Rock Salt Sales
Cloud Snow Removal Services also sells rock salt, also known as road salt.
We deliver to following locations: St Louis, St Peters, St Charles, O'fallon, Wentzville, and New Melle.
Rock salt is sold only in pallet quantities.
Call for pricing (636) 577-0469
Why do they use salt to melt ice on the road in the winter?
If you live in a place that has lots of snow and ice in the winter, then you have probably seen the highway department spreading rock salt on the road to melt the ice. You may have also used salt on ice when making home-made ice cream. Salt lowers the freezing/melting point of water, so in both cases the idea is to take advantage of the lower melting point.
Ice forms when the temperature of water reaches 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius). When you add salt, that temperature drops: A 10-percent salt solution freezes at 20 F (-6 C), and a 20-percent solution freezes at 2 F (-16 C). On a roadway, this means that if you sprinkle rock salt on the ice, you can melt it. The road salt dissolves into the liquid water in the ice and lowers its freezing point.
If you ever watch rock salt melting ice, you can see the dissolving process happen -- the ice immediately around the grain of salt melts, and the melting spreads out from that point.
When you are making ice cream, the temperature around the ice cream mixture needs to be lower than 32 F if you want the mixture to freeze. Salt mixed with ice creates brine that has a temperature lower than 32 F. When you add salt to the ice water, you lower the melting temperature of the ice down to 0 F or so. The brine is so cold that it easily freezes the ice cream mixture.