November was a busy month preparing for snow clearing. We had a small dusting of snow early in the month but thanks to Mother Nature the snow has melted and we are starting with a clean slate! According to The Weather Network, Ontario should experience an average winter snow fall, but with the east coast expecting heavier than average we could easily be affected by this. With the fronts coming just a little farther west and north things could easily change for us in Ottawa.

Being prepared for our clients entails a lot of equipment maintenance and training for our employees. Trucks, salters, plows, tractors and snow blowers all must be ready to go. We have been working on this since late September and things are in to place. Learning the routes takes a bit of time but practice runs have been done by our new employees. Stakes are placed to help the drivers know where the edges of the driveways are as well as making it easier to identify the properties that we maintain.

For our residential clients we recommend parking your cars in your garage if at all possible and if you do not have a garage we suggest pulling your car up to the front of the driveway as far as you can. Our driver will pull as close as they can to the back of the car to clear the driveway. Returning to clear the windrow left by the city plows is completed once the city has finished plowing the neighbourhood streets. Timing for sending our crews out depends on the particular storm. If it is going to be a shorter storm we will wait until the snow finishes and then send the crews out to clear. If it is a big event with snow fall lasting over 12 hours we will do two runs. One half way through the storm and head out again once the storm has finished. All walkway clearing is done at the end of the snow fall regardless of the timing.

I was going to end with “stay warm”, but after this last few weeks, how about “stay dry”?

Clearing a driveway in Elmvale Acres