The best thing I ever did for myself was invest in a snowmelt system for my Minneapolis, Minnesota home… Our section gets cold weather quite early, the snow then comes a bit later, then it was aggravating 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, & start the car boiler to melt the ice. It was thirty minutes of work. I just hated it. I looked into snow blowers but they were expensive & required a lot of upkeep. I then realized that my house operates with a boiler system & 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 business & asked about it, they sell things called snowmelt systems, but you extend the pipes under your driveway & the boler heats it. The boiler then causes the snow to melt & there is no need to shovel, however also since the car sits on top of the heated driveway, it is sizzling as a result. That means no snow or ice on the car… Now in the winter I make sure the driveway is heated & I can just get up & 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 despite the fact that I have a driveway heater.