Ice scraping
With socks and a hot water bottle against the ice
© tutye / Adobe Stock
Bah! So cold and then also scraping ice – early in the morning! Here are tips to make the annoying chore go away quickly.
It’s no fun: having to go out into the cold in the morning and then having to remove ice from the car windows with clammy fingers. But it has to be! As tempting as it may be, a scraped peephole or a view through the blown-out lower edge of the window is unfortunately not enough. Apart from the threat of a fine, the risk of accidents is high and you may be partially to blame. By the way, anyone who leaves the engine running to warm up the car will be punished. Unfortunately, the only thing left is to completely de-ice the windows, rear-view mirrors and also lamps and license plates.
1) Avoid icing
You can at least prevent the front and rear windows from icing over by covering them with a protective tarpaulin overnight. Two old socks keep the side mirrors free of ice. Simply put it on and take it off in the morning. If you don’t use a tarpaulin, you should at least fold up the windshield wipers so that you don’t have to laboriously remove them from the ice in the morning.
2) Keep scratch, spray and de-icer at home
Scratches, de-icing spray and especially the door lock de-icer should not be used Car, but rather in the apartment, preferably in a bag so that you always have everything together. It is also useful to have extra gloves so that you still have a dry pair after de-icing.
3) Which ice scrapers?
Unfortunately, credit cards and CD cases are not suitable for scratching – the card can break and the CD case can scratch the discs. It’s better to get an ice scraper for little money: the sawtooth edge can be used to remove thick layers of ice, the smooth ice scraping edge cleans the windows and the rubber lip helps to wipe away the water.
4) How to de-ice?
According to the car rental company “Sixt”, a 2:1 mixture of water and rubbing alcohol plus a dash of dishwashing liquid has proven effective for light icing. It is best to fill the liquid into a spray bottle and apply it to the icy windows. Then immediately wipe the condensation water off the window. Otherwise, the quickly evaporating alcohol and the wind will cause the windows to quickly freeze over again.
5) Just no hot water!
Important: Please do not use warm and certainly not hot water. On the one hand, warm water freezes faster than cold water (Mpemba effect). On the other hand, the thermal shock creates tension on the pane and, in extreme cases, causes it to crack. Be sure to avoid “quick defrosting” with a bucket of hot water!
6) Use newspaper and hot water bottle against the ice on the inner windows
To prevent the inner panes from icing over, you can leave one overnight Newspaper Lay out on the dashboard. It draws moisture out of the indoor air and prevents condensation from freezing. The trick should also work with rice, coffee or dehumidifier bags from specialist retailers (approx. 10 euros).
If you forget to dehumidify overnight, you can do one in the morning hot water bottle Place on the windshield to melt the frost. But the same applies here: the water filled in must not be too hot and the hot water bottle must not touch the glass. Accordingly, it takes up to 20 minutes for a large-scale effect to occur. Then remove the melt water with a cloth or disk sponge.
Sources: Sixt, RND, NDR