As you know, ice is not our friend when it comes to walkway and road safety and it is one of the biggest culprits of avoidable danger and unnecessary lawsuits. That’s why it’s always an excellent idea for those in charge of cleaning up the ice and snow to know how their ice melt or rock salt works and to get a jump start on it even before the storm hits.
Likewise, a supplier of ice melt chemicals for commercial businesses, government properties, or municipalities will always have the correct information and explain exactly how everything will work and possibly affect certain materials or plant life in the area when using some of these products. Keep reading to learn more!
Road Salt is a given, and it’s one of the best options that you can use as a deicer in the Mid-Atlantic region. From Washington DC through Baltimore, Virginia, and Southern Pennsylvania, it’s sometimes crazy to think how a place with such humid summers can have harsh and debilitating winters.
Most commercial snow removal companies utilizing bulk salt probably already know that there are different degrees of intensity for road salt. This difference is especially the case between the two most common types, Calcium Chloride and Magnesium Chloride. The latter is less intensive to use as you’re using a weaker salt. Please don’t mistake that weakness for lack of efficiency or a subpar ice melt option.
These are great after the snow has fallen and the ice has formed. Yet, more and more, there’s a great preventative measure that’s out there, less harmful and less damaging to the local flora and fauna. At the same time, it helps reduce the maintenance and efforts needed to remove snow from the roads or other places that need deicing. We are, of course, talking about liquid brine.
What is Liquid Brine?
Liquid brine is the technical name of the mixture between a salt compound and water. This mix forms the brine and makes an effective anti-icing product that is more about prevention than a deicer product to use after the fact.
The salt that’s typically used is Sodium Chloride, which is known as common table salt and thus makes Liquid Brine one of the safest and most effective tools for anti-icing out there. There are no Ice melt chemicals or powerful salts in liquid brine that one might find in Ice Melt or other types of road salts.
There have also been discussions about using more organic options such as Pickle and Cheese brine, which is a similar compound in nature. There are even talks about some municipalities in the north using this as an effective alternative.
However, in the end, these are more about experimentation versus practical usage and come at a much greater cost, with minimal effects compared to already tried and true liquid brine as part of an overall snow & ice management plan.
How does Liquid Brine work?
Some might also say, isn’t liquid brine mostly water, like 3/4th or more water? Won’t that simply just add to the ice that’s about to form there from the snow system headed towards the Mid-Atlantic region? Not at all. The salt keeps the melting temperature lower and thus helps prevent any other water (either in snow, sleet, or hail format) rain down, sticking to the roads, and causing that layer of ice. It acts as a pre-treatment for the main portion of snow removal, which is some form of ice melt.
The way it works is called pre-wetting, where you need to place the liquid brine down before the actual snowfall. It’s only effective up to -6 degrees Fahrenheit, but that’s still effective enough as an anti-icing solution.
A while back, there were concerns that liquid brine would somehow still make the roads slippery and thus effectively dangerous, removing the beneficial effects of snow removal and adding a new problem to handle. This issue has effectively been proven to not be true, with a random, extremely rare event occurring with minimal effect.
Making your own Liquid Brine
Some might say, why go to a liquid brine supplier or an ice melt supplier when all that’s required is to make the mixture itself right? How hard can it be, and why not only do it when necessary?
The case here is that first of all; not all liquid brine is made with Sodium Chloride. Sodium acetate or even Calcium or Magnesium Acetate might be used for a strong liquid brine for those harsh winter storms that happen occasionally.
The second major reason you shouldn’t make your own and go through a proper ice melt supplier is that there’s no need. An appropriate supplier of liquid brine will have the perfect ratio of salt and water, as well as additional equipment to distribute it through your commercial business properly. You already have professional snow trucks and salt distribution mechanisms; why would you ever take table salt and try to make it yourself?
In fact, liquid brine is such a low cost comparatively that it might even be more expensive to make it directly by yourself, even if you are in manufacturing, especially if you’re considering using pickle brine.
In the end
Save yourself a headache and reduce the amount of effort needed to maintain the roads in your business, industrial district, or local municipality, and always work with a proper regional supplier of ice melt, bulk of salt ice melt chemicals, and of course, liquid brine.
Make sure that your snow & ice management plan keeps an abundance of a variety of deicing and anti-icing products on hand because we may be able to predict the weather a few days out, but rarely the entire season.
Also, make sure to have your snow removal tools up to date and working perfectly so that when you brave the storm and use preventative measures with liquid brine, you’ll be much more efficient and safe out there. As always, make sure to over-order, as it’ll reduce costs and can be reused for future seasons or even dust control when it’s not snowing.
Have questions or need help with ordering? Contact us today!