- 1). Use a plastic-bladed (not metal) snow shovel to remove any snow covering the ice. The shovel can also be used to scrape under edges and lift off ice as it melts. Avoid hard pounding or scraping with the shovel, to prevent damage to the surface or finish on the wood.
- 2). Apply magnesium-chloride ice melter, rather than more caustic sodium- or calcium-chloride melters. (You may find magnesium chloride melters labelled "pet safe." One manufacturer of sodium-based melter, Diamond Crystal, specifically cautions against using its melter on wood.) Apply as small a quantity as possible, scrape gently and then apply more to stubborn spots that remain.
- 3). Apply wood ashes from fireplace fires on the ice on the wood patio. This old-fashioned strategy relies on the weak lye solution created by combining wood ashes and water to melt ice (creating lye in this way was part of household soap-making for centuries). Cautions attached to this traditional melting process include the unpredictable strength of your lye solution and the mess you will have to deal with if you track the results of melting the ice in this fashion into the house.
- 4). Install electrically powered heating cables or mats on wooden surfaces that must be kept free of ice for safety reasons. More expensive than spread-and-shovel removal methods, electrical ice-melters require little or no physical effort to keep surfaces ice free.
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