Use of deicers on your new drive, sidewalk, or patio could be harmful.
You wouldn’t use a strong caustic soap to clean your wall-to-wall carpet! Nor would you use acid to clean your kitchen or bathroom fixtures! In fact, you’re pretty careful about how you clean and take care of your home inside. But what about outside concrete walks, drives, patios, porches, and steps? Give the exposed concrete around your house the same consideration as you would your pretty interior! It’squality
concrete, but don’t abuse it. Consult your ready mixed concrete producer for information.
Avoid any deicing chemical the first and second winter. The only safe material to use to make the concrete surface skid resistant is plain sand. Damage from deicers is one of the easiest and clearest damage to identify. Salt does not damage concrete, but the effects of salt can. That sounds weird, so we’ll explain. Salt does not chemically react with hardened concrete. Salt does however lower the freezing point of water, attract moisture, and increase pressure of frozen water. Salt can also increase the freeze-thaw cycles if the temperature fluctuates between 15°F and 25°F
Never use deicers containing ammonium sulphate or ammonium nitrate. These chemicals are often packaged and sold as deicers, but they will rapidly disintegrate concrete. Calcium chloride, another common deicer, can attack concrete if a concentrated amount is applied. Magnesium chloride, magnesium acetate, and magnesium nitrate have also been found to be damaging to concrete.
Common garden fertilizers can contain ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulphate which can cause concrete disintegration.
Salt does not damage concrete, but the effects of salt can. That sounds weird, so we’ll explain. Salt does not chemically react with hardened concrete. Salt does however lower the freezing point of water, attract moisture, and increase pressure of frozen water. Salt can also increase the freeze-thaw cycles if the temperature fluctuates between 15°F and 25°F. Concrete scaling can occur in the absence of salts too if there were problems at installation.
Remember
- Keep snow and ice off concrete first 2 years
- Avoid the use of any deicers the first 2 years.
- Use sand (plain) anytime.
- Never use deicers containing ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulphate, calcium chloride, magnesium acetate, magnesium chloride, or magnesium nitrate .After all that, why keep the salt off? Concrete hydrates pretty much forever and gets stronger with time. The more time it gets to come up to strength the less likely ice pressure will exceed the tensile strength of the concrete. We recommend sand as it is cheap and environmentally friendly.
- Apply a concrete sealer if you plan on using deicers in the future. Re-apply yearly or as needed.
- Here are a couple of links to more resources:
- https://my.nrmca.org/scriptcontent/BeWeb/Orders/ProductDetail.cfm?pc=2PCIP2 (this one talks about scaling and salts, but you might want to buy the whole series (https://my.nrmca.org/scriptcontent/BeWeb/Orders/ProductDetail.cfm?pc=2PCIP100) because almost every concrete scenario is covered there.