Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 81 total)
  • Defrosting car windscreens with hot water
  • brant
    Free Member

    On STWv1 forum, there was a thread about defrosting car windscreens with hotwater. On camp saying “it will crack” another saying “it will probably only crack if there’s a chip in your screen”.

    I just cracked my screen this morning, and have no recollection of a chip/crack at either end 🙁

    snaps
    Free Member

    I’ve defrosted this way for 20 plus years & not had a problem but I do only use 20C water.

    colnagokid
    Full Member

    Use cold water numpty, it still defrosts it 😀

    thefallguy
    Free Member

    yup, cold water here too for last 15 years with no probs

    xherbivorex
    Free Member

    turn your engine on, turn the heater on and use a window scraper with a bit of effort behind it.
    you don’t need water or de-icer or anything. usually just makes it harder, IME.

    Smee
    Free Member

    Use a bank/credit card to take the ice off – better than any scraper.

    nickc
    Full Member

    Heated windscreen on my Mondeo. What is this scraping of which you speak?

    brant
    Free Member

    Use cold water numpty, it still defrosts it

    Gah.I guess it was hotter than I thought it was, and quite cold out.

    Like I say – never had it happen before. Glad it was my gash alfa, not the wifes nice car.

    crispybacon
    Free Member

    clear your shed out & put the car inside 😆

    HTH

    nickc
    Full Member

    Insurance will cover it, won’t it?

    brant
    Free Member

    >Insurance will cover it, won’t it?

    Yes, even idiocy in this case.

    onandon
    Free Member

    i have always used warm water on my cars , never had any issues at all.
    even my car with lightweight thiner glass (i kid you not)hasn’t cracked…….. yet

    Keva
    Free Member

    why not just start the car up, put the blower on full blast and go back inside for a cuppa tea ?

    chimpymcchimp
    Full Member

    While someone steals your car? 😉

    emac65
    Free Member

    Yup,also a warm water user for over 25 years(when we used to have proppa winters)& no fecked screens here either….

    Wife’s car got a heated front screen & it aint as quick as the water method 8)

    colande
    Free Member

    use cold water,

    hot water actually freezes faster than cold water,
    i dont understand the physics behind it,

    but if you dont believe me just google it

    emac65
    Free Member

    warm water & wipers on fast is the way to go….

    jimmy
    Full Member

    Used a CD case impromptu yesterday to de-ice. Worked a treat and no icy fingers of using credit card technique.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    “hot water actually freezes faster than cold water”

    its on the internet so it must be true!

    think about it logicaly for a few seconds………………………..

    high tempreature water in a bucket (90deg C), low tempreature water (20deg C) in an idetical bucket (no treadmills or aeropanes involved)

    presume ground is perfectly coducting and has a tempreature of -10deg C, and the air tempeature is -10deg C

    The rate of evaporation (and so cooling by the enthalpy of vapourisation) is (for the sake of argument assumed to be, we wont go into 5 film theory, an convection currents) proportional to tempreature. Ditto the rate of heat loss by conduction.

    So initialy the hot bucket loses heat (and thus lowers in tempreature) at a greater rate than the low tempreature bucket.

    But as it cools this rate lowers.

    so when the high tempreature bucket is at 20deg C, its rate of heat loss will be the same as the low tempreature bucket was originaly, however, the low temp bucket has now cooled to 5 deg, etc etc etc

    Yes i have heard of the Mpemba pheomenon, but that only aplies in certain coditions, in reality you’d have to devise your experiment to take advantage of it.

    colande
    Free Member

    oh gawd here we go again,
    you put the hot water into a airplane shaped ice cube tray,
    then straight into a freezer which is on a conveyor belt

    thisisnotaspoon that’s what i thought the cold water has a head start in freezing
    no!!!!

    http://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1GGLS_en-GBGB309GB310&aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=hot+water+freezes+faster+than+cold+water

