A white blanket of freshly fallen snow crystals makes for a truly beautiful sight. However, when that snow coats your lawn, driveway, street, and everything else in sight, it is necessary to remove it for your safety and convenience.
There are a number of snow removal options, and out of them, snow plowing and snow blowing are the two most preferred ones. Although both options result in snow being displaced to another location, there are a few key differences in how they operate and what their additional benefits are.
Snow Plowing
A snow plow is a piece of equipment which is fixed to the front of a commercial truck, UTV, or ATV, and is equipped with a curving angled blade to get rid of the snow. The benefits and limitations of a snow plow are:
Pros
Speed: If it is operated by the right vehicle, a snow plow can quickly clear out large volumes of snow and hence cover larger properties more quickly.
Work Capacity: Since snow plows are quick, they can displace place from large places, like streets, your parking lot, and driveways efficiently.
Reliability: Since a snow plow does not involve any complicated mechanics, there is little that can go wrong with it and can give you decades of reliable service.
Cons
Cost: Purchasing a snowplow for heavy duty operations can result in large investments. Additionally, you will also need to buy or rent a large vehicle to operate the snow plow, which will further require big investments.
Storage: A snowplow will need a large dedicated space to be stored. Additionally, it also has to operate under restrictions on where it can place the ensuing piles of snow.
Visibility: Using a snowplow can reduce visibility at ground level, so there is a risk of plowing over small items left on the ground and damaging property. Additionally, loose surfaces like bricks or stone can be further ripped off and damage the plow itself.
Cleaning Space: Since a snowplow is very large, it cannot clean snow from smaller structures, like your patio, deck, sidewalks and trails.
Snow Blowing
A snow blower is a snow removal machine with a rotating spiral blade that picks up the snow and blows it from the side. The equipment is operated by a user from behind.
Pros
Size: The size of a snow blower is quite small, which means it can maneuver tight and hard-to-access places and can be stored easily.
Visibility: Since the user is on ground level, they can see everything, which means reduced risk of damaging property.
Efficiency: It can very quickly clear away snow from smaller pieces of properties like your walkway, deck, and patio.
Safety: It has built-in features and manual control which makes it super-safe to use.
Cons
Capacity: Single-stage snow blowers typically work the best with soft, light, fluffy snow, up to 6 inches in height. However, blankets of moist snow are quite heavy and the design of a single-stage snow blower prevents it from heavy-duty work. Heavier snow may be removed by second- o third-stage blowers.
Exposure: While you are clearing away the snow, you will be exposed to the elements, including freezing temperatures and cold wind.
Time: Since snow blowers are smaller, it can take up a lot of time to clear larger areas of snow.
If your only purpose is snow removal of a short driveway, deck, or patio, a snow blower is a good choice. But if you want to remove snow from larger expanses of properties, you will need the services of a heavy-duty and efficient snowplow. Depending on how much snow you need cleared and where it is located, any one or even both of these machines can offer you great service.
