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I begged Z to get up and help me clean off the car this morning, after hearing the woman next door in her driveway scraping and scraping and scraping. Sure enough, there was about an eighth of an inch of solid ice on every window of the car.
Worse?
Z broke the ice scraper.
With no other choice, I carted out jugs of lukewarm water and did my water trick. Z was about to put the kettle on but I told him no no no no no. No! Don't use boiling water. Never put boiling water on cold glass. Hell, don't even put boiling water on warm glass. I don't even use hot water; I turn the hot water tap on and start filling, and it doesn't get hot until halfway through filling the jug; for the second and third jugs, I turn the cold water on halfway so it still comes out warmer than blood, but not by much.
It was 30 degrees outside, which is not too cold for this. 30 and still snowing.
I have heard all kinds of dire warnings from people since I started using this technique. It might get in your locks, they say. Not at 30 degrees, and certainly not if you're just doing the windshield. It might make things worse. Well, it might, but it might not, so? It might crack your windows. Yes, a sudden temperature differential can crack glass: that's why I never use hot. It doesn't have to be hot water; it just has to be hotter than the ice, and if it pours out of a bottle, then it's warm enough. A little warmth to it is OK-- your hand is 98 degrees and doesn't crack glass, right? So 100 degree water shouldn't either.
What you have to do is use enough water to shift the ice. And wipe the snow off first; it's just going to take too much water to shift the snow too.
Z and I did it cooperatively and it worked like a charm: slosh the water down the window, the other person attacks it with a squeegee and wipes the ice sheet away. On to the next: each side window took about 15 seconds to clean.
The windshield took nearly a gallon of water. (Don't forget to clear away the chunks of ice that collect around the wiper blades and get in the way of your windshield wiper jets. They'll freeze solid in a few minutes.)
The back windshield... It had nearly half an inch of ice on it, and there was just no way. I chipped out a little hole with my fingernails, and made do.
The wing mirrors I used 32 ounces of water on apiece. Nasty little buggers. I finally peeled away the melting sheets of ice with my fingernails. Brr.
So, to recap:
So that's my story.
Worse?
Z broke the ice scraper.
With no other choice, I carted out jugs of lukewarm water and did my water trick. Z was about to put the kettle on but I told him no no no no no. No! Don't use boiling water. Never put boiling water on cold glass. Hell, don't even put boiling water on warm glass. I don't even use hot water; I turn the hot water tap on and start filling, and it doesn't get hot until halfway through filling the jug; for the second and third jugs, I turn the cold water on halfway so it still comes out warmer than blood, but not by much.
It was 30 degrees outside, which is not too cold for this. 30 and still snowing.
I have heard all kinds of dire warnings from people since I started using this technique. It might get in your locks, they say. Not at 30 degrees, and certainly not if you're just doing the windshield. It might make things worse. Well, it might, but it might not, so? It might crack your windows. Yes, a sudden temperature differential can crack glass: that's why I never use hot. It doesn't have to be hot water; it just has to be hotter than the ice, and if it pours out of a bottle, then it's warm enough. A little warmth to it is OK-- your hand is 98 degrees and doesn't crack glass, right? So 100 degree water shouldn't either.
What you have to do is use enough water to shift the ice. And wipe the snow off first; it's just going to take too much water to shift the snow too.
Z and I did it cooperatively and it worked like a charm: slosh the water down the window, the other person attacks it with a squeegee and wipes the ice sheet away. On to the next: each side window took about 15 seconds to clean.
The windshield took nearly a gallon of water. (Don't forget to clear away the chunks of ice that collect around the wiper blades and get in the way of your windshield wiper jets. They'll freeze solid in a few minutes.)
The back windshield... It had nearly half an inch of ice on it, and there was just no way. I chipped out a little hole with my fingernails, and made do.
The wing mirrors I used 32 ounces of water on apiece. Nasty little buggers. I finally peeled away the melting sheets of ice with my fingernails. Brr.
So, to recap:
- Only do this if it's approximately freezing outside. Don't do this if it's under 25 degrees. I have once, only to free some really stuck things; you can melt a hole in the ice, but you'll still have to scrape where the water freezes. At least it freezes in a thinner sheet. It just makes a mess.
- Do not use hot water. Do NOT use boiling water. Use water only a little warmer than your blood. I promise it will still work. You'll just need more of it.
- Be ready with a squeegee or a scraper; you can use less water if you just use the water to loosen stuck ice, and then follow up by physically removing the un-stuck ice before it freezes again-- which it will.
- Remove as much snow and ice as you can with your brush first. The less material there is to melt, the faster it will melt and the easier a time you'll have.
- Dump water only on the windows. Don't just dump a bucket over the roof of the car: it will melt all the ice on the roof, and be frozen before it reaches the windows, and might freeze your doors shut if you're an idiot and it's actually really cold out. Just put the mouth of the jug to the top of the window and pour slowly along the glass itself.
So that's my story.
