Snow Blowing & Hand Clearing

Wherever a truck cannot reach or should not go: steps, landings, narrow walks, the strip against a building, decks, courtyards, areas over a membrane or a septic field, tight urban drives with no room to push, and the garage apron where a blade leaves a windrow across the door line. It is the finish work, and on many properties it is the part that actually matters daily.

It is priced by labour, not by pass. So it depends on the linear feet and how many separate elements there are. Residential-scale walkway and entry work commonly runs $25–$75 an hour. Checked September 2026. A property with several steps, two entrances and a long path can easily cost more to hand-clear than to plow, which surprises people until they price the time.

Poorly, and that is the snow type this region produces regularly. Heavy wet accumulation clogs a chute, bogs a machine, and takes several times longer to move than an equivalent depth of dry snow. Properties relying entirely on a blower should expect the worst events of the season to be the ones where it is least effective.

Away from the surfaces being cleared, downgradient, not into the road, not against a building, not onto a neighbour, and not back over an area already finished. On a tight site the discharge direction is a real constraint on the order the work is done in. Blow the far end first and work back, or the machine buries what it has already cleared.

Not unless it is written in, and this is the assumption that causes the most disappointment. A plow visit finishes with a windrow across the garage apron and a bank at the bottom of the walk, both of which need a person. If you expect to open a door and walk out, the finish work is a line item.

Each is its own small task and each is invisible under snow. So each needs marking in autumn and naming in the scope. Fuel deliveries, meter readings and mail all stop when the access does, and none of them is covered by a driveway plowing scope by default.

Carefully, and roof work is a different trade entirely. Ground-level decks, landings and courtyards are hand-clearing work where the constraint is what is underneath. Membranes, boards, drainage, and structures that a metal shovel will damage. Anything involving getting onto a roof or reaching up to a roof edge belongs with a roofing professional, not a snow contractor.

Fast, if the underlying cause is water, not snow. A step under a roof drip, a landing where meltwater crosses, an entry at the bottom of a slope: those regenerate ice nightly through a thaw no matter how well they were cleared. Treatment helps; fixing where the water comes from, in summer, is what actually solves it.

After, wherever the plow pass throws snow toward the pedestrian area, which is most properties. Clearing a walk first and then plowing beside it produces a buried walk and a second visit. Where the walk must stay open during a long event, both get an opening pass and both get a finish pass.

Something suited to pedestrians and to what the surface is made of, often sand for immediate grip without attacking concrete or planting, sometimes a gentler deicer on surfaces that can take it. Rock salt on newer or spalled concrete steps is a common and expensive mistake, and the material choice belongs in the scope alongside the areas.

That depends on who is doing the work and when. The honest considerations are whether the person operating it should be doing that work in February, whether it will actually get done at 5am before someone leaves, and whether the property's steps and entries are among the areas where a missed clearing is a genuine hazard, not an inconvenience.

Full designed width where possible, and at minimum wide enough for whoever actually uses it: a route used by someone with a walker, a wheelchair or a pushchair needs the full width plus the landings, not a single boot track. Paths that narrow across a winter push people onto the driveway, which is the least safe surface on the property.

No. Steps are the highest-risk element on any property in winter, they re-ice faster than any flat surface, and clearing plus treatment reduces the risk. It does not remove it. A cleared, treated step in a freeze-thaw week can be icy again within hours of being finished.