Snow Plowing & Ice Management

[TEG Project Manager]

Let’s talk about something many people deal with every winter, especially in snowy places. Snow plowing and ice management. It might not sound glamorous, but if you’ve ever tried to walk on an icy sidewalk or shovel a heavy pile of snow, you know it can turn into a whole adventure pretty fast.

Snow has a funny way of showing up overnight and acting like it owns the place. One minute your driveway is clear. The next morning it looks like someone dumped a giant bag of powdered sugar all over everything. That is where plowing and ice control come in.

Maybe you use a shovel. Maybe you have a snow blower. Or maybe you rely on a trusty plow truck that rumbles down the street while you’re still in your pajamas. Either way, clearing snow is a bit like resetting your outdoor world so life can go on. When you remove the snow, everything feels safer, calmer, and a lot less slippery.

Ice is the real troublemaker though. It hides under the snow or forms slick little patches that make you feel like you stepped onto a surprise skating rink. Throwing down salt or sand can help give you traction. Some people even use pet safe ice melt if they have furry friends running around.

And of course, everyone has their own winter routine. Some folks like to get outside early and clear everything before sunrise. Others wait until the sun helps soften things up. Some people swear by the metal shovel. Others prefer the wide plastic one. We all have our tricks.

So let’s talk about it.

How do you manage snow and ice where you live?
Do you have any helpful tips that make winter chores easier?
What tools do you rely on most when everything freezes over?

Share your experiences, your frustrations, and any clever hacks you’ve learned along the way. Winter may be chilly, but we can warm things up with a good conversation.

 

[digitS']

The most recent 2 Winters have been mild. Over the last few days I have been looking back at weather history and records. They are a little disturbing . We never quite know what we are getting into.

I thought that I might be able to come up with a cute little rule of thumb — that whenever I move, the first Winter will be terrible. Nah. But, experience does help with understanding how to deal with events even those unexpected.

i have a snowblower but it is electric and being tied to an outlet with a cable is problematic. It can do a quick and easy job on the front sidewalk and path to the door but that is an easier task even with a shovel than elsewhere. The elsewhere is the long, uphill route from the garage to that front yard sidewalk. It's nearly all a lawngrass path.

I try, with reasonable success, to avoid damage to the lawn. Shoveling works best in that regard. The problem, the shovel isn't as wide as the garbage cans. The blower will cover that width. The problem, it can tear up the grass. Either is likely to leave a little snow so later in the season, the grass is protected by a frosty crust.

I can't leave a crust on the sidewalk and the walkway to the front door and rocksalt helps with that and makes things safer for deliveries and for the school kids. Anyway, I remain shovel oriented and use both a metal one and plastic. The plastic is so much lighter and the metal is so much better at scraping concrete. Oh yeah, and I need a parking space on the asphalt roadway . And when the snow plow passes, there ain't no way that my snow blower is gonna be able to move those berms.

Steve ugg!

 

[flowerbug]

it is a combination of factors to prevent ice building up.

i do not use any ice-melt, sand or salt.

most important, get it shovelled before you walk or drive on it and if it does get driven on use a metal flat blade to scrape that off.

i use a big shovel to push the snow as much as possible and then i have a lighter metal shovel for cleaning up the 2nd pass. i lift as little as possible and change sides so my back gets a rest and also both sides of my back get some exercise instead of always doing the shovel on one side.

if the sun might come out get it shovelled and then let the sunshine finish any small bits off.

super cold can sublimate some of the remains too, but i like to get it cleared as much as possible first no matter what.

i have to go out today to shovel, the sun is coming out, the wind and cold will be increasing, the heavy snow will take me an hour or two to get moved. the end of the driveway where the plows pile the snow is done last because they may come along several times and i don't want to have to shovel it several times so i will leave it as much as possible, but also if it is getting colder i have to get that end of the driveway pile removed before it gets frozen solid as that is no fun to deal with either.

it's always a bit of a dance. today will be the toughest day so far.

hopefully the snow stops coming down soon so i can get started and will take me a few sessions with a break...

we lost power this morning for a while so that was the fun and getting the propane fireplace going is always a fun thing too (not at all...), but we did ok and had hot soup for breakfast and right when i was making hot chocolate the lights came back on so Mom said, why is that light on? and so we are back to normal.

or as normal as it gets around here...

 

[flowerbug]

well, this is going to take three rounds of digging out today. very wet and heavy. one round done. 20 more minute break for lunch and then i can get back at it.

i think the worst of it is done as it is the wide part of the driveway plus an area off to the side where Mom backs in to turn around so it's like shovelling three driveways up top. now i'm mostly done with that and down to the smaller width area which means i can move half a driveway to each side and won't have to push it over the rest of the snow to get it to where i'm dumping it.

would be nice to get it done in two rounds but probably not a good idea to go at it that hard. olde...