How to Melt With Salt on a Driveway

Covering a driveway with salt is a common way to prepare it for snow or melt existing snow and ice. While salt is affordable, widely available and easy to work with, it’s also corrosive to metal, pavement, plants and drinking water when used in large quantities. Melting salt in water creates an anti-freezing solution that lowers the freezing point of water. Do-it-yourselfers can use this technique to stretch out smaller portions of salt.

Bucket
De-icing salt
Wooden stirrer
Funnel
Pump sprayer

Instructions

- 1
  Fill a bucket with warm water and add rock salt, sodium chloride or another type of de-icing salt. For less corrosive salts, use urea or another fertilizer salt from a gardening store. Stir it with a wooden stirrer until some of the salt settles at the bottom, indicating the water is saturated.
- 2
  Use a funnel to pour 1 gallon of solution into a gardening pump sprayer.
- 3
  Spray a mist coat of the salt water over the driveway within about two hours of the forecasted snow fall. One gallon of de-icing solution should suffice for every 1,000 square feet.
- 4
  Scoop fallen snow with a rubber-edged shovel shortly after it begins to fall. The coating of salt will melt any snow touching the pavement, making any snow that builds up wet and heavy.
- 5
  Spray another coating of warm salt water over any slippery patches that form overnight.
- 6
  Scatter sand or kitty litter over the wet driveway to add traction to the wet pavement. Fill a large cup or two and shake it over the driveway.

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