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, but it was annoying to me how often I had to shovel my driveway.
In the winter time 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, plus beginning the automobile heater to melt the ice. It was thirty minutes of work. I just hated it. I looked into snow blowers but they were fancy plus required a lot of upkeep. I then realized that my home operates with a boiler system plus 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 corporation plus asked about it, and they sell things called snowmelt systems, and you extend the pipes under your driveway plus the boler heats it. The boiler then causes the snow to melt plus there is no need to shovel… Also since the automobile sits on top of the heated driveway, it is hot as a result. That means no snow or ice on the car, however now in the winter time I make sure the driveway is heated plus I can just get up plus 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 even though I have a driveway heater.