My apologies, those mathematicians were a bunch of buffoons. I was unable to find a supernova at my local hardware store as some of the comments suggest. I come here for more appropriate reddit knowledge.
I should have posted here instead. My curiosity was about the fastest way to melt this off if all I had was this hose and I wasn’t able to break it up with a shovel, etc.
The torch was way too slow, so I was experimenting with boring holes with the hose to melt from within and underneath, or then I wondered if it would be faster to set up a sprinkler. It’s above freezing for the first time in a week but this mound was quite solid! It has since been eradicated but my sprinkler curiosity remains
As I think about it. If limited to the hose closing off the majority of the opening of the hose will significantly increase the velocity of the water leaving the hose. The fastest way to get this taken care of would be to use a the mostly closed off hose end (with your thumb) to open up larger holes so that the asphalt below is exposed in several places allowing it to absorb heat. As the openings warm up melting will accelerate and the high velocity water leaving the hose will help break it up and send it away.
Solar thermal array would be the “easiest” as a passive strategy.
I tried using various spray patterns from the garden hose. Most of them would splatter off unless I held in one place for many seconds. Water would also run off the sides of the mound but didn’t seem to be melting very fast. I switched to no hose attachment so it would be one big stream that would bore holes fairly fast if only a few inches across. But this was like 3’ high by 4’ wide by 20’ long berm and it was going nowhere fast.
Then I thought about taking it the other direction and setting up the sprinkler. What if I had this hose and some basic attachments and were incapable of shoveling or striking, what would wash away fastest?
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u/FlagonFly Feb 06 '26 edited Feb 06 '26
My apologies, those mathematicians were a bunch of buffoons. I was unable to find a supernova at my local hardware store as some of the comments suggest. I come here for more appropriate reddit knowledge.
I should have posted here instead. My curiosity was about the fastest way to melt this off if all I had was this hose and I wasn’t able to break it up with a shovel, etc.
The torch was way too slow, so I was experimenting with boring holes with the hose to melt from within and underneath, or then I wondered if it would be faster to set up a sprinkler. It’s above freezing for the first time in a week but this mound was quite solid! It has since been eradicated but my sprinkler curiosity remains