Yeah, snow removal is actually pretty fucking strenuous
It's why so many people just up and die everytime there's a big snowstorm
Take breaks, drink hot beverages, remember to never lift the snow up past your chest
Shovel it low and throw it low
this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2026
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Chapotraphouse
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unfortunately sometimes you gotta throw high. at work our stretch of road had a huge snowpile from the plows pushing our 54cm (21 inch) snowfall over to each side, and the city never picking any of it up despite our repeated requests. this was a major irritant because we have to receive deliveries from 26-ft trucks. so after a few days of the city doing squat, and our volunteer force already tuckered out from clearing a huge amount of sidewalk, I took a 30-ft section of that fucker down mostly by myself over three shifts, the bulk of it in the coldest weather I have yet to experience in this city.
the worst of it was the volume of snow (and slush ice!!) that needed to be thrown high because the number of depositing options was low - can't obstruct sidewalks or go too much further out into the road.
Good advice but don't throw it because it tires you out quickly, try and drop it off somewhere.
My propensity for rhyming poorly will be my downfall
it's like, eight inches
😳
I was unprepared to get blasted with all this white stuff, i can tell you that much
You can also try lying down in your driveway and sweep your arms and legs side to side to clear the snow.
Sorta related but i thought about llike, driving my car through it, like it'd flatten it out at least while it's soft so hopefully no ice will scrape the under carriage if i try to leave? But i didn't do that and ugh i don't wanna go outside
Real answer - don't do that. Flattening the snow is so much worse - it'll compress it and make it way slippier and way harder to remove and will also melt slower when it does heat up. The undercarriage of your car will be just fine- the problem with driveway snow is making sure your tires have traction and dont get stuck
but the ice from a week ago was more ice-y and I didn't really have traction issues, just that scraping from the ice
the problem with driveway snow is making sure your tires have traction and dont get stuck
I think it'll be fine because it's a fairly flat driveway and the tires on the car have decent tread, I'm just like, envisioning the snow melting and refreezing and then kinda crunching under the tires as the car sinks 5-6 inches into it and then the icy shit on the top layer scraping into it
I had to like just raw dog driving out of the driveway because I didn't think I had a shovel of any kind and the snow plow made like a big ridge of ice that I had to go over and let me just say that scraping sound going over it was not fun to hear. I'd be less afraid but it's not my car, it's my partner's, my car is all kinds of jacked up (and probably not driveable even if i fix the initial problems at this point since it's been sitting in my driveway for a year now, i'm sure the gasoline is sludge)
Gotcha ya sounds like it's just that hill that's the issue, breaking it up even would probably be better if you can even if you can't shovel it away
I think I took care of enough of that part, where the plow pushed it up (it was much less impacted than I feared, last week it was solid ice by the time I got to it) but idk there's a lot of snow between that and the part of the driveway I was clearing before I got tired
Here what it looks likes every winter over here, I've covered up some markings not to dox me too much.
But as people said, push it instead of throwing, and use your knees if you need to lift it.
I hate the cold but that looks really beautiful
its only beautiful right after it snows, in a few days thatll look like shit after all the road and car grime is mixed into it
Exactly
- Make a snow ball.
- Roll the ball around in the snow in your driveway.
- Keep rolling it as it accumulates snow.
- When the ball becomes large and unwieldy, set it aside.
- Repeat until the driveway is cleared.
- Large snowballs can be stacked to form sculptures.
Note: this only works with wet snow, if it's too cold you can't make snowballs
I hate that im sitting here not sure how well rolling a snowball would actually work
Wow so much for global wArMiNg
Trick to shoveling is to push as much of it as you can and lift as little as possible. Another trick is to make use of geometry, push the snow in diagonal lines instead of straight ones (making many small triangles and rows), less snow to stack up and shovel out at once.
Yeah but I don't have a snow shovel... i guess i could use my regular shovel but it seemed very inefficient due to its small surface area
Its better than nothing, ideal is to get a long board if it isn't the heavy stuff and run that around first, then use your regular shovel to get the end of your driveway and clean up sidewalks. Eat your 
you'll need the energy.
We're actually too far North, so there's no moisture for a good snow. It's just been flurries and deep freeze. Sucks.
We're in such cold a hole.
Maybe you have something around that is shaped like this so you can push the snow to the sides from where you need to walk:
This is the best tool there is to moving snow around, could not deal with snow (lots of it) around where I am without one.
It's currently 63f where I am. I'm so glad it doesn't snow here.
South where? I don’t think we’ve had any in the U.K., this or last year.
push broom (it's presently as light and fluffy as snow could possibly be) but I only got like 1/4 of the way before i got tired u_u
skill issue
I mean yeah probably? Also i just feel weak, even when i'm exercising regularly and getting good results with that it's like damn when did lifting these 50Ib bags of onions become such a struggle
snow is heavy; i was just poking fun at how I imagine you were using the push broom (against your advantage, trying to actually sweep it down your driveway instead of to the sides). Most of it has melted off here in the sun already surprisingly but I found it pretty easy to blow it off, so if you have a leafblower I'd recommend doing that although I did use my kitchen broom to clear the stairs of my apt and it was pretty easy to just sweep to the side. My computer duster cleared my car in a minute though so you shouldn't even really need a high power leafblower or anything. Highly recommend clearing it ASAP though because once it melts and turns to ice you know the deal lol