The Lemon Fool

Bright and early this morning I planned to go out to do the weekly shop, and got precisely 2 feet from the front door, then turned back. I've experienced black ice before but this was a whole new ballgame. After a few nights down to around -6, and some sleet and rain overnight, all the surfaces outside are covered in a thick layer of black ice, but looking just like a damp surface. Even if I managed to walk 5m along the front of the house and down a few few steps to the garage, there's no way I could get the car down the steep driveway. Out the back, the pigeons (hate them!) and jackdaws are flying in to pick up seed dropped from the bird feeders and skidding 3 feet when they land, which is quite amusing.

Never seen anything as bad as this. I can't see me getting out the house today. Wish I'd kept my crampons that I gave away many years ago.

--kiloran

Crampons aside, it's worth having the right footwear for those conditions. While many shoes, including the boots on which crampons can be attached, will slide all over the place, the right sole will give you a decent grip.

kiloran wrote:Bright and early this morning I planned to go out to do the weekly shop, and got precisely 2 feet from the front door, then turned back. I've experienced black ice before but this was a whole new ballgame. After a few nights down to around -6, and some sleet and rain overnight, all the surfaces outside are covered in a thick layer of black ice, but looking just like a damp surface. Even if I managed to walk 5m along the front of the house and down a few few steps to the garage, there's no way I could get the car down the steep driveway. Out the back, the pigeons (hate them!) and jackdaws are flying in to pick up seed dropped from the bird feeders and skidding 3 feet when they land, which is quite amusing.

I believe the advice is to walk like a penguin. Not sure how that works in a car.

Pigeons are edible, you know..

V8

UncleEbenezer wrote:Crampons aside, it's worth having the right footwear for those conditions. While many shoes, including the boots on which crampons can be attached, will slide all over the place, the right sole will give you a decent grip.

Thanks, I'll let the pigeons and jackdaws know

--kiloran

You can buy things like mini crampons for normal shoes boots that might help in conditions like we have been having. Otherwise is keeping an eye on the weather forecast and stocking up and hopefully there isn't an emergency so you can ride it out.

Not everyone can though, the bins need emptying, we need the nurses to go to hospital etc. I know schools close these days if it gets close to being cold.

Apparently tomorrow is all going, so floods and rain instead.

Only a few months and we will be complaining about the heatwave.

UncleEbenezer wrote:Crampons aside, it's worth having the right footwear for those conditions. While many shoes, including the boots on which crampons can be attached, will slide all over the place, the right sole will give you a decent grip.

I experienced something similar to K a couple of years ago - there are no soles that could ever cope with it.

I was on my bike at the time, and I thought it looked like a damp patch. I was freewheeling into it and I decided to brake slightly to see if it was slippy - big mistake. I actually had to slide on my butt to the edge of the path with my bike, before I could get some purchase to stand up.

elkay

elkay wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:Crampons aside, it's worth having the right footwear for those conditions. While many shoes, including the boots on which crampons can be attached, will slide all over the place, the right sole will give you a decent grip.

I experienced something similar to K a couple of years ago - there are no soles that could ever cope with it.

I was on my bike at the time, and I thought it looked like a damp patch. I was freewheeling into it and I decided to brake slightly to see if it was slippy - big mistake. I actually had to slide on my butt to the edge of the path with my bike, before I could get some purchase to stand up.

elkay

Indeed, I've encountered that kind of thing. I may even still have a bent keyring to show for the time it was in the trouser pocket that hit the ground first!

The fact remains, there are soles that will deal with it reasonably well, and give you sufficient grip to walk relatively normally - though carefully. And others that won't.

If it's not too large an area, you could try sprinkling some salt and sand (grit or soil) over the affected area.

We've had the council round gritting our pavements.

Just as the thaw starts...

Scott.

swill453 wrote:We've had the council round gritting our pavements.

Just as the thaw starts...

Scott.

You don't expect them to come out when it's so cold, do you?

Seriously though, around here it's all salt. No grit as far as I can see. In fact, so much salt in places, it has made quite a salt-drift on the street corner where the distribution mechanism on the back of the lorry must somehow concentrate it.

Nimrod103 wrote:Seriously though, around here it's all salt. No grit as far as I can see. In fact, so much salt in places, it has made quite a salt-drift on the street corner where the distribution mechanism on the back of the lorry must somehow concentrate it.

Well ours is the brown rock salt, containing impurities that leave a useful (for a while) residue. Commonly known as road grit.

Scott.

I have whats called YakTrax for my shoes but they're a PITA to put on and take off and I do buy a buy of pathway salt from B&Q at the start of winter. Living near the coast though, it never really gets that icy.

But yes, we had rain this morning and the temperatures have climbed to about 2 degrees, so most of the snow is gone. Tomorrow and beyond, its supposed to by close to 8 degrees

Nimrod103 wrote:

swill453 wrote:We've had the council round gritting our pavements.

Just as the thaw starts...

Scott.

You don't expect them to come out when it's so cold, do you?

Seriously though, around here it's all salt. No grit as far as I can see. In fact, so much salt in places, it has made quite a salt-drift on the street corner where the distribution mechanism on the back of the lorry must somehow concentrate it.

Salt works by lowering the freezing point of water.

So if it gets colder, the salt water will itself freeze. Not a good idea!