We’re wondering what to use on our concrete sidewalks and wood decks at the office for safety (the sun usually melts the residual stuff after it is shoveled, but just in case…). We would like to avoid tracking in abrasive and chemical things to the polished floor and carpets, but that might be unavoidable. We tried NaCl and it pitted some of our concrete sidewalks. Some suggestions have been kitty litter, bird seed (cracked corn) and sunflower seeds. I figure the bird seeds might be self-cleaning, as the birds will eventually take them, but oil seeds might injure the floor.
So what’s the best all-round material? Will kitty litter work or just turn to mush?
Ice melter is available which, according to the label, will not damage concrete or adjacent turf if used according to directions. The primary ingredient is magnesium chloride. The best tool to spread it is a small plastic hand-cranked spreader made for grass seed and fertilizer.
I don’t think bird seed would be self-cleaning. Sunflower shells would be left behind, as well as bird poop.
And pray they don’t burn out on a cold snowy day or you’ll have ice.
I’d suggest shoveling, putting down an ice melter or at least something for traction if you want to stay away from chemicals and then a waterhog mat either right inside the door, right outside the door or both. They’ll do a good job of getting alot of the sand/salt…off boots and shoes especially if you can get one about 10 feet long so people have to take a couple of steps on it. Maybe even accompany it with a sign asking people to please wipe the snow and sand off their feet before entering.
BTW that link goes to a site with a good picture of the mat, I don’t know anything about the company whose site it is.
Approach your boss (unless you’re the boss) about a project next summer to tear up the sidewalks and to have a hydronic heat loop installed under the new walk. Have it charged with glycol instead of water, and no more ice problems. Should earn you points for creative thinking, even if they don’t go with it.
DO NOT use kitty litter, as many of them are made of clay pellets which dissolve into a tricky layer of slippery grease as soon as they get wet on a sidewalk or porch steps.
Use the commercial “ice melter” pellets. They work; the unmelted pellets add a bit of traction; and they won’t destroy your floors if you have those big, businesslike “wipe yer feet” runners just inside the doors, leading into the office proper.
The most effective deicer is calcium chloride. Not only does it lower the freezing point of water, but it actually liberates heat as it dissolves in water. (In chemical terms, the dissociation of calcium chloride in water is an exothermic reaction.)
You can buy 50-lb bags of calcium chloride at home improvement stores, or just look on the label of various deicers to see what the active ingredient is. One very effective deicer comprised of calcium chloride is Prestone Driveway Heat.
I though pissing in the snow was only good for writing names of exes.
After reading this thread and being advised against kitty litter by several sources, The Boss has decided to try sunflower seeds for now, after the sidewalks are shoveled. Of course, seeds won’t melt much, but it might provide some traction and increase bird & squirrel watching. We’ll see what happens.
Anything that contains “chloride” will prove damaging to most solid surfaces, such as asphalt, cement, flooring/rugs, wood…screws…nails… and just about anything else you want to last – chloride will damage it.
Once the chloride ion is imbedded in the material, the material’s life is shortened.
Well, this morning I used 4 of those little packets of table salt from Wendy’s.
(We had a tiny patch of ice right in front of the front door at work.)
Sand can be good if you need to improve traction over a large area, but to clear sidewalks, commercial ice melter is your best bet.
Birdseed is a nice idea and all, but… Well, if I was a juror hearing a liability case where you were being sued because someone slipped and fell on your icy, birdseed covered sidewalk, I’d find you negligent.
You can get a 4x6 rug made of commercial carpet for 20 bucks at the Home Depot. Get one of those, or better, an even larger one, and use it as a doormat/landing strip.
I hope this doesn’t come across as too harsh, but IMHO your boss is an idiot.
If he is bound and determined to not use a chemical deicer, then just use sand. Sand particles are small and provide traction. Sunflower seeds are much larger, provide little or no traction, are potentially slippery, present an uneven surface to walk on.
If you read the link I provided above, the proper way to use a deicer is so that you can remove the ice. You should apply just enough that the bond between the ice and the concrete is loosened enough that all of the ice can be shoveled and/or scraped off. If you are depending on the deicer to melt all of the ice without shoveling, then you run into a situation where you are using so much that the chlorides can potentially damage the concrete and or the floors. Properly applied, you don’t have to use very much calcium chloride, and it’s very unlikely to damage anything. (BTW, calcium chloride is actually commonly added to wet concrete to accelerate hydration (curing) in cold weather.)
Your boss should also be weighing the potential damage to his sidewalks and polished floors when compared to negligence lawsuit should someone slip and fall on his icy and sunflower seed-covered walks. Indeed, putting down something as useless as sunflower seeds could actually increase his liability. He can’t claim that he was unaware of the problem and indeed potentially aggravated the problem with such an ineffective “solution.”
I accidentally hit “submit” instead of previewing my post. Besides the grammatical edits, I intended to replace “he” with “he/she” after I noticed that the OP did not specify the gender of the Boss.
Water softener pellets are just sodium chloride, or less frequently, potassium chloride. Besides being less effective than calcium chloride, they are generally made of fairly large marble-sized pellets, so you end up using way more than is necessary. Such large pellets are also not the best thing to put down on a walking surface.
I don’t think so, but she does have her priorities, and they may be different from yours.
There doesn’t seem to be a perfect solution. CMA (Calcium Magnesium Acetate), according to this chart, may be a good compromise since it is listed as “Safest for concrete & vegetation”. We have landscaping around the sidewalks that is important to us.
As far as the legal issue goes, I don’t see a perfect solution there, either. Surely doing nothing to clear sidewalks could be considered negligent, but we already have a shoveling service that takes care of most of the ice/snow, and that’s all most businesses in the area seem to do. We are trying to augment that, and I would think any effort, any substance at all that improved traction, would be considered a step in the right direction.
