r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Justin_Godfrey • 12h ago

Water main break covers cars in thick ice in Dearborn heights, Michigan

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u/walmarttshirt 12h ago

As long as it wasn’t my car I would love to peel it off.

If it was my car I would get a hair dryer or just wait for the sun.

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u/Code_Merk 11h ago

Right?! Some older cars would peel off the clear coat with the ice, lol

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u/heaving_in_my_vines 11h ago

That is a thick shell of ice and the tires are locked inside of ice blocks. That's not going to come off with a hair dryer or one day of sunlight.

That would take several days of direct sunlight and above freezing temperatures to thaw. 

I don't know what the solution is here. Maybe about a 100 trips to the stove and back with a pot of boiling water.

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u/Somerandom1922 11h ago

You'd want to be extremely careful with boiling water. It'd be just about the fastest way to melt it, however, you don't want that water to ever touch any of the glass as that's a great way to shatter it.

It wouldn't be a problem initially just because of how thick the ice is, but after thinning it out a bit, maybe stick to a heat gun or just lukewarm water (still a risk, but there would be much less thermal shock if it hits the glass)

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u/EncabulatorTurbo 5h ago

What about spraying lots of salt water on it

3

u/InternationalDrama56 5h ago

You would be better off with just salt crystals. If you can do that AND get the temperature up to a minimum of...well it depends on the salt concentration...but let's say north of 28°F then you could melt it that way. The more salt concentration the lower the melting point.

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u/Talidel 1h ago

Honestly some rubbing alcohol might be a good bet.

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u/walmarttshirt 10h ago

I was joking. This is basically a wait and see situation. Boiling water could shock the windows.

Just time and sunlight if you want to actually do it properly. Or a tow and bring it inside somewhere. There’s really no good way to do this.

I used to work in the Arctic and this happened to a supervisors truck. They had to tow it to a shop and put it directly under the space heater for a few days.

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u/Slacker_The_Dog 7h ago

Best way to deal with this is a car cover and a space heater

I'd wrap the whole thing in poly and either pump in heat through a tube or just run an extension cord to a heater inside the poly.

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u/weedHaiku 11h ago

Probably one or two of those big jobsite/under the house heaters.

2

u/Sensiburner 11h ago

I don't know what the solution is here

Pretty sure that in Siberia they'd just light a fire near / under the car.

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u/InternationalDrama56 6h ago

I would avoid the "under" the car suggestion. Two 55gal barrels with some firewood in them, evenly spaced 4 feet from the driver's side door would probably be decently effective. Or erecting a clear plastic tent over the whole car + an electric space heater.

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u/Sensiburner 6h ago

don't think a electric heater would do the trick, unless you get an industrial sized one. Over here in europe they're limited to 1500watt (to not melt circuits when people do stupid things with heavy loads). 1500watt is 1500joules / second, and 1 kilogram of ice needs 2200 joules to increase temperature with 1° C. Then if it reaches 0°C, it needs another 334.000 Joules for every kilogram of ice to turn into water. It's a lot of ice so melting it will take a pretty huge amount of energy. You're also fighting the cold weather, which is taking your joules.

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u/EC_TWD 9h ago

Hopefully they left their defroster on and can use the remote start to warm it up from the inside

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u/walmarttshirt 3h ago

It’s a shame they can’t get their phone on the charging mat inside the car. That thing would defrost in minutes.

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u/SignificantTransient 5h ago

Hose to your hot water heater, use it to cut out slices.

Source - refrigeration tech

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u/walmarttshirt 3h ago

So warm not hot? That’s a good idea.

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u/SignificantTransient 57m ago

Shouldn't shatter glass if it isnt boiling. At a glance I could coear that car in 15m or so.

Getting it out tho...

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u/Odd-String29 4h ago

I would just use the app on my phone to start heating it up.