Getting a driveway ready for snow removal: markers, obstacles and photos

Getting a driveway ready for snow removal takes an afternoon in late October and saves arguments in April. A blade can't see a buried interlock edge, a sprinkler head or the basketball net that has stood at the curb since July, and neither can the municipal plow working the street. Four jobs cover it: mark, clear, choose where the snow goes, and photograph. Below is what each one involves, and what Oakville, Mississauga, Burlington and Toronto have published that bears on it.

What has to be done before the first plowable snow?

Mark the edges and anything low a blade can hit, clear the driveway entrance of everything that isn't driveway, decide where the pile will go, and photograph the surfaces as they are today. Each of these is easier now than in December. Stakes still go into soft ground by hand, the yard is visible, and a photo taken before any plow has passed is the only record of how the driveway looked going into winter.

The municipal side of the calendar is published. Oakville plows residential roads once the snow has stopped and the accumulation reaches 7.5 centimetres. Mississauga declares a citywide winter parking restriction when it needs to plow, usually after about 5 cm. Burlington's notice for last winter put its snow event, with no parking on any city street, at 7.5 cm. Oakville's overnight street parking ban, 2 a.m. to 6 a.m., runs from November 15 to April 15 unless you hold a permit, and that date makes a good deadline for the whole job.

Where should the snow markers go?

Put a marker wherever the plowed surface ends and something you care about begins, and wherever a fixture sits low enough to vanish under the first real snowfall. On most GTA driveways that means these places:

1. Both sides of the driveway at the street end, where the asphalt meets the boulevard grass.
2. Every corner and bend, and the point where the driveway widens for a second car.
3. Interlock borders, raised edging and low garden walls along the sides, which a blade can catch and lift.
4. Landscape lights, irrigation heads and any cleanout cap close to the edge.
5. The spot you choose for the snow pile, so whoever clears the driveway knows where it goes.

Use markers taller than the snow that will bank up beside them, and set them on the grass side, just off the hard surface, so the first pass doesn't snap them. Keep them off the sidewalk and back from its edge. Oakville says deep or drifted snow often hides the sidewalk edge completely, and Mississauga says the same thing about its sidewalk plow operators.

Sprinkler heads and lights near the curb

Mississauga lists obstacles such as parked vehicles, plants, lawn fixtures and sprinklers among the things that force a sidewalk plow onto the grass. A head that sits proud of the turf near the sidewalk is worth a stake of its own. If the irrigation system was blown out as described in the post on taps and irrigation lines before the frost, the heads are empty, but they can still be knocked off.

What happens when the driveway entrance is blocked?

In Mississauga and Burlington, the windrow gets skipped. Mississauga says driveways and sidewalks blocked by parked cars, garbage and recycling bins, sports equipment or other obstacles will not be cleared. Burlington tells members of its windrow program to move cars, planters and basketball nets away from the base of the driveway, and that leaving them there means missed service. Any contractor's crew meets the same objects, usually under snow.

Oakville's paid windrow program is taking general registrations until November 7, or until its 1,100 spaces fill. The registration windows of all the GTA programs are set out in the post on October windrow deadlines.

Choose where the pile goes before there is a pile

Every row of that table points the same way: snow from a driveway stays on the property. Burlington's wording covers shovelling, plowing and blowing alike, so it binds a contractor's machine as much as your shovel. That makes the pile's location a decision for October. Places to keep it away from:

• The catch basin on the road in front of the house, and the ground that drains toward it. Oakville, Mississauga and Toronto all ask residents to keep nearby catch basins clear so melting snow has somewhere to go, and the catch basin post explains what a blocked one does to the street.
• The fire hydrant, which needs a metre clear in every direction in Oakville and Mississauga.
• A basement window well, or any spot where the melt will run toward the foundation.
• The left side of the driveway in Oakville, given the Town's advice to pile on the right.
• A bed of shrubs or perennials you want to see again in spring.

Mark the chosen spot with its own stake. On a lot with nowhere sensible to put snow, Mississauga names hiring a service that picks it up and takes it away as one of the options.

How do you take before-photos that settle a damage question in spring?

Take them in daylight on a dry day, from standing points you could find again in April, and keep the original files with their dates. The aim is to tell apart three kinds of damage that look alike under melting snow: what was already there, what a municipal plow did on the boulevard or sidewalk, and what happened on the driveway itself.

1. 1Start at the street edgeFrom the sidewalk or the road edge, photograph the curb, the boulevard grass on both sides of the driveway and the sidewalk edge. That strip is the one the municipality repairs.
2. 2Move up the driveway surfacePhotograph every crack, chip, sunken paver and stain that exists today, with a shoe or a tape measure in the frame for scale. Stamped concrete deserves close-ups: Oakville warns that its windrow equipment may damage a special surface such as patterned concrete, and says the Town is not responsible for damage to driveways or curbs from windrow clearing.
3. 3Catch the fixtures with their stakesLights, irrigation heads, edging, steps and the bottom edge of the garage door, each in one frame with the stake that marks it.
4. 4Finish with one wide shotOne photo of the whole frontage from across the street ties the close-ups together and shows where each one was taken.
5. 5File the originalsPut them in one folder named with the address and the date. A copy sent through a messaging app can lose the date the photo was taken, so keep the files from the phone itself.

When sod is frozen, damage is minimized; however, when sod is not frozen, it lifts away very easily and damage can be extensive.

That sentence is the argument for marking early, since the boulevard that tears is the one that hasn't frozen yet. Oakville puts sod damage reported before May 15 on its list for repair by the end of May, and repairs reported later may move to the next winter season. Mississauga takes sod damage reports online or through 311, and lists overgrown sod on the sidewalk, wet sod, hidden sidewalk edges and obstacles as the causes.

Trim the grass back off the sidewalk edge

Oakville says that often the sod removed is overgrowth growing onto the sidewalk, and Mississauga puts overgrown sod on the sidewalk first in its list of causes. Cutting the boulevard back to the concrete line with a half-moon edger or a flat spade, before freeze-up, takes away the strip a sidewalk plow catches first. If your lawn mowing has a last visit still to come, that is the visit to ask for edging along the sidewalk.

What to tell the snow contractor before the first visit

A short written note keeps the first visit from being guesswork. Put in it:

• where the edges are and how they are marked;
• where the snow goes, and where it must never go;
• surfaces that need a lighter touch, such as stamped concrete, interlock or a steep slope;
• the steps, walkways and landings that are part of the job (Toronto makes all of them the owner's job within 24 hours);
• where the cars will be parked overnight once the street parking bans begin;
• a gate that has to stay shut for a dog, or a car that leaves at a fixed hour.

If you clear the driveway yourself, every step above still pays off. The stakes guide your shovel or blower, the chosen pile spot saves a decision at 7 a.m. in a storm, and the photos are yours if the city's sidewalk plow takes a strip of boulevard. A single-car driveway with an obvious place for the snow may need nothing more than six stakes and ten minutes with a phone.