Snow shoveling 2026: I did it wrong

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been through 60 winters in northern states (Mich, Illinois, & Mass). This obsession you guys have with salt is baffling. You shovel the damn snow. That’s it.

Cities salt the roads, & stores salt the approaches to their doors. Everybody else just shovels, & the important thing is to have a good snow shovel.

We got 2 inches of ice.
There was no shoveling til the ice could be broken up hence salt. Not a hard concept for people with brain cells.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been through 60 winters in northern states (Mich, Illinois, & Mass). This obsession you guys have with salt is baffling. You shovel the damn snow. That’s it.

Cities salt the roads, & stores salt the approaches to their doors. Everybody else just shovels, & the important thing is to have a good snow shovel.

We got 2 inches of ice.
There was no shoveling til the ice could be broken up hence salt. Not a hard concept for people with brain cells.

If you went out and cleared the snow while it was snowing it was much easier to clean the next day. I have one shovel with a sharper edge that breaks up the ice fairly easily. I didn't use salt or anything else. It also helped that my front yard gets lots of sun. My neighbors who have driveways with little sun suffer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been through 60 winters in northern states (Mich, Illinois, & Mass). This obsession you guys have with salt is baffling. You shovel the damn snow. That’s it.

Cities salt the roads, & stores salt the approaches to their doors. Everybody else just shovels, & the important thing is to have a good snow shovel.

We got 2 inches of ice.
There was no shoveling til the ice could be broken up hence salt. Not a hard concept for people with brain cells.

Wow, you're being mean. Not pp I wrote somewhere else that I did both mine and my neighbor's houses. They salted. I didn't. Mine was much easier to shovel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been through 60 winters in northern states (Mich, Illinois, & Mass). This obsession you guys have with salt is baffling. You shovel the damn snow. That’s it.

Cities salt the roads, & stores salt the approaches to their doors. Everybody else just shovels, & the important thing is to have a good snow shovel.

We got 2 inches of ice.
There was no shoveling til the ice could be broken up hence salt. Not a hard concept for people with brain cells.

If you went out and cleared the snow while it was snowing it was much easier to clean the next day. I have one shovel with a sharper edge that breaks up the ice fairly easily. I didn't use salt or anything else. It also helped that my front yard gets lots of sun. My neighbors who have driveways with little sun suffer.

I followed CWG’s shoveling advice to a tee. I have two inches of ice bonded to my brick paver driveway with drainage holes (that filled with ice and froze). Plus the same sheet bonded to the sidewalk and my flagstone walkway. I pickaxed for 40 min yesterday and still have at least 2 hours to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been through 60 winters in northern states (Mich, Illinois, & Mass). This obsession you guys have with salt is baffling. You shovel the damn snow. That’s it.

Cities salt the roads, & stores salt the approaches to their doors. Everybody else just shovels, & the important thing is to have a good snow shovel.

We got 2 inches of ice.
There was no shoveling til the ice could be broken up hence salt. Not a hard concept for people with brain cells.

Amateur.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been through 60 winters in northern states (Mich, Illinois, & Mass). This obsession you guys have with salt is baffling. You shovel the damn snow. That’s it.

Cities salt the roads, & stores salt the approaches to their doors. Everybody else just shovels, & the important thing is to have a good snow shovel.

We got 2 inches of ice.
There was no shoveling til the ice could be broken up hence salt. Not a hard concept for people with brain cells.

If you went out and cleared the snow while it was snowing it was much easier to clean the next day. I have one shovel with a sharper edge that breaks up the ice fairly easily. I didn't use salt or anything else. It also helped that my front yard gets lots of sun. My neighbors who have driveways with little sun suffer.

I followed CWG’s shoveling advice to a tee. I have two inches of ice bonded to my brick paver driveway with drainage holes (that filled with ice and froze). Plus the same sheet bonded to the sidewalk and my flagstone walkway. I pickaxed for 40 min yesterday and still have at least 2 hours to go.

Yeah this was a weird storm where it was much easier to shovel if you waited out the entire storm.

If you have an extra wide walkway, try doing half next time, then you can finish up with whichever side is easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been through 60 winters in northern states (Mich, Illinois, & Mass). This obsession you guys have with salt is baffling. You shovel the damn snow. That’s it.

