If you live in an area that regularly gets snowfall, you know the love-hate relationship with the white stuff. A snowy evening can be a peaceful, beautiful thing—everything gets quiet, and that untouched blanket of snow creates a gorgeous blank slate of a world. There’s sledding, and snow angels, and kids having snowball fights.
And then there’s the cleanup. Snow and ice look pretty for a while, but they also make getting around dangerous and difficult, so the day after a snowstorm is a day of sweaty, back-breaking shoveling. And making sure that no one slips and falls outside your house usually means applying some form of ice melt on your sidewalks, driveways, and steps. While we tend to use the generic term “ice melt” (or the very specific term “rock salt” as a generic), there are actually a lot of different compounds used as ice melt, and each one comes with some pros and cons. In order to choose the right one for your property, here are the basics you need to know. Liquid Calcium Chloride Ice Melt
No matter what an ice melt product is composed of, they all work in essentially the same way: By lowering the freezing point of water so it remains liquid at lower temperatures. That’s why the majority of ice melt products are salts of some kind—salt is very effective at lowering the melting point, preventing surface water from freezing, which in turn allows it to melt the underlying ice. Dumping a layer of ice melt on your sidewalks is an effective way of keeping them clear of ice both before and after a storm. Some ice melts don’t use salts, but rely on compounds that have a similar effect.
When choosing an ice melt, you need to know the main ingredient it’s using to melt your ice, because that in turn will tell you a few basic facts:
So what are your choices when it comes to choosing an ice melt?
Here are the different compounds commonly used in most ice melts you can buy—note that some manufacturers combine two or more of these to create a specific effectiveness profile:
You might also see ice melt based on urea, but it’s not very common these days outside of some industrial applications because it has an extremely dire impact on the environment.
Pure Calcium Chloride Your choice of ice melt depends on how cold it gets in your area, how much property you have to manage, and the mix of hardscaping, landscaping, and pet access you need to worry about. Knowing what’s in the products you use is crucial to protecting yourself and your pets.