Best Ways to Clear Your Driveway

Cheyenne Taylor

If you do not have a plow or know someone who does, it’s difficult to obtain help clearing a driveway when those nasty snow storms hit. Here are the top five techniques to quickly clear your driveway from the website, The Family Handyman!

 

Starting with the fifth method, a broom! “Who would ever use a broom for snow?” you might be thinking. Well, that’s not as rare as you may think; using a broom helps push the lighter snow off, leaving either your driveway or a layer of firm snow behind if you get to the snow right as it falls. When using a broom, the best option is to use a push broom; the push broom helps you to take up more snow while clearing a broader area. There is no quote from anyone that states this works but I would say try it for yourself! Its known to work with less than four inches of snow and is very useful on a deck that can be damaged by shovels.

 

Option four: Spraying your shovel with cooking spray after you’ve pushed away the soft and fluffy snow helps the shovel glide beneath the hard snow and pick up pieces, as well as go through it fast without it sticking to the shovel. Number three, if you know it is going to snow and you don’t have anything else, use a huge tarp to cover your driveway or walkways so you can just pull the tarp away when the snow comes. I’ve talked to many people in my area that have stated, “the cooking spray works very well but sometimes the tarp could get frozen to the ground which means it wouldn’t get picked up easily.”

 

The final two selections are most likely the best. At number two, why pay for a pound of ice melt when you can create your own? If you find hard ice beneath the snow after removing it, mix 1 teaspoon dish soap, 1 tablespoon rubbing alcohol, and 1/2 gallon lukewarm water in a bucket and put it where the ice lies. It should only take about an hour for the ice to settle in and start melting the snow.

 

Finally, we come to number one, which is, in my opinion, the best option. If you have light fluffy snow that covers your entire driveway after the snow has fallen, use a leaf blower! Begin at the top of your driveway and work your way to the side,so that it lands on your lawn rather than on your driveway. Since a lot of people loved the leaf blower i decided to ask around and found roughly 4 people that enjoyed using the leaf blower, yet my neighbor had the best answer: “The leaf blower is awesome, I have no access to a plow or shovel since my shovel broke last year, but when i saw that i could use a leaf blower i decided to try it out! It works really well when the snow is soft and fluffy. The only downside is that it wouldn’t work after the snow has hardened.”

 

Keep in mind that these ideas are opinionated, there have been people that think these ideas are great and others that think they don’t work. In conclusion, this article was meant to help you get an idea of some other ways to keep your driveway or decks clean during the rough snow storms.