I didn’t want to derail the thread on car windshield deicing, but I’m looking for advice on an issue with the sidewalk freezing in front of my house.
I live in an end rowhouse in Washington, DC. My gutters and sump pump attachin to a pipe that dumps water out into the alley. Because of the slope the water then trickles down the alley and along the sidewalk and freezes, making a walking hazard for my neighbors.
I’ve been spreading deicing crystals every morning to minimize the hazard. I’ve also placed a bucket in the alley under the pipe; this allows me to empty the bucket away from the sidewalk, but if there is a lot of water overnight the bucket overflows and freezes on the sidewalk.
Any ideas on an affordable additive I could put in the bottom of the bucket so that as the water is emptied into the bucket, it mixes with the additive and is therefore less likely to freeze? Ideally it would be something easily obtainable and not a eco/health hazard. Thanks for any advice.
A bunch of ideas, not sure if any are handy for you:
Get a bigger bucket. In fact, get a rain collector size barrel.
Can you reroute the water to another place?
Salt. Big pellets. Sprinkle liberally to the area where water could freeze so at least it would freeze as a big slick puddle. Preferable to avoid if you have a lot of dog traffic since that can hurt/damage their paws though.
If you have a feed store near you or some other place that caters to people who have farm animals you could try buying a salt lick block and put it in the bottom of the bucket.
They come in various sizes and are used to provide salt and minerals to cows, horses, deer, etc. They are fairly hard and slow to dissolve. It might raise the salinity enough to keep the water from freezing.
Salt will damage the concrete sidewalk and it’s environmentally unfriendly. You may need to check and see if you can legally use salt on the public sidewalk.
Thanks for the ideas. Unfortunately, I can’t get a bigger bucket because a) the pipe is only 12 inches off the ground and b) the bucket can’t be very big because vehicles travel down the alley and the bucket can’t block traffic; I’m currently using one of those square plastic buckets that kitter litter comes in because c) you would never want to put something in the alley that has any value whatsoever because DC.
I also can’t really reroute the water. The pipes connect to old DC storm pipes that then carry the water through my concrete retaining wall onto the alley. This has recently become an issue because we repaired the wall, and pipes before that the water was just kind of sitting around the foundation of my house.
I appreciate the thoughts. Salt might not be ideal, but it might be better than someone falling on the ice. A salt lick is interesting.
It’s extremely common in Minnesota. In 2009-2010 season, MNDOT used 180,252 tons of salt on the roads. Of course, it will do some damage to a concrete sidewalk, so will a tree with its routes and fluxtuations in temperatures as well. The difference is that it’s mitigated by the bodily injury a slick sidewalk can create.
Some thoughts, can you separate the 2 flows (sump and run off), can you get them further upstream, can you put in a diversion that would divert some of the flow, can you dam it up so that the water freezes before the sidewalk, can you crack the sidewalk or put holes in it so some of the water goes into ground water.
No, I wouldn’t be able to dig up the city’s sidewalk or alley and there really is nowhere to divert the water. This is a small city lot, I have a tiny yard and then I’m surrounded on three sides by either alley or sidewalk. The fourthside is my neighbor’s attaching rowhouse. The water has to go out on to the alley. My house is the end unit on the downward side of a slope, so it’s not just my groundwater that is pumped out by the sump pump, but everyone on the hill’s groundwater (eventually). DC winter’s aren’t so bad, so I’m hoping to figure out a middling solution that keeps people from falling for the little bit of winter weather we get.
Honestly? Because I’m worried that a sign won’t give me any protection in court if one of my DC lawyer neighbors falls and breaks a leg. The curb cut for the alley is poorly designed with no lip to funnel rainwater into the street, it all cascades down the sidewalk and freezes in the winter. It’s not just the water from my house, but any rain water or melted snow that comes down the alley, but my house is on the end right next to the sidewalk and I already had one neighbor mention it.
Yes, you are correct. And Minnesota is concerned salting roads is detrimental to groundwater supplies. Some local studies are finding salt use is damaging/destroying fisheries in lakes and streams.
Conversely, salting roads is not done in Oregon at all, although neighboring states do it to some extent. ODOT began an experiment within the past year in selected areas of I5 and US95. There was a horrific bus crash last year in eastern Oregon that killed nine people because of ice on I84. ODOT refused to salt I84 even after the crash.
Get a few cheep plastic buckets or some other type of plastic container. Let them fill up and freeze. Rotate them as needed. Pop out the ice as bricks to build some sort of winter wonderland thingy.
Can you connect a hose or one of those gutter rain pipes? the black corrugated type that you buy in lengths of 50’? Then you can literally run the water down the side of the alley to a better place like a gutter. Like this stuff:
You can look on Craigslist and the like and find some for free from time to time.
It’s common around here for old sidewalks to have a groove that funnels smaller amounts of water into the street. Making a narrow channel like this in the sidewalk might be pretty cheap. You might try contacting your local elected representative (if any; I realize it’s Washington :)) and see if you can get the city to either do the work, or give you permission to do it.