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    check out my last paragraph, its a phenomenon that exists, i dont doubt that, but thats like saying everyone drives bugatti’s, based on the evience that 1 person does.

    roundwheels
    Free Member

    start engine, back in side, cup o tea, back out window clear .mainly with frost but if its heavy snow it helps as well because you just brush the snow of with big brush

    colande
    Free Member

    the 2 buckets is the precise experiment where hot water will freeze before the cold, given that they are in the same environment.

    dont poo-poo the idea, i remember seeing it on a children’s program, it might have been “how 2”
    and they dont lie 🙂

    loddrik
    Free Member

    stand on the roof and piss all over the windscreen, cleared in seconds…

    Drac
    Full Member

    Used water on car screens for years clears it instantly and never had one crack. No doubt it can happen with hot enough water and a really cold day.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    wouldnt just be 2 buckets, the buckets would need to be the right shape/size and filled to the correct level as well,

    and it presumes no forced convection, i.e. your not stirring it, so the situation where its runnig down your windscreen in a very thin film, is probably about as likely to exibit the Mpemba phenomenon as i am to win the lottery (nearly impossibe seeing as i dont play)

    grizzlygus
    Free Member

    Colande sounds to me as if he knows what he’s talking about.

    You on the other hand Spoony, what you’re saying just sounds like nonsense to me.

    .

    Plus, you don’t appear to have watched the children’s programme which he’s talking about.

    colande
    Free Member

    grizzlygus – Member
    Colande sounds to me as if he knows what he’s talking about.

    You on the other hand Spoony, what you’re saying just sounds like nonsense to me.

    Plus, you don’t appear to have watched the children’s programme which he’s talking about.

    😀 haha grizzlygus, seeing that he hasn’t seen the children’s program in question i pronounce myself the winner,

    edit; http://www.discoverychannel.co.uk/web/mythbusters/experiment/ice/

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    no ive not seen the TV program……………………….

    but i did research it for part of my degree :p

    robdob
    Free Member

    Same here, I use lukewarm water and it clears all the windows with one jug full. Put wipers on and it’s dry so it won’t freeze again.

    Very hot water just seems a bit extreme!

    grizzlygus
    Free Member

    i did research it for part of my degree

    So how come you don’t know about the experiment then ?

    Did I and other taxpayers pay for your degree level education ffs ?

    sturmey
    Free Member

    Pour it on the front of the roof and let it run down the screen, works for me. But there again I onlt have to do it once in a blue moon as I ride to work all week.

    pullfaces
    Free Member

    Water that has been boiled (but then allowed to cool to ambient temperature) will freeze quicker than cold (ambient temperature) water.
    It’s about the air content within the water.

    falkirk_mark
    Free Member

    Start the car ,lock the car then go in for tea.
    I tried the water method but it ended up in the locks and then they would freeze up, Don’t suppose that matters as much with the remote locking now come to think of it

    bobsoff2
    Free Member

    I’m a W/Screen tech. and can’t believe u tworts use hot water to clear ure screens !!!
    You all deserve to have your W/S excess’s TREBBLED !!!! :mrgreen:

    andywhit
    Free Member

    scraping the windscreen takes approx 30 seconds and, unless you use a brick, doesn’t break it.

    pacemaker
    Free Member

    Another happy user of ford’s heated windscreen here 😀

    coolhandluke
    Free Member

    Also loving my Ford Quick Clear windscreen here. I juts have to start it up, scrape the 4 side windows and the front is done!

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Yep also loving the QuickClear.

    Though I can go one better: I just get in and say “Defrosting on!” in my best Captain Picard voice.
    Front and back windows heat up, blowers come on for the side windows, wing mirrors heat up and my washer water is also heated.
    Meantime I sitback and quietly chortle at the guy turning blue who has just broken his credit card on his window.

    Toys are great!

    foureyes
    Free Member

    loving the heated windscreen on my mondy too, but why dont Ford licence it to other manufacturers?

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 81 total)

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