Don’t Slip! – How to Deice Your Walkways

Other than other drivers on the road, the most dangerous aspect of winter in Minnesota is snow/ice on walkways. Thousands of people every year fall and injure themselves while they lose their footing. Injured backs, legs, and wrists are just the start. As a knowledgeable snow removal company in the Minneapolis area, we are here to offer some advice how to prevent the ice in the first place and what to do when it does build up. Here’s our list of options on how to deice your walkways. 

This is the first step to deicing your walkways. If you clear the snow quickly and before it has been trampled too much, you will greatly decrease the amount of snow and ice on the walkway. The biggest factor to keeping the ice down is to shovel as often and as soon as you can. Preventing the rock hard ice build up on the walkway is crucial. You can also snow blow the walkways but sometimes that leaves a little film on the walkway which can freeze and cause issues. 

Shoveling can be quite hard, especially on large snowfalls so you can always hire a reliable snow removal company who can handle walkways, stairs, and stoops. 

This is your prototypical ice melt that is cheap and easy to use. This has worked for many years and will continue to work. There are a couple of issues with it. It typically only works to about 15 or 20 degrees Fahrenheit. So when the temperature drops, it becomes kind of useless. The cheaper version of this product can also damage concrete that has not been cured correctly. It certainly damages plants and grass along a walkway. That will leave you with work to do in the spring to clean up the mess. 

Rock salt is a different kind of salt from the normal salt and de-icer you see at a hardware store. The chemical make up of this salt makes it even better at melting ice and at lower temperatures. It also has much larger crystals so they’re easier to see and provide some traction by themselves. However, it can harm painted things like decks and stairs and is also quite bad for grass and plants near walkways. So while relatively cheap and works at lower temperatures, it’s not always a great option 

This is a mix of sand and coarse salt. It can be mixed on site or bought together pre-mixed. The idea here is that the sand provides traction and helps rough up with the ice/snow and the salt will help melt it. This is great to use when the temperatures have dropped to dangerously low levels. The sand will at least provide some traction even when the deicer is not working. 

Becoming more aware of climate change and the impacts that our deeds have on the environment as a whole has become much more prevalent in the last few years. The deicing industry has followed suit. There are products that are much less harmful for grass, pets, plants, and hard surfaces. These products are made form a different chemical make up than normal salt. As with other environmentally friendly products, the process of making the safe chemicals means they cost more than standard deicing products. For some people, the piece of mind is worth the extra few dollars.