to plow or not to plow.. traction needed..

I have a long drive way. its two tenths of a mile, up hill with a sharp curve at the top.. plus its southern facing. and has trees that line a portion of the drive way..

last week I put 160 pounds of salt on the drive. and then it rained. and the ice did not go away. then I salted again with sand salt.. and part of it went away.. and then it snowed just enough to cover it again..

right now.. I don’t know whether to plow, sand or leave it.. and it doesn’t look like we are going to have any weather close to melting this week.. I have no problem with the drive because I have four wheel drive. everyone else is a different story..

advice.. opinion.. true facts needed.

Is your drive black top, concrete or gravel?

If you have a gravel go ahead and plow it, the ice should breake free or a large portion of it anyway. If it is black top or concrete the ice will stick to the surface of your drive. If this is the case I would just sand it and save the salt until you know it will do some good. Urea will work at lower temperatures but I know it is expensive “If I remember correctly one of my neighbors was telling me last summer it was something like $850 a ton.”

plow it otherwise the snow will pack on and just build up when it does warm up it will be less to melt.

Is your drive hard sufaced or gravel? If hard surfaced I would use some sand for traction till the temp is going to be above 10 degrees F. Salt doesn’t work that well in colder temps.when the temps are going to be a little warmer and you have some sun,hit it with salt again. 160 lbs on 2/10’s of a mile should do it. We put down 400 to 500 LBS. per lane mile on the highway to get it bare. The trick is to get it cleaned up and dry before the next snow, so it doesn’t stick and you can just plow it off.

Hiwayman, welcome aboard. Wonderful place where we help each other out. Good to see you.

My driveway is 1/4 mile of gravel. I wheel pack it until I have a good base then use a tractor and blower. When the base gets too thick, I use an old horse drawn disk and disk it down and blow the extra off the top. If I don’t, when it thaws, the cars drop through and you are in deep do do.

I have a long uphill blacktop driveway and I use ashes from outside boiler, even in the cold once the sun hits the ashes it is only a matter of time before it is down to pavement. I usually just do one tire tread otherwise I won’t have enough. I put the ashes in metail garbage cans and roll them down slowly. I am actually surprised how well ashes work…something to think about.