Concrete culvert pipe "treatment"

[oldestguy]

Hi folks:

I'm a real old guy. When I was a kid in western New York State, the county highway department was a big operation. They cast their own concrete pipes for culverts and maybe storm sewers. These were 2 to 5 feet diameter pipes.

Each one was dipped in a hot tar bath heated by steam.

Why, since back in 1930-40's I doubt that any salt was used on roads, only cinders. They had stockpiles of cinders like you would not believe. Hundreds of cubic yards.

I did see plenty of calcium-chloride empty bags in one of their sheds. Maybe as an additive to concrete then?

Any thoughts?

 

[rconner]

I don't know the answer to your question, but calcium chloride is of course a type of "salt" itself (that would to some extent lower the melting temperature of ice). As you infer calcium chloride has also been used in very small quantities so as to “retard” (at least in days before political correctness) the setting of concrete, but interestingly also as an “accelerator” for such setting in larger quantities. I even saw it written once in a cement text, “These salts are sometimes used to protect concrete laid in cold weather against frost.” [while I don’t know if this proves anything, from being in the area I do believe it can in fact get quite frosty in some areas of at New York, if they were trying to do any of this work then!]
I’m not sure there is much contemporary use like the latter in large amounts, perhaps due to at least worries of corrosion of reinforcement, increasing drying shrinkage, or other deleterious effects.
It’s good to hear from us older folks (keep em’coming!)

 

[dgillette]

Any chance that the CaCl was used in tires for weight? When I was a kid working on my uncle's farm, the rear tires of some tractors were filled with "calcium" solution for weight -> traction. I think it was chloride, but am not positive. It had to be non-freezing down to -20F.

 

[hydroponder]

If memory serves me correctly, I believe they use calcium chloride on gravel roads for dust control. Every spring, my parents pay a fee, along with the neighbors, to have a truck spray down the gravel road. I believe it is a calcium chloride solution. Any chance they were using it for this?

I have seen it used in tractor tires as well..

 

[oldestguy]

Hey guys on the subject of chloride in tractor tires, that is a sore spot here. I moved a lot of "waste" fill for a neighbor with my compact tractor. The next morining when I went to the garage, the left rear tire was flat, a nail puncture, with that darn stuff flowing out and towards my well.

What a mess with 300 pounds of steel tire weights to remove, as well as protecting the well from seepage (corrosive for steel). There is a buried tank surrounding the well casing.

A farm repair guy fixed things and added more chloride fluid. It's corrosive stuff. Grass killed at one area still has not come back.

So far the well water tastes fine???