- 1). Measure the length and width of your driveway or private road with the measuring tape. Multiply the length times the width to arrive at the total surface area of your driveway or private road, in square feet.
- 2). Calculate the amount of salt you’ll need to deice a road or driveway. Municipalities use 300 pounds of salt per lane mile; a lane mile has a surface area of 52,800 square feet and requires .0057 pound per square foot. If your driveway or private road measures 4,000 square feet, multiply 4,000 by .0057 to arrive at 22.8 pounds of salt needed to cover it.
- 3). Measure an equal amount of salt and cinder. Municipalities use a 50-50 mixture of ice and cinder to de-ice roadways. If you need 22.8 pounds of salt, weigh 22.8 pounds of cinders.
- 4). Pour the salt and cinder into a large mixing bucket or trashcan. Put on a pair of work gloves and mix the salt and cinder with your hands until you have distributed each evenly.
- 5). Determine how much calcium chloride you need to add to the mix by multiplying the amount of salt used by .2. Rock salt no longer de-ices road at temperatures less than 20-degrees Fahrenheit; calcium chloride absorbs moisture from the snow, creating a slurry of water into which the salt dissolves so that it can continue melting the ice and snow at lower temperatures. Municipalities add calcium chloride in a 20 percent ratio to the amount of salt.
- 6). Measure the amount of calcium chloride granules on the scale. If you have used 22.8 pounds of salt, you will need to measure 4.56 pounds of calcium chloride.
- 7). Add the calcium chloride to the salt and cinder mix. Put the work gloves back on and mix the salt, cinder and calcium chloride with your hands until you have distributed each evenly.
- 8). Place the mixture into waterproof bags for storage. Calcium chloride will form into clumps if it absorbs water or moisture.