Homemade Windshield De-Icer Fends Off Frost
Sun, Jan 18th, 2009
Life in a snowy winter climate without a garage includes a yearly sentence of months wielding an ice scraper to clean off your car. Make winter less arduous with these handy DIY de-icer recipes.
Sure you can start your car and let it idle away, melting the snow off in the process. Idling your car for long enough to completely loosen up all the ice and snow is waste of gas and the cash you spent filling up your tank. Linsey over at the financial blog wanted a cheap and effective way to cut down on the time she spent scraping ice off her car. Among several suggested recipes the following combines two effective ingredients:
Use a bottle of 70% isopropyl alcohol (50% works, too, but not as well) with a few drops of dish soap. Apply liberally to the glass with a spray bottle. (Readers also recommend adding alcohol to the washer fluid container, with a 50/50 mix, to keep wiper lines from freezing up in the winter.)Have different ideas? Please tell us.
I would suggest that you have just duplicated windshield washer fluid. If you want something that will stay on the windshield over the whole day in the parking lot try this.
Take a rag and wet it with plumber’s antifreeze (non-toxic). Then wipe a thin layer it on the windshield when you leave the car. The antifreeze will not evaporate and will clean off easily once the ice is scraped off and the wipers wipe.
Only use a very light film because it will cause streaking if it is too heavy.