snow Shovels: standard, wheeled and electric

If your snow-clearing needs are limited or occasional, snow shovels – either the standard shovels or the novel wheeled snow shovels, or the electric snow shovels – are often the best solution. Gas snow blowers have many inconveniences and limitations and they will not truly reduce physical effort in small snow removal tasks.

Regular snow shovels

Traditional snow shovels are still the best solution for many snow removal situations. Just choose the best design (some improvements to the traditional design can make them more easy to use).

See, for ratings involving regular snow shovels, in Amazon: Snow Shovels.

Wheeled snow shovels

Wheeled snow shovels are a recent alternative to standard shovels. The wheeled shovel design can help to reduce the risk of back injuries and makes shoveling a faster job.

The Sno-Wovel/Snow Wolf model (from Wovel) has some very good mentions (Popular Mechanics, Time magazine, New York Times) and overall good ratings in online retailer sites, but also a significant number of disappointed buyers (about 10%).

Disappointed buyers stress their difficulty in assembling the shovel, its relatively high price (about $100, in Amazon.com) and, according to them, the unease of use or its ineffectiveness for more than light snow loads.

Power electric snow shovels

Electric snow shovel Power shovels are in fact small corded electric snow blowers, that pushes the snow ahead of the operator (they have no wheels, just an auger). They are relatively inexpensive (about $70 online, in the case of the Toro Power shovel).

Electric shovels typically have a 2-years warranty, a 7.5-amp motor, a twelve-inch clearing path and, in the case of the Toro model mentioned above, a twenty-foot throwing distance.

They can do a reasonable workout for small snow-removal tasks, without the noise and the emissions of gas snow blowers, but they are clearly designed to small-duty snow clearing in patios, sidewalks, front porches. They can make the snow removal a little more easier than common shovels, but just that, and they aren't suitable for gravel driveways...

For customer reviews and ratings electric snow shovels, see: Electric Snow Throwers