Dealing with Frozen Sand

[jajiu]

I've had a Herd spreader for about 6 yrs. and learned the first year not to leave salt/sand mix in the spreader as it hardens up, yes, even with the salt mixed in it still becomes a clump. My neighbor is a masonry contractor and gets the sand mix for me and I spread it on my hill and his hill so we can get up them. I told him of my problem and he said NEVER leave the spreader full or even partially full as it will harden and be a b*tch to get out. It took a couple of days to break it up and empty the spreader. Since that happened, I have always used up ALL the contents of the spreader before putting it away for the night.

 

[Gene Blister]

Salted sand up here is a bad idea, it kills too much, really bad for the water table and lakes.
Go to North 40 and get a couple bags of purple heat, magnesium chloride, it's a fertilizer and pet safe.

It has a better melt point than salt anyways.

Hi All. Since were on the down side of winter I just wanted to touch base on the salted sand issue.

I've been adding Purple Heat (Mg Cl) into the ordinary "tube sand" in the spreader and it's been keeping the stuff unfrozen and free flowing. Dead Mans Curve is a safer place with this traction.

I did have to remove the hoppers stirring paddle and replace it with a flail:

A 10-inch-long piece of schedule 40 PVC pipe, softened and molded to the shape of the paddles mount and attached with a bolt; 12-inch lengths of .18 dia. 2/0 zinc plated chain are attached with bolts in a spiral around the pipe from top to bottom.

When she spins, the chains beat the sand/salt mix into submission and keep it from berming up around the exit ports, effectively getting all of the sand out of the hopper and on to the ground.

Take a look at the Youtube channel GP Outdoors #137 Wet Sand: The Fix Is In!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReKtlVffRpk

Thanks again for the insights!