Freezing water on concrete

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Diamond Jim

New member
Besides the obvious of not washing when it's going to freeze what precautions do people take when washing and freezing temps are going to occur?

I have a bunch of night work coming and the early morning temps are going to be below freezing right before opening. I descided to throw down a safe type salt product on the walkways. Has anyone been sued for freezing sidewalks ? Is it worth the risk?
 
You'll find that alot of the water will evaporate over night and unless the ground has frost in it you won't get much freezing. The warmth of the building will also keep them from freezing depending on how cold it actually gets. I'm still doing sidewalks at night in Canada and it's going a little under freezing and I'm not too worried because the ground is still warm enough.

On the other hand......I've had a building the customer wanted done at any cost when it was well below freezing and I made him sign off that I'm not liable for issues. It froze and the water going across the road and parking lot froze along with the locks on the doors....... Bags and Bags of ice melter were spread. It certainly wasn't my choice but he absolutely had to have it done!
 
Jim,
Most times even when temps are expected to get below freezing it wont matter as there is not enough water to form ice. At least thats been my experience for the last 10 years. As a precaution you can use salt. I would recommend Magnesium Chloride as thats the least abrasive on concrete. You can even upsell it to the customer if you see fit.
 
Thanks for the replies. Just a little nervous because these places are very busy at 6am.

I was washing a large amount of stone last week residential right agrout 30ty and the front granite walkway froze . I went down a few times.
 
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