Plowing or snow blowing: which suits your property

What is the real difference between plowing and snow blowing?

A plow moves snow sideways or forward and leaves it in a pile or a windrow. It is fast over long distances and handles depth well, but everything it moves has to land somewhere close by: the edge of the drive, the end of a parking area, a corner of the lot. A snow blower picks snow up and throws it, so it can spread snow over a wider area instead of building a wall at the edge. That is its main advantage, and it is why blowers suit places where there is nowhere to push.

Hand clearing is the third method, and it never goes away entirely. Steps, landings, narrow paths between buildings, the area right in front of a garage door and the space around a mailbox or hydrant are often finished by hand even on properties where a machine does the bulk of the work. When people compare methods, they are usually really deciding which method handles the big surfaces, and accepting that the small, awkward ones get finished another way.

Why does the kind of snow matter so much?

Snow is not one material. FEMA's Snow Load Safety Guide puts the weight of a foot of fresh snow anywhere from about 3 pounds per square foot for light, dry snow to about 21 pounds per square foot for wet, heavy snow. The same guide notes that snow in the western United States is typically lighter and less dense than East Coast snow, with local exceptions. In practice, valley floors here see both: dry powder in a cold snap and heavy, wet snow in early and late season storms.

Dry snow blows well and plows easily. Wet snow is where the methods separate. It is heavy to throw, it can clog a blower's chute, and it packs into dense ridges when it is pushed. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says most snow thrower injuries happen when people try to clear snow from the discharge chute or debris from the auger with their hands, and it tells operators to stop the engine and use a long stick instead. OSHA adds that operators should wait for moving parts to stop. Wet storms are exactly when chutes clog, so a property that regularly gets heavy snow is a property where a blower needs patience and a careful operator.

Which method suits a long rural driveway?

Length favors plowing. A long gravel or paved drive leading to a county road is mostly a question of covering distance, and a plow does that far faster than any walk-behind machine. The limit is the edges: each pass leaves a windrow, and over a winter those windrows grow into banks. On a drive with open ground on both sides that is rarely a problem. On a drive with a fence, a ditch or a row of shrubs right at the edge, the banks have nowhere to grow except into those things.

The plow berm the county leaves across the bottom of a drive is the other long-drive issue. It is denser than the snow that fell and it arrives on the county's schedule, not yours. Missoula County Public Works says its goal is to clear priority 1 routes first, such as school and bus routes, so a quiet side road may be plowed hours after your drive was cleared. Our guide to shoveling, a snow blower or a plow service covers how that berm changes the do-it-yourself decision; for a service, it mostly decides when the entrance gets a second pass.

When does a snow blower beat a plow?

Blowers earn their place where storage space runs out. A short drive between two houses, a parking pad hemmed in by a fence, a courtyard or a walkway with buildings on both sides all have the same problem: a plow can push snow, but there is no edge to push it to. Throwing it over a fence line or onto a lawn spreads the load and avoids building a pile that blocks a window, a gate or a sightline.

Blowers also suit surfaces that cannot take a blade. Pavers, stamped or decorative concrete and some walkway surfaces mark easily, and a blower with its housing set above the surface leaves a thin layer rather than scraping. The trade-off is time: a walk-behind machine on a large area is slow, and in deep, wet snow it may need several passes.

Can you use a snow blower on a gravel driveway?

Only the right kind. Consumer Reports describes single-stage blowers as a poor choice for gravel because the auger contacts the surface and can throw stones, and recommends a two-stage model for gravel because its auger does not contact the ground. Thrown gravel is not a small problem: it breaks windows, chips siding and vehicles, and ends up in the lawn where a mower finds it in May.

Plowing gravel has its own rules, which come down to not cutting into the surface while it is soft. We cover that in detail in plowing a gravel driveway without wrecking it. The short version is that both methods can work on gravel if they are set up for it, and both make a mess if they are not.

What about drifting, slopes and tight turnarounds?

Wind changes the comparison. Properties that back onto open fields or sit on exposed benches drift, and a drift is a narrow, deep, dense band rather than an even layer. A plow can break through a drift but leaves a wall on each side that catches the next round of blowing snow, which is how a drive becomes a trench by February. Throwing the snow well clear of the drive avoids building those walls, which is one reason blowers and plows are often combined on windy sites.

Slopes favor whatever keeps traction. Pushing snow downhill is easy, but it puts the snow and the meltwater at the bottom of the grade, which is where ice forms. Our guide to steep driveways explains how sequence and storage change on a grade. Tight turnarounds and parking areas next to a garage usually need hand finishing or a blower near the doors, because a plow blade cannot push snow into a building and should not leave it piled against one.

Where does each method put the snow?

This is the question that settles most decisions, and it is worth answering before the first storm. Plowed snow lands in piles and banks close to the cleared surface. Blown snow is spread wider and lower. Hand-cleared snow goes wherever a person can reasonably throw it, which on steps and narrow walks is often not far.

Wherever it lands, the snow comes back as water. Piles against the house, over a septic drainfield, on planting beds or at the low point of a drive all cause problems at melt. The City of Missoula also tells residents not to shovel sidewalk snow into the street, bike lanes or parking lanes, and not to cover fire hydrants. We go through placement in detail in where to pile snow, and where not to, and it applies whichever method moves the snow.

What does a combined approach look like?

On most residential properties the practical answer is a combination. The drive and any parking area get the method that matches their length and surface. Walks, steps and landings are cleared to the surface by hand or with small equipment, because those are where people fall. The zone in front of the garage doors and around the mailbox gets finished so that a vehicle can get out and a carrier can deliver. Ice management then goes where meltwater collects rather than over everything.

Commercial lots follow the same logic at a larger scale: plowing for the lot, hand or small-equipment work for entrances and walks, and planned storage or hauling once piles run out of room. Our commercial snow and ice management page explains how that is sequenced around an opening time.

Which questions should you ask before choosing?

Before you pick a method, or a service that uses one, walk the property and answer a few questions. How long is the drive, and is it gravel, asphalt, concrete or pavers? Where can snow go along its whole length without landing on beds, fences, a septic field or the road? Does the property drift? Is there a grade, and where does meltwater run? Which surfaces do people walk on every day, and who in the household is least steady on ice?

Then ask a contractor how they would clear each surface, where they would put the snow, and what they do when the snow is wet and heavy rather than dry. A good answer is specific to your layout. If you are comparing services, our checklist on how to choose a snow removal company and the overview of what residential snow service includes will help you compare like with like.

How do we approach it on a property?

We set up residential and commercial properties for the season before the snow arrives, so the method, the storage and the trigger depth are agreed while the ground is still visible. Our snow and 24-hour storm services cover driveways, private roads, parking areas, walkways and ice management across Missoula and the Bitterroot Valley, and our residential snow removal arrangement includes steps, landings and decks where access requires them. This guide is part of our Montana Winter Property Guide, which covers the rest of the winter season.

If you are not sure which method your property needs, call us at (406) 215-7319 or request a free estimate. We will walk the property with you and tell you plainly what we would do and where the snow would go.

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