To think pouring water on your icy car is just selfish?

[7hup]

Just fell on my face outside a neighbour who must have done this early morning.

So a stream of ice running across the pavement to the road which I didn't see

I fell hard. Am OK but if I were elderly or more fragile I could have bad injuries.

At least salt the pavement after!

if parked on a road it wouldn't get to the pavement.

It can:

• If someone's half parked on the pavement
• If the road is cambered it can settle at a dip in the pavement
• through a similar process to osmosis, where warm water in the gutter melts snow (think of a drop of water on cloth, and see how it spreads out). But no sooner has it melted the snow it's forming ice again. so you sort of end up with bigger area of ice than was initially spilled...

When warm water hits snow or ice, heat travels from warm to cold (not the other way around). The hotter the water, the wider the spread of the heat (like a ripple in a pool). So it melts a wider area of snow, that then rapidly freezes, and you end up with that 'ripple' freezing. i.e. a wider area becoming ice!

Why would you add to existing woes though? Do you actually think to yourself “well it’s icy, so chucking some water about to make matters worse won’t matter to me because It’s those people walking that need to be the ones who are looking out just for people like me”?

Fgs like the sensible folk; stock your heaters on, get your —Amex card— scraper out and by the time you’ve looped the car you’re good to go.

No pedestrians were harmed in the course of taking this advice.

Tiger yes, unless drive is super flat and level. Which most are not.

At the end of the day, you take a bottle of water out to the car, and you use it to melt the ice... that water doesn't disappear, it's gone somewhere - the floor, albeit under your car for the large part (along with the rest of the ice it melted. Then it will turn to ice again but in a smoother form - black ice.

I pour tepid water on mine but the configuration of my drive way means no-one is inconvenienced.

Most of my neighbours do too as each drive has a drain in it and everything is slanted towards your own drain.

Quick, and no chemicals.

I use cold water from the outdoor tap.

On my own drive though, which is my car only and no access to the house, so nobody else should be walking on it.

Re- de-icers, bear in mind these are the same as antifreeze, and many contain toxic alcohols. Any dripping on to the pavement, road, even your drive risks poisoning wildlife and pets if they walk through it. Even in very small amounts.

I had no idea people did this. How bizarre. How can they not realize it will freeze and risks cracking their windscreen? Why don't people own scrapers and de-icer spray?

I use hot water

Idiot neighbours used to do this. Oh how we laughed when their screen cracked!
They too used to create an ice rink on the pavement, but after that they used a scraper.

It's quicker to just scrape the windows than wait for kettle to boil, and having to take it indoors afterwards.

De-icers as some have mentioned do have their downsides...
Years ago, windscreens would suffer from thermal shock, but these days they are better - but it's just a bad idea to pour too hot water on them. A hot water bottle would be a decent solution too (imo).

erm, as in the type you take to bed, not a bottle of hot water!

Pleased I’m not the only credit card scraper, works a treat. Even with heated windscreens it’s the perfect size for wing mirrors! Also bendy enough to be gentle but effective.

I use warm water on the car but it's my drive. My doors were wielded shut with ice, warm water was the only thing i had to loosen them this morning.

@Comeymemo thanks for the link to the scraper-cum-brush. What a great gadget. Have bought myself something similar from amazon.

Scraping all the way here, wouldn’t dream of pouring water on my drive for the dds/dh/milkman/postie to go flying arse over tit on, and hate the idea of the chemicals and waste of a spray.

5 mins scraping the windows is a mini workout for your triceps and warms you up before you get in the car.

New snazzy gadget means I won’t get my arms all wet scooping the snow off the car roof either.

The deicers do affect my breathing

our drive is a communal one, on a slope and occasionally DH will pour water on his windscreen, and I did just mention this to him the other day, the risk of others slipping in the ice he has caused.

Ethel36 - same here. Door handle was frozen solid as was the door seal so couldn't open the car without a trickle of warm water to free them up. On my drive though and not enough to get to the pavement and I put grit out last night so all are safe and well.

I've never seen or heard of anyone doing this in the US by pouring hot water over the car. The standard procedure here seems to be to start the car, turn on the defrosters and scrape the windows while the car is warming up.

@GalacticChickenShit pop a hot water bottle into the car on top of the dashboard about 20 minutes before you go out. Will help with ice inside and out. I've converted my DH to this trick! Sometimes it's still warm and you can have the hottie for extra heat.

What everyone here does is put a cover over their front window (like an old blanket or cardboard), which usually stops the the ice forming, and then an ice-scrape

Do the card or blankets leave bits stuck to the windscreen? I can imagine it being a big icy fibrous mess!

Why are people boiling half full kettles and then filling the rest of the kettle with cold water? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just fill the kettle (or any other water holding device) with warm water from the tap?

Dh insists on making hot water bottles half cold water, half boiled water and it drives me potty.

My husband had spotted those ice scraper-brush things this morning (we were at the car showroom picking up my new car) and had serious gadget envy... I think that's a Christmas gift sorted!

"What I dont understand is why anyone would do it when it is very very likely to cause you a cracked windscreen. Going from ice cold to hot to cold again in such a short space of time is a really fucking stupid thing to do"

Except it doesn't and it's not stupid and it can't be 'very very likely' because, well, it doesn't. HTH

Not recommended to use water to unfreeze doorframes and locks either. The water gets in and then refreezes at first opportunity. Better to use dry heat. Apparently lubrication and making sure rubber seals are clean and in good repair helps to prevent the problem.

Windscreen repair places must be doing a roaring trade when it gets this cold. Cracked screen all round. Funny thing is most people will tell you Oh I do that, mine has never cracked. One day, just wait, chances are it will.
I turn on the engine, and get scraping, between the heater and the scraper (when I have forgotten to cover the window) I'm off the drive in no time.