Cities salt the roads, & stores salt the approaches to their doors. Everybody else just shovels, & the important thing is to have a good snow shovel.

We got 2 inches of ice.
There was no shoveling til the ice could be broken up hence salt. Not a hard concept for people with brain cells.

We didn’t salt. We used a metal shovel to break the ice then tossed the ice blocks aside and shoveled the snow beneath.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been through 60 winters in northern states (Mich, Illinois, & Mass). This obsession you guys have with salt is baffling. You shovel the damn snow. That’s it.

Cities salt the roads, & stores salt the approaches to their doors. Everybody else just shovels, & the important thing is to have a good snow shovel.

We got 2 inches of ice.
There was no shoveling til the ice could be broken up hence salt. Not a hard concept for people with brain cells.

If you went out and cleared the snow while it was snowing it was much easier to clean the next day. I have one shovel with a sharper edge that breaks up the ice fairly easily. I didn't use salt or anything else. It also helped that my front yard gets lots of sun. My neighbors who have driveways with little sun suffer.

I followed CWG’s shoveling advice to a tee. I have two inches of ice bonded to my brick paver driveway with drainage holes (that filled with ice and froze). Plus the same sheet bonded to the sidewalk and my flagstone walkway. I pickaxed for 40 min yesterday and still have at least 2 hours to go.

Yeah this was a weird storm where it was much easier to shovel if you waited out the entire storm.

If you have an extra wide walkway, try doing half next time, then you can finish up with whichever side is easier.

Or it would have also been easier if you shoveled throughout the day Sunday and also did a final pass after the storm on Sunday night and put ice melt. We did that and had a clean driveway on Monday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been through 60 winters in northern states (Mich, Illinois, & Mass). This obsession you guys have with salt is baffling. You shovel the damn snow. That’s it.

Cities salt the roads, & stores salt the approaches to their doors. Everybody else just shovels, & the important thing is to have a good snow shovel.

We got 2 inches of ice.
There was no shoveling til the ice could be broken up hence salt. Not a hard concept for people with brain cells.

If you went out and cleared the snow while it was snowing it was much easier to clean the next day. I have one shovel with a sharper edge that breaks up the ice fairly easily. I didn't use salt or anything else. It also helped that my front yard gets lots of sun. My neighbors who have driveways with little sun suffer.

I followed CWG’s shoveling advice to a tee. I have two inches of ice bonded to my brick paver driveway with drainage holes (that filled with ice and froze). Plus the same sheet bonded to the sidewalk and my flagstone walkway. I pickaxed for 40 min yesterday and still have at least 2 hours to go.

Yeah this was a weird storm where it was much easier to shovel if you waited out the entire storm.

If you have an extra wide walkway, try doing half next time, then you can finish up with whichever side is easier.

Or it would have also been easier if you shoveled throughout the day Sunday and also did a final pass after the storm on Sunday night and put ice melt. We did that and had a clean driveway on Monday.

+1 exactly

Sunday night was the best time to shovel, and if you had been shoveling during the day too it was manageable

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been through 60 winters in northern states (Mich, Illinois, & Mass). This obsession you guys have with salt is baffling. You shovel the damn snow. That’s it.

Cities salt the roads, & stores salt the approaches to their doors. Everybody else just shovels, & the important thing is to have a good snow shovel.

We got 2 inches of ice.
There was no shoveling til the ice could be broken up hence salt. Not a hard concept for people with brain cells.

If you went out and cleared the snow while it was snowing it was much easier to clean the next day. I have one shovel with a sharper edge that breaks up the ice fairly easily. I didn't use salt or anything else. It also helped that my front yard gets lots of sun. My neighbors who have driveways with little sun suffer.

I followed CWG’s shoveling advice to a tee. I have two inches of ice bonded to my brick paver driveway with drainage holes (that filled with ice and froze). Plus the same sheet bonded to the sidewalk and my flagstone walkway. I pickaxed for 40 min yesterday and still have at least 2 hours to go.

