My lease (at the mobile home park where I rent my lot) forbids using melting salt on the sidewalks and driveways. I note here that every last tenant in this park, myself included, disregards this rule, as slipping and sliding on the ice and breaking a bone or two can seriously mess up your chi.
Why does my landlord care, anyway (and actually, he doesn’t; this rule has never been enforced since I’ve lived here)? Will melting salts somehow shorten the life of concrete?
I don’t know about shortening the total life, but I have seen salt on concrete cause the top of it to break up and flake off.
Ice-melter chemical is available which (according to the manufacturer) will not harm cement. I believe it’s magnesium chloride.
Using salt on concrete does cause it to break up. Salt does a wonderful job melting ice/snow but when all the water from the snow evaopates the salt returns to it’s crystaline form. The crystals get down into the concrete and are strong enough to break it apart. As a result the concrete pits and flakes off. The best thing to use is calcium chloride ice melt. Most likely you’ll see it sitting right next to salt in the store at about double the price. It’s exspensive but it works at lower temperatures and doesn’t harm concrete.
Rock salt also causes other damage, e.g., when it runs off, it can kill vegatation is fairly low concentrations. It also builds up over time. So the next person to move in plants some daisies next to the walk and they all die. The owner has to live with it long term.
I lived in one of the snowiest parts of the country for several years. Never used salt. A shovel and an ice scraper always worked better, faster and cheaper with no side effects. (Except good exercise in winter.)
Actually, a bit of sand applied to the ice will work it’s way in and help with slippage as well.
Du Pont makes peladow that’s calcium chloride. It says that it’s not for use on concrete that’s less than one year old.
Another option is to use a grit of sorts.