Part Two in a series only on MountainReporter.com
You can find the last article on power outages, click here
For this article, let’s talk about managing ice on walkways and driveways.
Many mountain residents are here for the four seasons our climate has to offer. Yet, when those white, soft, fluffy flakes hit the ground and get walked or driven on….ice appears and things can get crazy.
The easiest way to rid your traction needing areas of ice is to remove the snow before it gets walked on or driven on. Shoveling fresh fallen snow is like pushing around powdered sugar in your fairy tale winter wonderland. Maybe it’s daytime and you can hear the muffled sound of cars in the distance and a few kids playing and you have your coffee just merrily shoveling the walkway. Or it’s night time and your neighborhood is eerily quiet; all of the normal night time traffic noise is muffled out by the snow and you have your hot chocolate as you clear your driveway of the magical white flakes.
Or maybe, just maybe…. you’re like me and wake up late, gotta get to work, run out the front door, down the stairs leaving footprints over the kid’s footprints all the way to the driveway where you jump in the car and drive back and forth trying to bust through the berm our friendly neighborhood plow driver left along the edge of your driveway and leave heading to work, only to return that night repeating the process in reverse just trying to get home, make dinner and end another crazy snow day…(phew, outta breath after that run on sentence!)
The moment snow is walked on or driven on, it compacts and even if shoveled will freeze and refreeze into a wonderful layer of ice that doesn’t seem to melt until the July 4th Lake Arrowhead fireworks display. In those cases, the battle begins.
The best defense is a great offense and the same holds true in this case. Pre-dispersing ice melt or salt on your walkways and driveway before the storm works great, most of the time. If you want to pre-flight your ice melt, remember, you can only do this successfully if the ambient temps are below freezing before the storm. If rain is forecast during the day, then temps are supposed to drop and rain is supposed to turn to snow, this will not work. The rain will wash the ice melt away before the snow hits it.
Why is pre-flighting your ice melt a good idea? Well two things happen.
First, as the snow is falling initially it melts. Snow will stick to bushes and handrails while melting on the areas that you have your ice melt on. Then as it accumulates the snow builds up like normal but there’s a layer that does not freeze against your driveway or your walkways. if the snow gets that deep, you will still need to shovel but the shoveling will be much easier as the snow wear slides off the layer with ice melt. Then just repeat the process and you’re good to go.
In cases where it rains first and then snows or the snow is already on the ground you will still need to shovel and then disperse your ice melt as usual.
In the case of the snow being driven on and walked on before you can shovel it or if ice is already present then simply disperse your ice melt over those areas and give it about an hour and then you can shovel it.
Now we get to the part where we talk about different types of ice melt. Back used everybody uses salt. However, there is an environmental concern about the salt killing the bushes the water drains into. On our mountain, most people use calcium magnesium acetate or CMA. This is the blue material that resembles rock salt. Other options are magnesium chloride, potassium chloride or calcium chloride but they can corrode metal, damage walkway and stain carpets.
The other problem with rock salt is that it can damage your landscaping, deteriorate concrete, leave bleached white spots, rust metal, and is harmful to fish. All deicers that are sold on the market are more environmentally friendly than rock salt.
Ace Hardware and Rim Forest lumber both sell the eco-friendly options as well as stater Brothers and Goodwin’s.
Also, to make sure this isn’t that back breaking, use an ergonomic snow shovel. These are also available at the hardware stores.
