Has winter weather turned your driveway into a skating rink? Here are 5 of the most effective ways to deice driveways and walkways with tips on how to prevent ice from accumulating in the first place.
1. Rock Salt
The most common way to deice your driveway is to use rock salt. We drop about five million tons of the stuff every year to prevent our driveways, steps, and sidewalks from becoming mini skating rinks. The benefit: it’s cheap and available everywhere. The downside: it contains cyanide and chloride, making it dangerous for plants and pets.
2. Heat Mats
In-ground heat mats are a means of deicing your driveway for people who are building a new house or are about to replace their driveway. But for most everyone else, they’re prohibitively expensive.
3. All Natural and Green Products
A number of deicing products on the market are advertised as all-natural or environmentally friendly, but even those can be corrosive, expensive, or just plain ineffective. Calcium magnesium acetate, for example, is biodegradable, but it only deices when the air temperature is -3ºC or warmer.
4. Sand
Sand or gravel are good for creating traction, making icy surfaces less dangerous to walk across, but they can create a sloppy mess of driveway and clog up storm drains during a thaw.
5. Shovel Regularly
As with most things, there’s no easy way out when it comes to deicing your driveway. The most effective method—one that is green and works 100 percent of the time—is to prevent snow from building up and turning into ice in the first place. That means shoveling snow as soon as the white stuff hits the ground, even if it involves venturing out mid-storm.
