[prestige cleaners]

hi all, because of the water freezing from my wfp all over custies houses, tried to buy some rock salt from bandq to keep them happy. but the council has kept it to themselves, one of the workers recommended sand, kitty litter, and table salt, thought i would pass on the knowledge,

bought some value stuff from asda for a few quid,

anyone else havin a nightmare few weeks, ive got about 3 grands worth of work backed up!

[Nathanael Jones]

Water softener salt is good, but any salt will do. I've been using dishwasher salt & when that ran out some cheap table salt from Aldi. The coarse stuff looks good and prob lasts longer, but the fine table salt melts any existing ice much faster.

[R W C™]

I use the salt i use with water softner, costs me about £6 25kg bag

[michael papworth]

Forget sand and cat litter. It must be some kind of salt. The science is a little complicated, but salt water (also called brine) freezes at a lower temperature than pure water.

Sprinkling salt on ice actually lowers the temperature quite considerably,  but lowers the melting point quite a lot more. (See: http://science.howstuffworks.com/road-salt.htm)

Nathanael Jones is absolutely right; any salt will do, and the purer and finer it is, the faster it will work. Actually, any soluble salt will work, but sodium chloride (NaCl/table salt/rock salt/dishwasher salt) is the most common and easily available.

Sand and cat litter don't dissolve in water to any appreciable extent, so don't work to get rid of ice ... although they might give a little more friction.

[Dennis Taylor]

Hot water, it melts the ice straight away 

[matt]

Forget sand and cat litter. It must be some kind of salt. The science is a little complicated, but salt water (also called brine) freezes at a lower temperature than pure water.

Sprinkling salt on ice actually lowers the temperature quite considerably,  but lowers the melting point quite a lot more. (See: http://science.howstuffworks.com/road-salt.htm)

Nathanael Jones is absolutely right; any salt will do, and the purer and finer it is, the faster it will work. Actually, any soluble salt will work, but sodium chloride (NaCl/table salt/rock salt/dishwasher salt) is the most common and easily available.

Sand and cat litter don't dissolve in water to any appreciable extent, so don't work to get rid of ice ... although they might give a little more friction.

what about a bucket of sand from the beach ? ? ?

its spent a fair bit of time being coated in salt water ? ? ?