<p>^^^ Happened to me once. A Sunday newspaper I didn’t subscribe to was left on my driveway as a “free gift” by the paper company. It snowed and hid it, and I hit it with the snowblower.</p>
<p>It didn’t get shredded though, it got stuck, bent the heck out of the auger on one side, and broke a shear pin.</p>
<p>I was not happy with my “free gift”.</p>
<p>Speaking of shear pins. Now would be a good time to run to the hardware store and pick up a few extra ones. These heavy snows (especially after the plow has been by) tend to snap off the pins.</p>
<p>Also there have been reminders going around to clean off your roof, or hire someone as it is dangerous, especially flat roofs. The snow/ice has been heavy and roofs have been collapsing.</p>
<p>Yep, the phone book broke the shear pin. Good thing our Ariens came with extra pins. H was up on our flat roof last night, with the snow rake. He really recommends those snow rakes, but I think they’re hard to find.</p>
<p>and the freezing rain begins…even with the snowblower, i’m going to have a mess of icy frozen snow that won’t be going anywhere!</p>
<p>good luck, everyone! stay safe!</p>
<p>I just went out to shovel and/or snow blow the driveway…it’s a no go for me. Under the seven or eight inches of powdery snow is a nice slick layer of ICE. It must have “iced” before it started snowing this morning. After falling three times, I just came back in. Oh well.</p>
<p>Snow rakes are easy to find. </p>
<p>Just not before, during or after a snowstorm. I just leave mine outside - it’s gotten a lot of use this winter!</p>
<p>School districts were nuts not to cancel school today. I had to come into the office and the secondary roads were terrible.</p>
<p>In Denver it’s -6. The high today may not get above -2. The low tonight may reach -27. So cold schools are closed!</p>
<p>Very glad at this moment we spent a fortune on new windows. Makes a huge difference in how the house feels (warm!)</p>
<p>Brrr, katliamom! That would do in my rickety old furnace and radiators, for sure.</p>
<p>I’m headiing out for Snowblower (Part I) late this afternoon. It’s currently 16 degrees here.</p>
<p>I believe this storm will probably require Snowblower (Part II) sometime tomorrow and Snowblower (Part III) Thursday morning to tidy it all up.</p>
<p>Be careful Interesteddad…I really wanted to help…but that ice is treacherous.</p>
<p>I don’t think it will be icy here. We really haven’t had any melting. Certainly no freezing rain or anything like that. I’ll let you know in a little while.</p>
<p>We didn’t have melting either…and no rain so far as I could tell. Yesterday evening the driveway was DRY. Today there is a layer of ice under the snow…and it’s slick. Something happened!!</p>
<p>Looks like the heavy snow is going to miss Jersey this time, but we’ll all be skating to work on a sheet of ice tomorrow.</p>
<p>Two questions - our kitties get very restless indoors, but when they go outside, they tend to throw up after they get back, I suspect because they ingest salt when they groom themselves after treading on our driveway. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>We get a lot of icicles that drip water on our doorway that makes the steps very dangerous, so I try to rake off a few feet from the edge of the roof, but the gutters are generally clogged with a long slab of ice, that the roof melt still doesn’t have a way out and drips down. What do you do to avoid this?</p>
<p>South suburbs of Chicago here. The really bad storm here started ~1, and already the roads are treacherous. The wind is very strong. Thankfully no ice under the snow, at least not on my route home.</p>
<p>H has a 48 mile trip each way. I sincerely hope he stays home tomorrow, assuming he makes it tonight.</p>
<p>Dad<em>of</em>3, we have the exact same problems. I guess there are some type of gutter heaters you can buy. We keep meaning to try them. </p>
<p>I was out looking for ice melt yesterday that was “pet friendly”. When I pointed out that the pet friendly bag cautioned against ingestion by pets, the sales clerk laughed at me, saying, “Pet friendly means it doesn’t dry out their paws.” I told her my dog eats the stuff and she told I better take him to a pet shrink.</p>
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<p>Yeah, I see what you mean. It was a little slippery out there. Fortunately, I stayed upright and got Snowblower (Part 1) done. Actually, it was nice light snow, wind blowing in one consistent direction, and a pretty easy go of it, except that it was pretty nippy.</p>
<p>We have these [Wrap-On</a> Roof and Gutter Heat Trace Cable](<a href=“http://www.heatersplus.com/roofcable.htm]Wrap-On”>Wrap-On Roof and Gutter Heat Trace Cable) heater cables for our roof. We had such a horrible ice dam from the 30 inch storm we had last month. There was no way to put the clips on so we just tossed the coil up in a very hodge podge way and voila…these really, really work! I think we got ours at the local Hardware Hank for about $50</p>
<p>I got brave. I put my snow clothes back on and figured I’d hold on to the snowblower. I just did the entire flat part of our driveway. DH now just has to do the hill (which will take him MUCH less time than if he had to do the whole thing). Of course, we get to do this again tomorrow. Oh…and the layer of ice I uncovered…yikes.</p>