2 ms·

I've experimented with this and other methods for home use. One thing I've found very effective is steam and boiling water - especially for pavers. It does more

by nl 4y ago

I've experimented with this and other methods for home use. One thing I've found very effective is steam and boiling water - especially for pavers. It does more than just killing the leaves - the boiling water penetrates and kills roots.

cduzz 4y ago
What's the process for steaming a patch of soil? It seems like running a mobile autoclave would be really good at killing everything in the soil, which is probably both good (gets rid of the weeds) and bad (kills everything). Are there mobile soil steaming systems? Certainly that'd be way less toxic than dumping a bunch of chemicals all over.
- nl 4y ago
  I used a Kurtcher (I think?) steam cleaner that is used to power a steam mop, but just had the spray thing that I think it for cleaning windows. I'm not aware of any special devices, but I did think that for paving specifically there would be a market. We had a kid who was crawling and didn't want to use toxic poisons on the paving, so I had to think about alternatives.
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    You sureley meant the german brand Kärcher, that you can spell Kaercher if you don't have easy access to the umlaut. https://www.kaercher.com/us/home-garden/steam-cleaners.html https://www.kaercher.com/us/home-garden/steam-cleaners.html
eliaspro 4y ago
But I could imagine, it doesn't only kill the roots, but all microorganisms around them as well so you'll end up with dead dirt instead of a proper soil. I also wonder about the energy footprint for heating that much water... My intuition screams "far too much to be a reasonable scalable alternative".
- nl 4y ago
  For weeding pavers I don't care about dead soil. It's soil that is cracks between pavers and I sort of wish it wasn't. I think the steamer is at least partially a flash boiler, so energy use isn't high. It isn't huge amounts of water it needs to boil.

2 ms·

I've experimented with this and other methods for home use. One thing I've found very effective is steam and boiling water - especially for pavers. It does more

by nl 4y ago

cduzz 4y ago
What's the process for steaming a patch of soil? It seems like running a mobile autoclave would be really good at killing everything in the soil, which is probably both good (gets rid of the weeds) and bad (kills everything). Are there mobile soil steaming systems? Certainly that'd be way less toxic than dumping a bunch of chemicals all over.
- nl 4y ago
  I used a Kurtcher (I think?) steam cleaner that is used to power a steam mop, but just had the spray thing that I think it for cleaning windows. I'm not aware of any special devices, but I did think that for paving specifically there would be a market. We had a kid who was crawling and didn't want to use toxic poisons on the paving, so I had to think about alternatives.
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    You sureley meant the german brand Kärcher, that you can spell Kaercher if you don't have easy access to the umlaut. https://www.kaercher.com/us/home-garden/steam-cleaners.html https://www.kaercher.com/us/home-garden/steam-cleaners.html
eliaspro 4y ago
But I could imagine, it doesn't only kill the roots, but all microorganisms around them as well so you'll end up with dead dirt instead of a proper soil. I also wonder about the energy footprint for heating that much water... My intuition screams "far too much to be a reasonable scalable alternative".
- nl 4y ago
  For weeding pavers I don't care about dead soil. It's soil that is cracks between pavers and I sort of wish it wasn't. I think the steamer is at least partially a flash boiler, so energy use isn't high. It isn't huge amounts of water it needs to boil.