Defrosting Serious Ice?

Thanks for the tips! I'm fairly new to ice country and didn't know about the groove thing (so to speak.) I have been running a portable electric heater in the car for about 1/2 hour on the coldest mornings and that helps soften the ice sheet.

Mike

I'm laughing as I read this one.

Neighbor's wife was standing outside one freezing morning with a pot in her hand. Her car's windshield was shattered into a thousand little pieces all over the inside of her car.

One need not wonder how the window got broken. "I thought a good pot of warm water would remove the ice"...and the windshield.

I managed to crack a home window with a hair dryer trying to remove some of that well-stuck plastic solar film. Crack is still there.

B~

As a substitute, I have laid a strip of plastic (from a drop cloth or such) across the windshield and held it in place by closing both doors on the ends. No magnets required.

Al

If you are new to winter driving, here are a couple of other tips.

1. Brush away the snow from your front hood or, when you get up a little speed, it will fly back, stick to the warm wet windshield, and momentarily blind you.

1. Brush away the snow above the drivers door with your glove before reaching in for your snow brush/scraper. Otherwise it all falls on the driver's seat and you will "arrive at your destination" (as the nav lady says) with wet pants. :-)

Despite the nuisance of dealing with snow and ice, I find winter quite refreshing. Spent a couple weeks in AZ last winter and missed the annual dog sled races.

We did this back in college in the 1970's with a friends VW Beetle. The water refreezes quickly and there is the possibility of cracking the windows with the rapid change in temperature on the windows.

I've used hot water for 30 years to defrost windows and unfreeze door locks, and have never had a problem. Works great!

Have you tried it at -20F?

No, probably 0F was as cold as it got.

There is really not that much difference to pouring hot water on a frozen windshield compared to cold water on a hot windshield, as when washing a car in the summer. It's the same temperature difference, and I've never seen a windshield crack in the summer from cold water either.

And if it is -20F, would you be afraid to turn on your defroster because you think the 80F air on the inside would crack the glass?

Yesterday, at -20F, I threw a glass of water from my second story deck and only ice hit the ground. At -20F the air that hits my glass initially is well below zero and gradually warms to the point where it will barely keep about 90% of my windshield clean. Were I to pour water on my windshield at -20F it would freeze before I had a chance to switch from the pitcher to the scraper. I made the mistake of going through the car wash at approximately -20F and, when I got to my garage, could only open the passenger side door. At these temperatures, using water to remove ice is like using gasoline to put out a fire.

When I lived in Phoenix I was always careful not to wash the windshield when it had been sitting in the sun, although it's okay to do it when it had just been driven because the air flow cools the glass, even if only to 115F.

When we moved to Flagstaff I stopped worrying about it. Big mistake. I washed our Prius when it had been sitting facing the sun and the windshield cracked. D'oh! The upshot seems to be if there are no pits or nascent cracks you may well get away with it. Unfortunately, windshields pit in the first week of service around here.

Mike