Snow shoveling 2026: I did it wrong

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I shoveled for the first time this morning. It was a breeze. Break up the crust with feet or shovel, lift away with fluffy snow underneath. Reminded me of cutting a cake with thick fondant. The sun is already melting where I shoveled so no need for sand, salt, or anything

Yep, same. I did no prep and didn’t shovel at all until like 20 minutes ago.

I used the edge of the shovel to break up the crust and then hauled the rest away.

There was honestly no point in shoveling when the sleet was still coming down.

[Anonymous]

We just did some removal during the storm and it's still several inches of packed ice today. I don't think there was a way around it. The sun is helping things get soft though, so right now is THE TIME to go try to remove stuff. It's only going to get worse each night.

[Anonymous]

We shoveled early but left about 2 inches of snow. The sleet froze on too of that. It was easier to get a shovel into the snow part and dig in, not bang away at a solid 2 inch coating of ice.
Strategy depends on what is coming, temperature during and after.

[Anonymous]

My husband is from Minnesota. He shoveled first thing yesterday morning then again around 2pm, then salted. We still have a glacier of ice in the driveway. He has been out there for 3 hours this morning chipping away at it. He has given up on clearing anything except the driveway (no sidewalk, sorry).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My husband is from Minnesota. He shoveled first thing yesterday morning then again around 2pm, then salted. We still have a glacier of ice in the driveway. He has been out there for 3 hours this morning chipping away at it. He has given up on clearing anything except the driveway (no sidewalk, sorry).

With all due respect, MN snow isn't like this icy, wet mid-atlantic snow

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We didn't put down salt first and we didn't shovel until this morning.

There was a hard 3'' layer of crust on the top, which was hard to break through and really heavy.

My method was to crouch down and physically chunk off huge pieces of the crust and heave it to the side of the driveway. Like pizza box sized chunks. I'd do that for 10 linear feet or so for the whole driveway then shovel the soft snow underneath. I feel ok now, but we'll see how my back feels tomorrow. My forearms aren't buff enough to shovel the heavy stuff. My DH did ok with shoveling it all in one swoop though, and he's finishing while I'm on calls.

This is almost exactly what I did, though my ice chunks were more like 1/4 to 1/2 pizza box sized.

Fwiw this was a weird storm. We have a double wide sidewalk, so I generally only clear half at a time since sometimes it's safer to walk on snow if the sidewalk ices up. I shoveled the first half twice yesterday. Today the previously shoveled part was nearly impossible to break through. The non shoveled part was okay with the above method, so that's what I cleared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was no win-win for this one, OP.

Here's the gist:

1. Use the appropriate salt chemical for appropriate temperatures. It's too cold for pet-friendly crystals You have to use sodium chloride, effective until 15F (and we're mostly at that temp), or the more toxic calcium chloride (effective until well below 0F). You can use coarse sand for traction.

2. If more than a couple of inches are in the forecast, you never salt beforehand, since salt cannot melt tons of snow. You salt right after shoveling, and by shoveling, I mean when you hit pavement, so they don't become icy when snow melt refreezes.

3. When conditions are difficult like yesterday, it's better to shovel a little portion at a time and salt that, before going on to the next portion.

4. But here precipitation lasted 20hrs or so, with fast accumulation at times. If you went out at the wrong time, it was impossible to get to bare pavement and salt.

5. So you need to adapt to the event you have, carefully listen to last minute forecasts by actual met offices (not random influencers on social media) and have a stock of everything early in winter just in case.

6. For this storm, many chose not to shovel at all. If you know you need to get out right after the storm, you park your car at the very edge of your driveway, shovel what you can, salt if you get to bare pavement, or put down sand, and don't forget to clean the roof of your car. If you have sidewalks, you must legally clear them, but lots of people don't.

Not true in Fairfax County. The government would like you to clear your sidewalk, but there is no legal obligation to do so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Michigander here. This was a very difficult storm for shoveling. If you missed the Sunday am shovel, you were toast, but most people woudn't know that.

I did a light salt layer day before. Out early to shovel Sunday morning when snow was soft and fluffy (still a lot of it). And then two other shovels throughout the day. 2 inches of a sleet layer feels like 6-8 in snow. It's so flipping heavy.

I've lived here 10+ yrs now. The sleet is unusual but so is the week of no thaw after. Up north, you have to make your plan for weeks at a time. Here, it's not usually that critical, because it melts off once we warm back up. Just not happening this time.

