game with an on-the-fly AI picture generator.
A few days ago, I salted my driveway, using calcium chloride pellets. The idea was that the (calcium chloride) salt would melt a coming light snow, causing it to run off my driveway as (slightly salty) water, and, ideally, leaving me with bare pavement. Instead of a driveway with an inch of snow on it. This, as being preferable to re-shoveling my driveway to remove a light coating of snow. And this to be achieved despite temperatures consistently (but not hugely) below 32F.
By the end of the next day, my driveway was dry and snow/ice free.
So the salt obviously worked, right? End-of-story.
Part 2: But … science
As I was patting myself on the back, I could not help but notice that all my neighbors’ driveways were also dry and snow-free.
Which, after a moment’s solemn reflection, pretty strongly suggested that my salting my driveway was a complete waste of time.
I’m pretty sure none of my neighbors salted theirs.
Part 3: thus was born the short-lived science of driveway homeopathy.
First, I found a pretty chart. (This is, in fact, an excellent chart from an excellent practical reference.)
Source: National Tank Outlet. These folks sell the tanks you need to store this stuff at industrial scale.
Those substances are all salts, chemically speaking:
- CaCl2 — calcium chloride
- NaCl — salt– rock salt — halite — sodium chloride
- MgCL2 — magnesium chloride
- CMA — calcium magnesium acetate ( calcium acetate and magnesium acetate).
- KAC — potassium acetate.
Then doing this crude calculation:
And then, only as a last resort, actually reading the directions on the bag. Which, they just flat out say, per for 1000 square feet, for some “typical” conditions (I guess), I should use just touch more than what I calculated above.
The upshot is that I should use at least an entire 50-pound bag of calcium chloride. On a 1000-square-foot section of driveway. That, to get rid of an (one) inch of typical snowfall. That should make a brine strong enough to have all that snow turn to water and run off, even though the weather is (maybe) 10 degrees below freezing. This, instead of shoveling the driveway, again, for the new inch of snow that fell.
I’ve never used it at anything close to that rate. I use it a few pounds at a time. (And, correspondingly, my first (and current) bag of calcium chloride is at least a decade old.) Nor will I ever.
Ergo, I have been engaging in homeopathic ice melting. Sure, I start off with strong brine, when those first few snowflakes hit those salt (calcium chloride) crystals (pellets). Implicitly, I must have believed that after adding a whole lot more water (in the form of an inch of snow), the resulting very dilute brine would somehow recall the strength it once had, and so continue to melt the snow.
Contrary to the laws of physics and chemistry. Or common sense.
Or the directions on the bag.
Or all of the above.
Conclusion
For now, the simple message is that homeopathic pavement de-icer helps no-one. Avoid it.
It achieves nothing while causing slight environmental harm. It’s a net negative, except perhaps in (easily deceived) the mind of the user.
So, with regard to salting the pavement: Do. Or do not.
Crazily enough, I have a lot more to say about ice melters. That’ll come out in the next posts.