Chapin 80088 80-Pound Residential Salt and Ice Melt Spreader, (1 Spreader/Package)

UPDATE: after 2 winters this product totally siezed up and the gear box no longer works. The fly wheel would not move and distribute the salt any longer. I paid for a better product and it was absolutely not worth the money. Using this product for a steep driveway. The product is functioning well so far but is a little tricky navigating as the stand bar on the bottom keeps you from tipping it too far up or down. This is very tricky on the steep drive.

I was wasting time fooling around with my Scotts lawn spreader. I think this was pretty reasonable at $140. It comes assembled (just need to put the handle bar and tighten it) which I appreciated in the freezing cold garage. Sturdy, tall (bending over to use saves the back) no settings, I used about 100lbs of melter of long driveway (120 feet) and parking area. The auger system seems to work well at keeping things moving.

Looks like it should work perfectly for my needs. Baffles look to put salt exactly where I need it.I rated at 3 stars for the lack of parts packing that led to parts flying around of box (which resulted in several missing nuts), and the number of bolts that weren't meant for customer assembly (no instructions or where they were to go). It's not like i don't have a toolbox full of tools to fix the situation, but these extra items were unnecessary.Update (1 year later): After 1 year of low use and washing it water twice during the season, the gearbox doesn't want to turn when wheels turn axel. Rusted screws and corroded shaft make repair difficult without ordering all new parts. Granted salt is extremely hard on things - but with these new developments, I have to downgrade the unit to 2 stars. Additional notes on use are less than stellar loading of salt (not overloaded) in hopper down through shaft- you need to shake it back and forth every 10 feet. The dial mechanism also needs improvement.

So initially I was going to give this spreader 2 stars. The spiral shaped thing that is supposed to kick more salt down the shoot is not a good design at all and I had to keep shaking the crap out of the thing to get the salt to come out. I then had an idea... I rummaged through some old drill bits until i found one that was just bigger than the hole that the pin goes through to hold the spiral thing on and hammered it through. I have about 2 1/2 inches of the bit sticking out on either side of the pin, and now she moves salt like a champ!! I even had to close the feed rate hole more because it started going through 100 lbs of salt in under a minute! So now i gave it four stars because it works great BUT I had to fabricate something that resembles every other spreader on the market. Chapin could save people some time and effort by just putting this kind of feature on the thing to begin with! I love how heavy duty this spreader is. it should last longer than the lawn and garden ones on salt. very simple assembly(some fabrication necessary for optimum results!

Could be better.The "360 Degree Baffle System" consists of 4 plastic baffles secured with metal straps, tiny screws and the tiniest wingnuts I have ever seen. Impossible to tighten them sufficiently if you wish to raise the baffles and allow salt to spread to the sides and front. I tightened as much as I felt I could without breaking or stripping the screws, but baffles would not stay up at all. I resorted to removing the sides and front. Without them, this works fine for my driveway.The nuts and bolts to secure the handle were loose in the box, and the box was poorly taped with a large gap. I'm glad the bolts made it thru, the odds were not favorable.Spreads halite and calcium chloride well. Does not work well for sand, it runs thru too fast even with the bail released.Sturdy, love the pneumatic tires - much better on icey surface than the molded plastic ones on my garden spreader.

Have used a sum total of 5-7 times over 4 years and wash it down after use and spray with fluid film in an effort to protect the exposed metal. The metals are horribly corroded and seized, the sleeve holding the gearbox to the axle completely broke off and the retaining bolt came out, rending it unrepairable. Anything designed to be used in a salt spreader should be treated steel to prevent corrosion. Waste of money.

Not quite sure why everyone else talks about assembly issues. Maybe they updated the packaging. Mine came literally all assembled. All I had to do was pull it out of the box, flip the handle up and tighten the screws (no tools required). As far as the reviews saying it doesn't feed salt... I have had zero issues. I'm sure if you use bulk salt and have softball size chunks of salt caked together it will not feed though the screen. In that case just remove the screen (no tools required. Just reach in and pull it out). There is an auger at the feed hole designed to grind up big chunks. I currently use bulk salt of which has some clumps the size of gulf balls so therefore I removed the screen and the auger does it's job perfectly. As I said maybe I received an updated version but this unit could not possibly be any better or easier to set up out of the box.

This thing is terrible. It is well built and heavy duty but does not spread salt. Everything seems to be designed well except for the auger. My cheapo Scotts fertilizer spreader spreads salt better than this thing does. I have tried to use this spreader over the course of two winters with 3 different types of ice melt.

I bought this on sale and love it. The initial assembly took some time (20minutes) but was not difficult. The build quality is great and I expect it to last. The two wheels are of quality with significant weight (not cheap plastics).

lasted a year, then it locked up ,complete junk

Does a great job distributing the salt. Ordering is made very simple and delivery is right on the mark. Very impressed!

Worked well

Bought this for our church. Should do the job