TLDR: Midwesterners grant you grace, this storm was tough to get right!

Hey Michigander! Hoosier from lake effect band. You're spot on about this. I don't ever recall this level of sleet packed into 6-7" of snow. I blew our drive Sunday morning, and had to chisel out the 3" ice pack this morning. I did pretreat with calcium chloride and it helped keep that sleet sheet from sticking so a shovel could wedge it up.

[Anonymous]

I'm from upstate NY. I shoveled Saturday night once, then sunday am, and a few times throughout the day to keep the amount from accumulating on our walk and the sidewalk which in DC homeowners are required to shovel. I like to keep the snow to a level that its' never too heavy for me to lift. Then last night the plow went by and sprayed a foot of snow back on the sidewalk - still it would have been even harder to remove if we had done nothing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok good to know, I felt like an idiot when I got up this morning, and it looked like I had never shoveled and all my neighbors’ walks were cleared already. I salted early because I was afraid that there would be too much accumulation and it would freeze to the ground, and I wouldn’t be able to shovel it at all. I’m a hospital worker and so my shifts are 12 hours: I was worried about what I would come home and find. But duly noted. Pretty sure there’s nowhere to get ice melt now so I’m totally out and crossing fingers since it will be cold this week.

Midwesterner here, from a state that regularly gets ice and sleet storms.

What you should have done was shoveled 2x yesterday (snow round plus during the sleet) then as you were shoving the sleet sprinkle salt on each section as you went along.

The hard icy frozen sleet layer would still have happened, but below it would have been slush still. Everything would have come right up with minimal effort.

I was able to test this because I only had a bit of leftover salt, so I used it sparingly and only salted my porch, sidewalk and around 1 foot of the driveway.

That part came up in around 10 minutes of no effort shoveling. The rest of the driveway and sidewalks took 3 of us 3 hours, with lots of whacking it with shovels to break the ice

This area usually doesn't get this kind of weather, especially not accumulating ice or sleet, so just tuck the advice away in your mind and pull it out in 7 years, the next time we have an event like this. When we get frozen precipitation, it is usually just a few inches of only snow, or every few years a big blizzard, again just snow, no ice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband is from Minnesota. He shoveled first thing yesterday morning then again around 2pm, then salted. We still have a glacier of ice in the driveway. He has been out there for 3 hours this morning chipping away at it. He has given up on clearing anything except the driveway (no sidewalk, sorry).

With all due respect, MN snow isn't like this icy, wet mid-atlantic snow

The DC area does not normally get accumulating ice and sleet. It just doesn't.

This was closer to a midwest (not upper north central states like Wisconsin and Minnesota) but actual midwest ice storm (Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska) minus the sleet.

[Anonymous]

If your car is snowplowed in, you are absolutely screwed. I literally moved many, many hundreds of pounds of massive ice chunk that went up the passenger side door of my car. Thank god my wife works from home, as we probably won't get her car out for a week.

I am absolutely going to "reserve" my parking spot in NW DC with cones, furniture, whatever. It's small boulder-sized chunks of ice in all parking spots.

[Anonymous]

I pre salted my driveway and walkway about an hour before the snow started (because I’m from the northeast and that’s what I was taught to do since birth). Did the first shovel right before the snow changed over to sleet. Salted again. Did the second shovel around 3pm. No salt. Did the final shovel right after the sleet ended. Did a final salt. Woke up to a bone dry driveway.

And then the plows came through and chucked a foot of snow and ice straight back into my driveway.

[Anonymous]

Nope, you need to sit tight and resist the urge to shovel/treat till the precip stops. Then remove the ice layer and shovel or sweep the light snow beneath. We cleared it once, this morning and it didn’t take 3 hours.

I am from here and have seen this type of storm here before.

[Anonymous]

I shoveled at 9am yesterday, again at about 5 pm and salted. We normally shovel out the curb cut into the street and the bus stop on the main road next to us (not our property, but we are the closest house so the county thinks we have to do it). We spent all day today reshoveling the ice layer in the driveway, our sidewalk, and the street with the plow remains in front of our driveway - we just don’t have the equipment to do a county road and bus stop that has feet of plowed snow on it. We have no curb lane to fill up - this needs to be removed. The top layer is strong enough that the county should come and just throw sand and salt down on it if they want kids to walk to school.