It's that time of year again!
This isn’t a gripe against snow blowers. While I’m sure that, someday, we’ll have electric snowblowers rather than the gas-powered variety, I don’t begrudge anyone with a lane to clear the power of a snow-throwing machine.
While I leave the snow-blowing to the city crews, this weekend I was out annoying my neighbours with that scraping and smacking. Because the temperature hovered above freezing, I really wanted to get the ice off of my driveway and sidewalk while it was softened up, so I was out peeling and scraping it away inch by inch. If anyone was trying to nap, I’m sure my efforts were not appreciated. I was actually enjoying the cold, enjoying the physical work in the brisk air.
When I’d cleared off the slippy stuff as much as possible, I thought about what I should do to keep the road grippy for passersby. While it’s common to use salt, and while it seems like a harmless, natural substance, it is actually very harmful to plants and waterways. We know from damage to our cars just how corrosive salt is, and you may have noticed damage to trees along roadways, or irritation on pets’ paws as well. Cities with drainage into lakes and rivers can really stress the waterways with all the salt going onto roads and sidewalks, as shown in this explanation from Minnesota. While cities are looking for effective alternatives to salt, and putting themselves on a salt diet, homeowners can do a few things to help.
This winter I’m trying a couple of commercial “eco friendly” ice melting / traction products to use instead of salt. Ecos Ice Melt does a good job of breaking up slippery ice patches, and EcoTraction provides good grip underfoot, as an alternate to sand. Don’t forget that the sun is on your side: anything dark applied to ice, from sand to ashes, will heat up in the sun, will to melt holes in the ice around it.
How do you deal with ice and snow around your home?
