The House in Winter

A note on New England winters: In the eastern part of Massachusetts, winters are horrible, because they tend to be around the freezing mark. That doesn't sound so bad, being around 32F in daytime, but what it really means is that many storms consist of wet snow, which cakes on tree limbs and cables, making for damage. Wet snow is horrible in snow throwers, were it congeals and endlessly clogs the discharge chute. Then the temperature drops overnight and all that wetness freezes solid. Need I say more?

Winter preparations

Fall is the time to plan for winter and snow. This is the time that new shovels and snow throwers start to appear in home centers. If you need such — and did not take advantage of spring clearance sales — now is the time to buy, before they disappear in snow panic buying.

Ready your snow thrower and shovels. Strongly recommended is to apply polish to the surfaces that snow is to readily slide off of. There is little that is more frustrating than trying to remove snow and have it stick to your equipment. Having the snow instead go sliding off your shovels and through your snow thrower chute is immensely satisfying, and reduces your time out in the cold. You can readily apply paste wax to easily accessible and flat surfaces. For complex services (inside the mouth of your snow thrower) you can use a spray wax. Recommended: Also buy a few cans of silicone spray for out-in-the-snow treatment of those surfaces should snow start to stick.

The roof in winter

This is an area of great concern, because of the possiblities of structural damage and possible collapse in heavy snow loads, and the possibility of ice dams forming and destroying interior ceilings. If you have roof gullies, always inspect the roof in late fall, after all the leaves have fallen, and remove any debris from the roof gullies. This will eliminate the chief origin of ice dams, as the debris collects snow, which then freezes and forms a solid mass which then collects any water, which can then get under the shingles.

Removing snow from the roof

A few inches of snow on the roof is not necessarily a bad thing: it can be benign; but it can be a bad thing if it constitutes a crust which causes subsequent snow layers to stick and solidly build up. I've learned that you generally should strive to not have snow on your roof. How to remove it? You've likely seen people in videos or real life climbing up on roofs with a shovel and laboriously shoveling snow off the roof. Typically, these are amateurs, using no safety harnesses. No one should ever do this, even with a harness (because you can easily get hurt even in a harness). Beyond the obvious danger of falling off the roof, there are two other major concerns: First, the two hundred pounds of an adult human constitutes a point load source which could break through roof plywood which is already stressed by a snow load, and perhaps weakened by years of moisture. Second, it is pretty much guaranteed that the shovel will damage the roofing shingles. And there is a final consideration: Your insurance company will hate you if you have someone other than an insured professional go up onto your roof, particularly in winter.

You want to remove snow from the roof without getting onto the roof. How best to do that? The traditional approach is a roof rake. As its name suggests, this is a rectangle on the end of a pole whereby you reach behind the snow and pull it off the roof. This sounds straightforward, but once you do it, you quickly realize that this is nuts, because it is stupidly exhausting and slow, because it involves repeatedly lifting the long pole to get behind each further hunk of snow to then strenuously pull. Repeat this hundreds of times... You get the idea. I started out this way, and looked for something better. The best thing I found is the MinnSNOWta Roof Razor (www.minnsnowta.com). Using this is easy, satisfying, and kind of fun: You get it onto the edge of the roof (just once), then push it further onto the roof: it easily cuts into the snow (even old, hardened snow), which separates that hunk of snow, which then slides down the slippery sheet that is attached to the base of the unit. Gravity does all the heavy work (duh!). The base is on wheels, where you simply roll it to the side to attack the next row of roof snow. In short order, you have tons of snow off your roof, where the wheels have prevented shingle damage that traditional roof rakes can do. The thin layer of snow left on the roof lets sunlight reach the roof, causing that snow to be melted/evaporated where temperatures are about 25F or higher. I recommend buying a roll of Gorilla Tape for prolonging the life of the leading edge of the fabric slide, as that gets the most wear as the leading egde being pushed into the snow.

Snow removal (ground)

I'll relate the history of my snow removal experience as some guide.

Basic: shoveling.
The plus for this very manual approach to snow removal is that it's cheap, in terms of equipment. It's also excellent cardiovascular exercise, as long as you're in shape. (If you're out of shape, it could kill you.) For this, I strongly recomment an ergonomic shovel, where the Back-Saver brand is the standard: it has a bent handle which makes for less bending to lift the snow load. I recommend using paste wax, indoors, to coat the blade before using it on snow, to help prevent frustrating sticking. I also recommend getting a garden spade shovel: its narrow, square blade excels at getting under ice and in breaking up the brutally tough plow-delivered mass at the end of your driveway so that a thrower could handle it.

Electric snow blower:
As a first-time home owner, dealing with large volumes of snow, doing it all with a shovel was just too much, so I looked around at some powered method. I didn't want to deal with a heavy, gasoline snow blower, so I surveyed what was out there for electric snow blowers. The Toro 1800 Power Curve looked ideal. A corded unit, its 18" clearing capacity and light weight was compelling. I bought one and was very happy with it. In fact, I still have one today. It's rather quiet and quite effective. The blade is tough plastic. (Parts are readily available.) You push, it throws. It can't devour deep snow, but you can do that in multiple passes. The one problem, of course, is the power cord, which is always in the way; and you can only reach so far with a cord. I kept looking for Toro to evolve their electric offerings, but they never did.

First battery-powered snow blower:
It would be nice to clear snow with electricity, but without a cord. I became aware of a company called Snow Joe as the leader in electrical snow blowers. They came out with a 21" single stage single-battery powered snow blower (iON21SB-PRO). I bought that, along with a second (6 Ah) battery. I'm very satisfied with that. It does a great job on ordinary snow, where a very tough multi-ply rubber blade throws the snow a reasonable distance. It's light weight, and easy to lift. Tough snow is a challenge for a single-stage snow thrower, though, so beware that. (Single stage means just having a propeller blade — no auger.) Also, with such a unit it's up to you to push it. It's very quiet, so is just the thing for clearing the driveway in early morning without disturbing the neighbors. I still have and use this snow blower.

Next battery-powered snow blower:
While many regions of the country get nice, powdery snow, the metro Boston area tends to get wet snow that later freezes on at least its top layer. This is tough to remove with a single-stage unit. Snow Joe is a progressive company, and is always evolving its snow throwers and devising new ones. They came out with an amazing two-stage snow thrower (ION8024), which is like one of those big gasoline-powered beasts but without the starting struggle and perpetual maintenance. Its mouth is 24" wide and goodly high, to devour snow, and that mouth contains an auger to chew tough snow ahead of the propeller. And it is self-propelled, with serious pneumatic tires to drive into the snow. It has three forward speeds, a reverse, and an express speed to get you back to the garage quickly when done clearing. The chute rotates with the press of a button. Two lights help with night work. Whereas the single-stage units take one battery, this takes two 6 Ah batteries. (I bought a second set, to keep going after the first set is exhausted and is in the charger.) This is a heavy machine, made with a lot of steel, for sturdiness. Unlike a gasoline monster, this unit is relatively quiet. This snow blower gets a "wow" rating. Consider replacing the front, steel skids with nylon skids having built-in wheels. Buy some replacement shear pins just in case.

EgoPowerPlus.com has terrific battery powered lawn mowers, so I've looked at them for snow throwers, given that I have one of their mowers and batteries for it. They have one offering, 21", single-stage, which takes two of their 56V batteries and, from videos, seems to do a commendable job. However, this is all they offer, and it's a big, heavy unit that has remained unchanged over the years. While Ego is the choice for lawn mowers, Snow Joe is the choice for snow blowers.

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