Don’t freeze when it comes to snow removal this winter.
In just a few days, the New York area has been blanketed with more snow and ice than it has seen in recent years.
Indeed, many local cold weather management skills may be temporarily cold.
Fortunately, experts have recently come up with tips and tricks that will make the process of squeezing and shoveling a little less stressful when the temperature drops below freezing.
Here’s what to try and what to avoid this winter when the freezing precipitation piles up.
Juice it
Believe it or not, one way to quickly remove ice from the windshield is to use orange juice.
Experts say that orange juice may be a solid deicer. New Africa – stock.adobe.com
Like rock salt, brine can melt at very low temperatures, according to National Geographic, which also reports that “pre-wetting with this substance prevents snow and ice from bonding to the pavement, making the ice easier to break up and remove.”
While using salt water may seem a little unusual, Carver County in snow-filled Minnesota has even experimented with putting orange juice extract on the road for its efficiency.
In Missouri, a similar test was done by adding salt water to beet juice to melt road ice.
The state Department of Transportation also boasts online that “when mixed with brine, beet juice helps the brine work at lower temperatures to treat icy or snowy surfaces.”
Of course, this home remedy version definitely comes with a lot of red marks.
Cooking oil or spray may also be useful on shovels, as they give tools an oily coating to help snow fall more easily.
Cooking spray can save you from scraping chunks of snow and ice stuck off the shovel. TOimages – stock.adobe.com
Not a fan of pickles? Try rubbing alcohol
Many news outlets suggest mixing hot or boiling water, dish soap and alcohol to clean icy steps and sidewalks, with alcohol being the magic part of the elixir because it has a lower freezing point than water.
Be warned, though: While some hack testers claim their treated surfaces don’t refreeze, others haven’t had the same luck.
A plastic bag around your socks
Covering your socks with a plastic bag helps keep them dry in the snow. daizuoxin – stock.adobe.com
If you are going to shovel in large numbers this weekend or any time soon, the cold snow is sure to seep into your socks, leaving your feet numb in cold water. Aside from the unpleasantness, there are of course health and safety risks that come with cold feet in freezing weather, including the possibility of hypothermia, frostbite or trench foot.
A quick hack, guaranteed by fishermen, is to wrap a plastic bag around your socks before putting on boots or shoes as an extra level of insolation.
Remove salt stains from your car
There are a few simple ways to reduce the effects of salt on your car during the winter. AP
It doesn’t take long for your sweet ride to look like it drove through Tony Montana’s cocaine-filled office in the 1983 movie “Scarface” with noticeable white salt marks scattered around the doors and hood.
But Matt Badgley, who is a senior research and development scientist at Rust-Oleum, reveals a quick and easy way to restore your car’s shine.
“One of the things you can do, you can wash the car without water. You don’t need soap and water. You can spray this on a cloth and clean off all the crusty salt and road grime quickly and easily to restore vision,” he told Fox32 in Chicago.
Badgley also offers tips to prevent the recurrence of the nasty white poop.
“And then to do some future build-up prevention and help water flow, you can take a ceramic sealant or a spray wax and apply this to your headlights, and what that will do is help prevent anything from building up,” he added.
“Your headlights stay cleaner longer all winter long.”
What gets wetter when it dries?
One TikToker was recently praised for his breakthrough discovery of how to keep his windshield free of snow when a few inches of it fell to the ground.
User Joe Cunningham laughed triumphantly after using a bath towel to cover his windscreen during the storm. Even though the towel was frozen hard as rock, he easily peeled it off with a crackle to reveal that the glass was free and clear of frozen flakes.
Barum Tires from the United Kingdom supports the tactic and adds that a carpet, cardboard or shower curtain will also suffice.
Things not to try this winter
There are many things that are best not to try this winter when it comes to snow and ice removal. AP
Many posts online show people pouring some form of hot or boiling water over their cars as a quick deicing method, but experts advise they should cool it on this trend.
“Glass is very rigid and brittle,” Laura Garcia, program head of the Alexandria Department of Automotive at Northern Virginia Community College, told Washington, DC station WUSA9.
“So any extreme temperature changes will just make it disintegrate because it can’t expand and contract like metal can.”
Likewise, another popular trick advised is to put hot water in a Ziploc bag and rub it on an icy windshield.
Dorry Potter, an expert with National Scrap Car in the UK, doubles down on that theory.
“Motorists are advised to be careful when placing anything heated on their windscreens as sudden changes in temperature can cause small cracks to appear in the glass which could cause the screen to break when another frost attack arrives,” he told The Express.
Another debunked myth involves using cut up potatoes to rub your windshield before it snows to prevent sticking.
Experts say the spuds are useless and may only reduce visibility.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
