Hey all,
I am putting in the order for DOWFlake and MAGFlake today. Just a word of caution, MANY of the de-icer products sold here in NM are Calcium Chloride with added trace additions of iodine, Phosphate and Ammonia because of our severe climate changes. There are only a few products that have been proven to work well, and unfortunately, they are all sold on the east coast.
Another item to be aware of, Wall Mart has been known to sell "grade B" chemical agents that normally fail construction grading even they have the same name, manufactures class this as "consumer" grade. The preferred grade is 77+% calcium chloride. Higher grades CAN be used, but its pointless unless regular grades are not available. With 77-80%, you will use about 1oz per day. with higher grades, you need to dilute it more (about 20%) otherwise you will be measuring as low as .25oz/day
The Prestone driveway heat should be fine though since it is anhydrous calcium chloride, so there are very few impurities.
For my presentation, I will be using Magflake and Dowflake since there is more "specific" information on these items and I have been using them personally for about a year now. I will be putting in an order for 32 cups of Dowflake and 32 cups of Magflake. This should be enough for ~ 10 gallons of calcium and ~6 gallons of Mag. Of course, the alkalinity part is just baking soda, so thats ~$3/gallon.
More to come. If you want to get in on this (I have 3 people total so far) PM me today and I will bump up the order. As an idea of the price:
Shipping ~$20
1 order of Mag: ~$10
1 order of Calc: ~$10
Shipping will be split down the middle so at 3, its now $6.
You get the idea.
Alex Fullam
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