#2736: Prophylact-Ice

A Council worker drove past me today on the street where I live. His wagon was spreading salt -even though the ambient temperature was 8 deg C. He looked at me as if he deserved a round of applause as his aerial bombardment of corrosive grit pinged off the paintwork of the parked vehicles.

OK, so, I’m no particular fan of mindless councils, untrained drivers or icy weather.

I found out recently that there are several modes by which salt combats frozen roads.

It seems that when salt water freezes, it forces absolutely all the salt out of the ice matrix.

Imagine that one’s car is washed underneath with fresh water using eg an underbody washer. This is left on a cold night, so that a coating of ice forms all over the undersurface of the vehicle.

When it is then driven on a stretch of tarmac, salty water will splash upwards but, as long as the local temperature is below freezing, no salt will be able to penetrate the protective coat of ice.

Today’s invention is therefore an underbody washer unit with a chiller built in. The spray from this can be driven across, so that , in cold weather, a film of ice wraps and protects the underside of your car. The chiller is only there to speed the process of freezing when the weather is already cold.

(If you later drive around as the atmospheric temperature increases (and the underside ice melts) but before the salt has washed off the road, then your car will be unprotected -so that’s to be avoided).

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