The best thing I ever did for myself was invest in a snowmelt system for my Minneapolis, MN home, then our area gets cold weather quite early, the snow then comes a bit later! It was frustrating 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, plus 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 costly 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 contractor plus asked about it. 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, and also since the car sits on top of the heated driveway, it is moderate as a result. That means no snow or ice on the car… Now in the winter 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.