Snow
I made several mistakes as a first time home buyer, the one that haunts me the most I think is the fact that my driveway is shaded from the south. Also when one considers the humbleness of my abode the driveway is surprisingly long. I had cause to reflect on this fact last night as I was shoveling a bunch of wet heavy snow off the aforementioned driveway.
The annoying nature of the driveway does not end with it's lack of a southern exposure. The driveway is basically divided up into three sections, there's the back section, adjacent to the garage. This is the worst section because not only is it twice as wide, but it has difficult edges. On the one edge is a 3 foot wall, on the other edge is where I park my car, so essentially you have this vast space with no easy way to push the snow off. The middle section connects to the side of the house, this is once again annoying because it blocks snow removal from that edge completely. Although the warmth of the house does occassionally keep that edge (not the whole section) free of snow. So it is only the last third of the driveway where I can do the classic shovel a corridor down the middle and then push the snow off to either edge.
Still all of this would not be that bad if I could just get to the driveway before people had to drive on it. Once people have been back and forth a half dozen times it doesn't matter what kind of convient edge there is, you ain't getting that puppy clean. Fortunately the warm weather did give one advantage, the tire tracks hadn't iced up, as a result, though it took an enormous amount of work I was able clear off the entire driveway last night. Actually that's not entirely true, I mostly shoveled into and around my car, so there's quite a large pile of snow off to the right end of the driveway where I park, but other than that...
In the market for a good snowblower
The annoying nature of the driveway does not end with it's lack of a southern exposure. The driveway is basically divided up into three sections, there's the back section, adjacent to the garage. This is the worst section because not only is it twice as wide, but it has difficult edges. On the one edge is a 3 foot wall, on the other edge is where I park my car, so essentially you have this vast space with no easy way to push the snow off. The middle section connects to the side of the house, this is once again annoying because it blocks snow removal from that edge completely. Although the warmth of the house does occassionally keep that edge (not the whole section) free of snow. So it is only the last third of the driveway where I can do the classic shovel a corridor down the middle and then push the snow off to either edge.
Still all of this would not be that bad if I could just get to the driveway before people had to drive on it. Once people have been back and forth a half dozen times it doesn't matter what kind of convient edge there is, you ain't getting that puppy clean. Fortunately the warm weather did give one advantage, the tire tracks hadn't iced up, as a result, though it took an enormous amount of work I was able clear off the entire driveway last night. Actually that's not entirely true, I mostly shoveled into and around my car, so there's quite a large pile of snow off to the right end of the driveway where I park, but other than that...
In the market for a good snowblower
posted by DireKobold at 10:08 AM
2 Comments:
When we had our home built the three things we considered when picking the lot were distance from the freeway (noise), not having it on a long/main road, and making sure it was south facing. We've shoveled snow once this season (last night) and really didn't need to because it would have all melted today anyway. As for those on the opposite side of the street, they usually have snow/ice from the first snowfall until spring unless a really nice, warm day sneaks in there somewhere.
I'm pretty sure this comment isn't making you feel any better, but boy do I feel good. Ahh.
I thought the reason for having kids was so they would shovel snow. Although your children are small it seems like there are many of them (although this could just be the noise level they produce and/or the stories about projectile vomiting that make us all think there are more than there are). If you put them all to work I would think they could at least move the snow around some. Or you could just buy four wheel drives like me and then not shovel. This also helps cut down on visitors.
Fred
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