Best way to clear the ice under snow?

What I have found easiest is to wedge the edge of the shovel under the compacted snow and lever it. Usually it will break into reasonably large chunks that you can then pick up and throw away.
 
Thick ice - pickaxe it.
Thin ice - salt & grit it.

Alternatively get a fire grate (ie the open garden ones), put in a couple of logs and light it. Use a chain attached to move it down as the ice melts.
 
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Just putting salt or grit on top of ice a couple of inces will not work. It will if there is onlt a small bit of ice but in this case you are wasting salt.

The only way you might shift it is chipping it away with a spade. If you reach a point when you can can the spade edge under the frost it should come up in big chunks...lol

Water grit and heat will not work.....believe me i do this at work and when you need to remove 100sq meters of 3inch ice on a high sttreet sometimes it will not budge sometimes due to forst and temperature of the stone and texture of the stone/tarmac underneath....this is even with 1 ton of rock salt on the van which only softens the top layer of the ice.

Just try chipping with a spade not big area just 6inces at a time and u may get to a point when the spade can get under the ice.
 
Vita said:
Our street hasn't been gritted at all. Car got stuck in snow yesterday just opposite our house, so left it (RWD) is crap in snow.

So thought I'd be a hero and dig the snow up today, kind of got to the road surface by bashing the snow with the shovel head and lifting it off. Floored the throttle in hope I'd get grip, but nothing.

So 4 guys came and offered help, reversed it out and reversed all the way out of the street. Then came back at speed and slid it into the drive. Never again!
Click to expand...

i'm not normally one to point something like this out, but it sounds like you didn't really accommodate your driving to the conditions AT ALL and are left wondering why things didn't quite work out they way you wanted.

B@
 
start car. allow engine to warm. turn heaters upto max. Improvise a duct system that channels the hot air from the heaters to just in front of each wheel.

Not only clears the drive but also clears wherever you drive*.




*max reccomended speed of .1mph to allow time for ice to actually melt
 
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