This is me circa 2011. NEVER AGAIN.
Ephraim
5041
It’s so strange to me to see all this talk to snow blowers. I live in one of the snowiest cities in the world, and I know many homeowners at a variety of income levels. No one owns a snowblower. Everyone just pays someone to do it for them. Most gardeners switch over seasonally from mowing lawns to removing snow, and they’ve got all the necessary gear to do it. They’re super efficient, and they tend to sign up a bunch of people in the same neighbourhood so they’re very quick and organized. And it’s just so ubiquitous that the pricing is very reasonable.
Maybe I just know a lot of lazy people.
On my block, everyone but me and two other neighbours owns a snow blower. I guess it’s a Canadian suburbia with a big driveway thing. There’s probably about two snowfalls each winter where I wish I had a snow blower. So far this winter, it’s been zero. That’s not often enough for me to justify one.
Thrag
5043
I’m in a rural area with nearly a quarter mile of road to maintain. The first winter I was there when we got a couple of feet dumped on us we were getting quotes like $400 to clear the driveway. That combined with my general dislike for hiring people to do things I can probably do myself led me down the snow blower path.
That first year as I was working down the road with my somewhat undersized for the task blower, one of the guys who had quoted me $400 was driving by on his way to another job. He pulled over to watch for a minute. Greeted me with a “yippe-cai-yay” as I came close. He must have thought I was nuts. He did then offer to finish the job for a much more reasonable price to which I replied “I’m kinda enjoying this man vs. nature thing I’ve got going on and I’m determined to see it though”. Though he didn’t make a sale that day he did do me a favor by coming by on his way back from the neighbors and knocking down the iced over plow wall for free.
KevinC
5044
Howdy, neighbor!
I used to always shovel my own driveway but a few years ago we got walloped by storm after storm. Lots of heavy wet snow which sucked because the driveway at my previous place was a really long stretch of concrete out to the road. Anyway, after the series of storms I was already sick of it but one morning I found myself spending three hours shoveling a couple feet of snow while burning up with a fever and decided enough was enough. I was just going to go the lazy route after that and haven’t looked back.
Ephraim
5045
I wonder if it’s just not a Montreal thing (where I live in suburbia with lots of big driveways around me). Because thinking back to when I lived in the Ottawa suburbs, you’re right. I can remember seeing more individual homeowners clearing their own driveways.
RichVR
5046
I’m pretty sure that some of my back issues come from shoveling wet snow at 3AM in Brooklyn.
Hansey
5047
I live on a private road (so no town plowing) in Maine, so we and our two neighbors all hire the same guy to come and plow our road and our driveways. Problem is, he only comes for 3" of snow or more, which wouldn’t be a problem except our driveway is just hilly enough that 2.5" of snow means our car can’t get up it. Usually for an inch or less, it just melts on its own (asphalt driveway + south facing = quick snow melt from the sun, even in the cold) but that awkward 2-3" amount needs to be cleared.
We’ve been doing it manually, because obviously that much snow doesn’t weigh very much, but we’re also getting to the age where shoveling even small amounts of snow results in back pain, simply because our driveway is quite large. We’ve recently talked about getting a smaller model snowblower just for these occasional small accumulations. (Also, to do our walkway, since the plow guy doesn’t do any of that.)
How do snowblowers work on a deck? We have a large deck and my guess is it won’t throw the snow far enough on some parts of the deck, so it would just create a bigger pile near the edges.
Also, can the pitch of the throw be adjusted so it throws over the deck railing?
Yes, the pitch can be changed–there’s a funnel at the top that has multiple angles.
I would be worried about it scratching/scraping/damaging the wood of the deck. Maybe with an electric that uses a plastic blade it wouldn’t be too bad.
Yep our old craftsman can almost throw it up at 15 degrees. Tossing snow a good 25 feet away.
Nesrie
5051
All this talk of snow makes me feel so cold! I don’t even own a snow shovel. If we get more than a couple inches, the whole area just pretty much shuts down.
Bernie wouldn’t even bother wearing a winter coat in your town, Nesrie.
CraigM
5053
I mean I know I don’t.
We got half an inch here and, under normal circumstances, would absolutely have led to early office closures (snow was at 4). The Portland area has some crazy low number of plows, maybe half a dozen, due to our relative lack of snow.
That might be our one snow of the year actually.
Thrag
5054
A lot of snowblowers have skids on the sides you can adjust the height of if you’re concerned about marring the surface of the deck.
If you need a clear an area larger than you can throw it’s best to clear the area you are later going to throw into first and then go back over it at the end rather than make a larger mound of snow to deal with.
A cheap corded electric model is a good choice for a deck assuming there’s an outlet you can use. You can get one for ~$100.
dtolman
5055
Pff - snow blower. Here’s my snow removal tool of choice - removed 18 inches of snow earlier this week from my 30 foot long, double width driveway without issues - also takes up minimal room in my garage, requires no fossil fuels to run, and is noise free.
I call BS! I hear scraping all the time in mornings during the winter.
Nesrie
5057
Yeah just like here. If it’s more than just a little bit, the equipment and employees are just not there. They clear the highway, interstate and roads to the hospital.
Most of the time our big danger is ice… black ice is especially sporty.
CraigM
5058
Oh yeah. Especially with slopes and people who haven’t spent their entire lives driving on it.
Being from the Midwest I had a few surprise office closures from snow. I did not expect that.
jsnell
5059
Ok, I don’t get it. Why would anyone use a snow shovel for anything except for narrow spaces? :) They’re inefficient no matter how much snow there is, and the ergonomics are horrible. I don’t know the English word, but a “lumikola” pictured below is what basically everyone would use in northern Finland for clearing driveways etc:
https://www.fiskars.com/fi-fi/puutarhanhoito/tuotteet/lumi-autotyokalut/snowxpert-lumikola-1003470
These would typically be about 60-80 cm wide, are really easy to scoop the snow up with and move it around, and (as demonstrated by the last image on that page) there’s a simple technique of tossing even the full 50 liter load on top of the snow pile, where it’s boosted with the leg. Way easier on the back than trying to use leverage on a shovel to toss snow.
Does this not exist in North America, or is it covered by what you’d call a shovel?
