Spreading just a tiny amount of road salt?

[dodge man]

Not really related to salt directly but I have found if you can clean you driveway off from snow before it gets driven on you won’t need salt. My driveway is paved and obviously if it’s an ice storm you need salt. I have a water softener and use 40 lb bags of solar salt. It’s not as fine as sidewalk salt but is often cheaper.

 

[SmallChange]

if you can clean you driveway off from snow before it gets driven on you won’t need salt [...] obviously if it’s an ice storm you need salt

Yeah. Trouble around here is, we keep getting "wintry mix", or snow and then rain, or rain and then snow. I'm finally equipped to handle the kind of deep snow only that we used to get, and these days mostly we're getting something much harder to cut through.

Years back, we got an 18" snow that my little Kubota would just sink into, three of its four wheels just spinning (4WD plus differential lock). Now that's what I want!

 

[jyoutz]

I have used lawn fertilizer instead of salt to melt ice. Yes, you can burn by overdoing the fertilizer, but it’s easier on the lawn and plants than salt.

 

[ruffdog]

I agree with the other people on manually spreading salt/sand if it is only 250 feet. I would be back in the house having a hot coffee before someone else gets their tractor/spreader warmed up.

 

[seville009]

Not really related to salt directly but I have found if you can clean you driveway off from snow before it gets driven on you won’t need salt. My driveway is paved and obviously if it’s an ice storm you need salt. I have a water softener and use 40 lb bags of solar salt. It’s not as fine as sidewalk salt but is often cheaper.

i only put salt down when we actually get real ice (vs compacted snow that slowly turns to ice).

 

[SmallChange]

I agree with the other people on manually spreading salt/sand if it is only 250 feet. I would be back in the house having a hot coffee before someone else gets their tractor/spreader warmed up.

Point well taken.

However, the situation I sometimes find myself in is that I use the tractor to clear some of what's out there, especially if it's snow on top of ice. Then I want to treat the ice. I wouldn't mind having a more powerful way of doing this last step, given that I'm out there already.

If ice were the only thing, I'd typically hand spread salt on the walks and around our parking and turnaround area, and let it work a little, then start hand spreading down the hill and working my way down as traction improved.

 

[LD1]

Yeah. Trouble around here is, we keep getting "wintry mix", or snow and then rain, or rain and then snow. I'm finally equipped to handle the kind of deep snow only that we used to get, and these days mostly we're getting something much harder to cut through.

Years back, we got an 18" snow that my little Kubota would just sink into, three of its four wheels just spinning (4WD plus differential lock). Now that's what I want!

The problem is....you dont mention where "around here" is? Makes it hard to give actual advise.

Some of the calcium vs sodium vs magnesium debate can be put to bed if we had a clue.

Also....you mention spreading 50-100lb or so....then you say a narrow 250' long driveway. So Im thinking about 3000sq ft.

Well around here most people target about 3-4lbs per 1000sq ft. So you are WAY overdoing it.

My drive is FLAT. And only 90' long. But its about 35' wide with a 3-car wide turn around. So about the same square footage.
A 5 gallon bucket of rock salt will do that about 4-5 times.

A 3PH spreader the only way to control the spreading width is with the speed. You cannot make your PTO go any slower than idle. And that is gonna still throw it too far without some deflectors to keep it within your 10-12' wide drive. And if you are spreading something that isnt uniform, like rock salt its gonna be hard to dial down the drop rate without it wanting to plug up. A uniform material would be better. But you still only need to spread like 10-15 pounds per even. Any more is just a waste.

 

[Hay Dude]

Not really related to salt directly but I have found if you can clean you driveway off from snow before it gets driven on you won’t need salt. My driveway is paved and obviously if it’s an ice storm you need salt. I have a water softener and use 40 lb bags of solar salt. It’s not as fine as sidewalk salt but is often cheaper.

It’s also more often in stock by the pallet when the weatherman—induced panic buying starts.

 

[SmallChange]

you dont mention where "around here" is? Makes it hard to give actual advise.

[...]

Also....you mention spreading 50-100lb or so....then you say a narrow 250' long driveway. So Im thinking about 3000sq ft.

Well around here most people target about 3-4lbs per 1000sq ft. So you are WAY overdoing it.

[...]

A 3PH spreader the only way to control the spreading width is with the speed. You cannot make your PTO go any slower than idle.

[...]
I never looked it up before, but you're right, I am overdoing it. I have a 250' driveway plus about 50' off to one side to access the barn, and I have a 30' by 30' parking and turn around area. I have 4000 square feet, including everything. Online references I found say I should spread 4.5 lbs of salt per 1000 square feet, so that's 18 lbs. Practically, one 20 lb bag.

I just tried using my broadcast spreader, which I normally use for lawn stuff, with a 20 lb bag of ice melt. It's not rock salt, it's something more uniform that I figured would go through the spreader better, but I was in a rush because people were about to start driving and moving around out there so I didn't look around to figure out if it is supposed to be spread at a different rate. I consumed the whole bag. The spreading operation itself was faster and easier and more uniform than I usually get throwing it with a scoop or coffee can. I like it.

On parts of the driveway where it's a thin uniform layer of ice, I hope this will be a good treatment.

My 30' square area is where we walk the most, getting to and into and out of the cars and unloading groceries and whatnot. It's on the north side of the house, which is 25' tall at the peak of the roof, and it has 10' high fences and hedges on the east and west sides, so it gets little sun. There's also little slope. Ice, hard transparent ice not packed down snow, can build up there as much as two inches thick which makes walking treacherous. This is where I use salt the most intensively. Water treatment salt in big formed pills sometimes tunnels down and leaves the ice slab with holes in it but otherwise still there. Sometimes rock salt does a lot of melting but creates little canyons in the ice that seem to transport the salt away. My old Kubota with a dozer blade would skate over it, and my new setup hasn't gotten tested on this yet because the last couple winters haven't formed it. I still haven't figured out how to treat this area well, though if winters keep getting milder it may become moot.

"Around here" is roughly midway between Baltimore and Philadelphia.

Thanks!

 

[toolslinger]

By those rates, I too am way overspreading... If I could develop a little patience, it would be interesting to see if that would work. I know flat out it wouldn't on the really steep area, because it'll melt through, and then run off. Some storms, I've had to apply it a few times to break through enough to be able to scrape the remaining ice off.

Do those application rates ever mention thickness of ice to be dealt with? A glaze is real different than the 2-4 inches that will build up on the north side of my house from roof runoff...