My drive is quite a slope. Invested in a large sack of road salt.
Local nick it from the roadside bins.
Pricks do that here as well. If I see them spreading it I usually shout "Aye, you can get off your drive but not out the bloody estate!"
Pillock next door does it then shovels the snow after he spreads the grit!
I have two big tubs of salt from Halfords.
A few years ago, I came home one evening to find my neighbour's car on my drive...
We live at the bottom of a slight incline and as he turned onto his drive - which is on the opposite side of the road and about 30M further up, his car had lost traction and pirouetted down the road!! He ended up opposite our drive, so pulled in!
At the time I had a Shogun with Mud/Snow tyres fitted, so it was a simple job to tow him back up the road to his drive.
However... The other morning I slipped over twice just trying to get TO my car - about 10 feet!!
Good job we had bought a couple of tubs of salt, as getting the Z4 up the road was not a lot of fun. 6' forward and then slipping 8' back!
Think I got this salt from jewsons or similar builders merchants. Had it a few years, probably got one more cold spell left. Bought it because it was such a large quantity in one bag and one hernia getting in the car. Few quid I think. Not sure what lasts longer, the white halfords stuff or the salt but it is the road salt they try to remove your paint with.
I used to use rock salt from builders merchants, which is the same as the grit that's used on the roads. The problem with that is that there's a lot of sand & small gravel mixed in with the salt so there's a lot of debris left after the salt's washed away, which has to be cleared off the drive or it gets everywhere.
I'm now using Screwfix white salt. On the one occasion I've used it it's done a good job - kept the drive clear from (admittedly light) snow & no residue after the snow thawed.
At £16.99 for a 25kg bag with free delivery it's several times more expensive than rock salt, but arguably much more effective . . . a lot cheaper than Halfords small tubs of the same stuff!
I never really had an issue with the rock salt, tarmac drive and shoes off at the door. I did look at the halfords stuff out of interest last inter and the price is expensive compared to what I payed for the bag of rock salt.
Think my bag of 20kg was around £2.5 when I bought it. We have had a few winters where it was not needed.
We were issued the white stuff in work but went back to rock salt. Not sure why, cost probably looking at your cost above.
We use rock salt, just to keep the area where we park the cars and walkways clear - even bought a salt bin that holds 3 sacks, and keep a deep plastic scoop in there too - no ‘hunt the rock salt’ at the back of the garage every winter, as we used to.
The track up to the road has a couple of hills in it, and there are larger bins full of salt to help on the inclines - we all chip in £50 a year to maintain the track (between 10 houses), this covers the cost of keeping the bins topped up too.
The rest of the time, either my lad or I go for a walk with our toy - we can usually clear enough of the track in about half an hour.....
https://www.avforums.com/attachments/2475f9eb-e738-4ffe-839c-94e0fb68290b-jpeg.1113044/
I want one of those!
I would buy a fake snow machine just to use one.
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The first half hour is great fun - during the ‘Beast’ I had to go out 6 or 7 times - the fun wears off pretty quickly! At least the snow was nice and dry from the Beast, our more common ‘wetter’ snow can clog the machine - requiring a stop every 10yds or so and some ‘proggling’ to clear it.
Having said that, I slipped a disc, shovelling snow a few years back; which is why I bought this thing. It’s certainly made life a lot easier - we used to have to pay a farmer (£80 a time) to clear the track (just under 1/2 mile) whenever it got too deep for the 4x4s - now I can keep the snow down to a level where even 2 wheel drive can get in/out - good for getting post delivered, bins emptied, etc. So as toys go, it earns its keep!data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
@Ste7en how have you found your all-weathers?
We’re trying out Michelin cross-climates, which have coped well so far, but yet to see any real solid white stuff, just slush.