Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

Hello.

  It is freezing rain all day today in southern NY, but did get an inch of snow before it changed to rain.  Wanted your advice on how to tackle it if at all.  Right now my whole driveway has an inch of almost translucent slush covering it (around 400 feet long).   I am worried that it is going to freeze solid tonight if I don't do anything (rain scheduled to let up around 5PM EST, then drop to 27 degrees overnight.)  It hasn't "washed away" as I hoped.  Tomorrow is calling for a cloudy high of 38, maybe that will finish the job?  Or do you suggest hitting it tonight before the freeze with the 2 stage?  I am just not sure what the 2 stage would even do with an inch of slush, but I guess clearing it is best?

Thanks,

Dan

I'm in the same boat in PA.  I just hit mine with a heavy dose of ice melt and will hope that the weather tomorrow takes care of it.  If you're not the gambling type then hit it with your 2 stage.  Neighbors around me went that route this morning and their driveways are bare.  I just couldn't get into snowblowing an inch of ice/slush.

daniel wrote:

Enter the Toro2450 or for that matter any other paddle driven single stage. I live on Long Island and had the exact same conditions this morning. While at this point all the driveways in the neighborhood are clean black top(even those that weren't touched) you can't always depend on that. At 8:30 this am my little single did the best immitation of a water/slush pump you can imagine. No 2 stage can clear this kind of mix like a paddle drive single.

Marc

My old 5/22 craftsman would have choked on the slush but the current Ariens did a great job with the slush this morning and i'm in nothern NJ also.

I'm in the northeast corner of Mass and earlier today got done clearing about 6" of what started out to be light fluffy stuff and then started turning into a slushy mix. It was 10*F here this morning and now it's about 34*F. I always clear as much as I can off the pavement as I have been lulled into false weather reports over the years and no longer trust any report that claims warm melting tempuratures. I've awoken too many times to sub freezing temps with the weather folks making every excuse in the book for their mistaken forecast.

I would clean off the slush with anything possible before it refreezes.  Single stage snowblower, shovel/pusher, ice craper, or even a 2 stage snowblower.  Employ kids, wife, dogs..,ect.  Just kidding

If it does get warmer and sunnier the next day, that's great.  You removed most of the accumulation the day before and it's easy clean up the next day.

If it goes cold the next day, at least you don't have 1 inch of snow/ice layer that will freeze to solid ice. 

I'm with FrankMA, I never leave it to chance to trust the weather prediction.  They have been 30% accurate, especially around any lakes.

Thanks for the advice, I ended up just doing it all with a shovel.  The image of a giant slab of ice covering everything until April had me too scared :)  A little excersize is always a good thing.

-dan

Learned my lesson about slush about 4 years ago. Couldn't clear it fast enough and it froze into a 4" sheet of ice. It took me about 7 hours of chopping to break it all up. I bought a Honda HS520AS last week as a backup to the Ariens 1128 2-stage and for slush and small 1" to 3" storms. Worked like a charm last night on the slush. I even helped my neighbor out by taking care of his driveway since his wife was home with their kids but he was still at work. Did about 2800 SF of paved driveway in about 45 minutes. Finished just before it started to freeze. As a matter of fact, the driveways had a coating of black ice under the slush and made for some tricky walking since both driveways drop about 6 feet over an 80 foot distance. One hell of a machine though, at one point I think I was throwing water out as the snowblower went through a puddle though I couldn't be sure because it was so dark.

Had the same crap as FrankMA described.   

I have a 3 yr. old Ariens ST724E compact.   Nice little machine,but really too small for the storms we have been getting the last couple years.

I was out last night and, did a header with all the frozen iceand had a heck of a time getting back up.

Just came in after dumping tons of ice melt and scraping it off for 4 hours.

Quite a few years ago we had a snow-rain-snow-hard freeze. I ended up with places where I had 4" of almost clear ice. I tried something and it worked very well, although it was probably expensive to do. Next day after trying to shovel, chip, etc etc and getting nowhere, I had an idea. The house I was in at that time had a furnace closet in the back of the garage, which also housed my gas water heater. I hooked the garden hose to the drain on the heater. No nozzle, I just laid the hose down and let the really hot water run out. As it started working its way under the ice I was able to pry up huge chunks and just slide them down to the street. In a few places I couldn't break the slabs into manageable sized pieces, so I used the hose to cut them.  Then I just made a huge ice pile at the curb. Ran out of hot water so I took a break. Next time I ran out I discovered cold (50ish F) water worked too, just not as fast.
It worked, and wasn't hard at all. In fact it was kinda fun