Awesome Homemade DIY Deicer for Your Home Using Items You Already Have

What can be used as a deicer? As we all know the winter months bring cold weather in many parts of the United States. With all the sub-zero temperatures on the way I wanted to make a liquid form DIY deicer that I could use on hard surfaces. There are several different types of ice melt on the market, some are liquid de-icers and others come in the form of a solid deicer. Ice melt products commonly contain sodium chloride or rock salt, calcium chloride, potassium chloride, magnesium chloride, and/or urea, also known as carbonyl diamide. I’m sure we have all heard about the environmental impact these different products can have so I decided to try to make my own ice removal product using all natural ingredients. I did some research on diy de-icing agents, decided on a recipe to try and put it to the test. Here are my results for you.

For my test I mixed together the following:

2 cups water

I added 1 cup rubbing alcohol with a higher alcohol content. I used the highest percentage I could buy at Walmart.

Last I added 1/4 cup Dawn and mixed it together.

The alcohol and Dawn are the key ingredients in this solution as it takes a colder temperature to freeze. Rubbing alcohol has a much lower freezing point than water (128°F below 0).

You can use this liquid ice melt right away or put it in a bucket to save for when you’re ready.

Now for the test!

After a recent snow fall we used a snow shovel to clear a walkway and there was that really slick ice under the snow.

I poured the mixture onto the ice. You could watch it starting to work right away and melt the snow and ice. This was thinner ice so you’d probably need more to melt away thicker ice. You can make more of the mixture for bigger surfaces. I do believe that if the ground surface remained wet during extremely cold temperatures the solution could freeze up again when the pavement temperature drops. I recommend doing it early in the day, when you have higher temperatures and giving it time to dry out before the colder temperatures in the evening and overnight. I would use it again after my experience.

Now, this kind of deicer would be a challenge to use in big parking lots, long driveways, etc and you’d need a more professional deicing product that maybe contains some calcium magnesium acetate in the form of a granular product in a several lb bag. We used to use solid ice melt or road salt, however, we found that it tore up and destroyed our concrete. The application rates vary between products, and when you put it on top of ice that can affect how fast it’ll melt. It’s also important to pick a quality product with good reviews as some common deicers are more effective than others. Make sure to put washer fluid that can withstand very low temperatures in your car. There is always the lowest effective temperature listed on most products, so be sure to check on that also its effectiveness will be based on how much snow (snow accumulation) and ice you have, as well as where you live. For example, north America gets much colder than south America where they don’t get lower temperatures.

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DIY Deicer for Sidewalks and Driveways Video

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