Customers are generally required to deice their facilities or residences when deicing is performed. Deicing involves applying an ice-melting material to the road, sidewalks, and other traffic areas after they become ice-covered to melt the ice.

It is possible to prevent snow and ice accumulation by applying salt in advance. The use of anti-icing techniques has increased among contractors who use liquid deicing materials.

Until moisture is introduced and the granular rock salt is in contact with it, salt sitting on pavement is inert. Upon contact with the moisture in the snow, salt dissolves in the solution. In order to prevent snow and ice from bonding to pavement surfaces, salt brine is produced.

Plow operations cause snow and slush to fail to bond, so they are easily dislodged. After a lot of snow and ice has bonded to the pavement, it will be easier to plow it.

The advantage of this method is that it requires one-third the amount of product that can be used for traditional deicing. In most cases, it is not necessary to reapply salt on the cleared surface after plowing operations are completed if there is no snow overnight. Although you may need to apply another salt application, you will use much less material than you would have otherwise if you hadn’t taken proactive steps.

Professional contractors can use half the amount of salt when they implement a pre-salting program. In the days following plowing, most contractors apply a little salt after presalting.

There is discussion of the use of rock salt and its distribution to the pavement surface. It is important to calculate the amount of salt to apply to the pavement surface to achieve the desired results. The Salt Coverage Calculator can be helpful in this calculation of using salt.

The leading authority on deicing states that 200 lbs of rock salt is enough when evenly spread across 1 acre of surface area can reduce ice buildup to a light to moderate degree.

In several studies, it has been found that it is not necessary to apply more than 200 or 250 pounds of rock salt per acre to melt light ice accumulations when temperatures are 28 degrees Fahrenheit. The melting process will take 45 minutes to 60 minutes under these conditions. For heavy ice accumulations, it may be necessary to use 350 pounds of rock salt per acre. It is possible to reach low application levels despite these absurdly low numbers.

In recent studies, 75 lbs of rock salt prevents light icing on 1 acre of pavement. Spreaders are used to achieve this. There are several spreaders on the market that can spread 75 pounds per acre, but they are extremely expensive.