We have a long (0.18 mile) driveway. Very nice in the spring/summer/fall, but a bitch after a huge snow. My gf and each drive 4 WD vehicles, so for snow under a foot we just drive through it. This past weekend though we couldn’t do that, so we paid a guy to plow.
Oh it’s definitely on par with shoveling as far as work involved. Those are really for Yoopers who either use them to get to hard-to-snowblow spots or can’t afford a snowblower. And Yoopers who can’t afford snowblowers are few and far between; it takes about half a season of shoveling before you realize that you’d rather have a snowblower than eat.
Cost-wise, as I mentioned above, we pay $25 each time the plow guy comes. I don’t think he’d bother to come with only 2" of snow, though (we’re tougher than southern Zipper-types). I’d say we have to get 4-6" before he comes. Our driveway, according to Mr. Athena, is 120-240 feet (60-80 yards). Altogether, we pay around $100-$150/month for snowplowing, depending on how much it snows and the patterns.
My drive way is about 135’ and my new snowblower is the best thing I have bought lately. I went for the fancy heated handgrips too.
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NE North Carolina RARELY gets enough snow that I would even consider shoveling. The 7 inches we got two weekends ago was the first snow in 5 years that exceeded the 1-2 inches that is typical.
I just moved to ME and hypothetically I would just drive over it in my Explorer but the last couple of times it’s snowed, a mystery person has plowed my driveway. Thank you, Mystery Person!
I have a plow on my truck and voted accordingly. However I do have a snowblower in addition. I bought it two winters ago when there was so much snow (well over 100 inches for the season) and the snow banks were so high the plow wasn’t getting it over any more. The two-stage snowblower can pitch the snow right over the snow banks no matter how high they get. I really needed it toward the end of the last two seasons, but not so much this year.
250’ driveway costs $38/storm (this year, I think. If not, it’s only off by a few bucks).
Worth every penny. If the piles at the end of the driveway get too big (doubtful this year, unless late Feb/March are ugly), they’ll come and move it with the front-end loader. (Costs extra, but still reasonable).
Given a choice, I’ll never remove snow on my own driveway ever again. I do have to do cleanup around the garage doors, and the walkway & stairs to the back porch. The front steps are not shoveled, as we don’t use that door.
I have a 4x4 pickup, I just drive over it, the state road I drive down is bad anyway so why clear off my driveway? It snowed about 18 inches Fri and Sat and they only got around to plowing my road (with a road grader) Mon evening. Then it snowed again Tue night, like a blizzard, another 5 inches or so. My truck is not normally a daily driver but has been my only transportation for several weeks, my car hasn’t moved out of the garage for weeks. The worst problem is when the road grader plowed the road it left a 2 or 3 foot pile of hard icy snow at the end of my driveway.
I have a 30’ driveway & I shovel it myself (I am 60 years old). Yesterday we got over 12 inches and I did it five times. I don’t actually shovel, I just push it. Every year I think about getting a snowblower, but I really don’t want to have to deal with another large appliance. I’ll break down soon, though.
After we got plowed out of my gf’s house (after being snowed in for 4 days) I drove the 4 miles to my house, only to see that the road crew piled snow over 6 feet high in front of my driveway. I climbed it to check out my house. Almost got “stuck” when I fell through above my waist. After flailing around for a bit, I managed to get up my 100 yards of driveway.
The snowplow’s fee was worth every penny.
We’ve got a rather wide driveway. Thankfully, it was repaved 3 years ago, so it’s smooth. So for an average 4" or less snowball, we push/shovel it to the sides, then a pass up and back with the snowblower to toss it over the 4’ tall piles on the edge. That combo actually has turned out to be faster then just shovelling or just using the snowblower. Deeper or heaver snows, it’s all snowblower.
I have a long steep driveway. Usually I shovel it by hand, but these last two snows I paid someone.
Someone in my house does it. Me. It is a pain when the city plows the street and I have to go back out and dig out the last 5 feet again. They scrape up chucks and wet snow that will freeze into a wall quickly, so i have to go back out as soon as they do it.
I just went out to find that my mailbox is plowed in. Terribly so. I am digging it out slowly. It is annoying, but I’m glad that our street is plowed and I don’t know how they could do it differently.
I clicked snowblower since I do own/use one. But it was completely inadequate to deal with this year’s crazy weather, and the Snow Angels have come over twice to save us. Iw as able to clear my driveway, but they had to do the street to get us out, and the electrical cord doesn’t reach that far. . .
I gave them some money yesterday and they were quite reluctant to take it. I finally convinced the head guy that the others needed it and he should take it for them . . .
I love clearing snow! I have a sweet snowblower, and I use that most of the time, but every once in a while, I’ll just shovel it for fun.
I have a driveway, but no car,so the driveway is untouched. If I had to it would be a shovel. its about one car length to the carage so its a small space.