The best thing I ever did for myself was invest in a snowmelt system for my Minneapolis, Minnesota home. Our area gets cold weather quite early, the snow then comes a bit later. It was annoying to me how often I had to shovel my driveway. In the winter I would need to get up an extra 30 minutes early to just prepare to leave the house. I would shovel the driveway, brush off the car, and start the car heater to melt the ice. It was thirty minutes of work. I just hated it. I looked into snow blowers but they were expensive and required a lot of upkeep. I then realized that my home operates with a boiler system and piping hooked to it. I have hydronic heating flooring all throughout my Minneapolis home. So why can’t those pipes extend to the driveway? I called a Minneapolis heating dealer and asked about it. They sell things called snowmelt systems. You extend the pipes under your driveway and the boler heats it. The boiler then causes the snow to melt and there is no need to shovel. Also since the car sits on top of the heated driveway, it is warm as a result. That means no snow or ice on the car. Now in the winter I make sure the driveway is heated and I can just get up and go. It was so worth buying a snowmelt system for my Minneapolis home. Some might call it a frivolous expense. I say that this is what I do instead of AC. I don’t use any cooling but I have a driveway heater.