Yup. My experience too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just got back in after chopping/shoveling my walkway/steps, which were totally covered by thick/hard snow. This was my third time shoveling. I did this totally wrong and am annoyed:

Bought two 25-lb bags of snow melt on Thursday. Salted steps, sidewalk, back deck Friday night. Snow starts overnight Sat. Sunday morning shoveled/cleared all areas. Salted again. Went out and did a mini-shovel Sun afternoon. Woke up this morning and it’s like I never touched anything, which is just accumulation, I get. But the snowpack this morning was so hard I had to chop through it with my shovel to break it up to shovel. I’m also now out of salt.

Did I prep too early? I’m a new homeowner fwiw so help me do this better next year! Thank you!

- Now inside and grumbling into my coffee

20-year Michigander. The answer to your question in bold is yes.

You went wrong in using the salt too early. There is no reason to salt pre-emptively when what is going to come out of the sky first is snow. Let it snow, remove as much snow as you can, and if you still have ice on pavement, then salt.

Salt is not a snow remover. It does not prevent snow buildup.

A lot depends on what kidn of snow melt you got, as well. Many of them do not work at all below 20 degrees, and since those are the temps we've had, you won't get much benefit. Calcium chloride works down to zero, but it's not pet-safe.

Finally, in addition to your shovel, you need an ice chopper. That is what you can use to break up the layer of hard snowpack/ice if you don't want to use excessive salt.

Riddle me this. We removed the powdery stuff then the 2-3 inch layer of freezing rain was impossible to remove.
My dad didn't remove the powdery stuff (he's old) and when I went over to shovel, it was easy for the shovel to break through the crust and then I could lift it all away because of the powder! It wasn't easy but #2 was greatly preferable to #1!

You're exactly right. You need powdery snow or salt brine under the ice. Salt on top of ice can help, but it needs to dig its way down to the bottom to be useful, and the cold of the weather is, the slower that happens.

Thank you Michigander. This thread is half people saying you should shovel frequently and half saying you need the powder under the crust to make shoveling "easier" (it will be more and heavy but it's not solid ice on concrete).

So the answer is "B" for this storm. But you have to know you're going to have fluffy and then ice.

[Anonymous]

I shoveled early and often and still had to use a pickaxe on Monday to break the ice. Use the broad side and obviously be careful not to damage asphalt/concrete surfaces (as well as cars, walls, curbs, etc.), but it was useful to get underneath the ice layer and pry it free, and then whack it a few times to break it into smaller chunks that were easier to lift and shovel away. Giant pain, it's been a long time since I've seen a storm around here with this much ice.

[Anonymous]

We went out 3 times Sunday and Monday am had 2" of packed sleet/ice. Had to use a metal shovel. Places we didn't shovel were easier to move Sunday. By Monday and all the plowed snow was nearly impossible to remove. Today is so much harder. Driveway is clear, and everything else is little paths.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been through 60 winters in northern states (Mich, Illinois, & Mass). This obsession you guys have with salt is baffling. You shovel the damn snow. That’s it.

Cities salt the roads, & stores salt the approaches to their doors. Everybody else just shovels, & the important thing is to have a good snow shovel.

We got 2 inches of ice.
There was no shoveling til the ice could be broken up hence salt. Not a hard concept for people with brain cells.

If you went out and cleared the snow while it was snowing it was much easier to clean the next day. I have one shovel with a sharper edge that breaks up the ice fairly easily. I didn't use salt or anything else. It also helped that my front yard gets lots of sun. My neighbors who have driveways with little sun suffer.

I followed CWG’s shoveling advice to a tee. I have two inches of ice bonded to my brick paver driveway with drainage holes (that filled with ice and froze). Plus the same sheet bonded to the sidewalk and my flagstone walkway. I pickaxed for 40 min yesterday and still have at least 2 hours to go.

Yeah this was a weird storm where it was much easier to shovel if you waited out the entire storm.

If you have an extra wide walkway, try doing half next time, then you can finish up with whichever side is easier.

Or it would have also been easier if you shoveled throughout the day Sunday and also did a final pass after the storm on Sunday night and put ice melt. We did that and had a clean driveway on Monday.

+1 exactly

Sunday night was the best time to shovel, and if you had been shoveling during the day too it was manageable

That's often true but definitely not where I lived this past snow. Much easier to move the ice on top of snow than on top of concrete or asphalt.