Where should you pile snow on a residential lot?

Where is the best place to pile snow at home?

Downhill of the driveway, on lawn, where meltwater drains away from both the pavement and the house. Every pile melts a little on sunny afternoons. If that water runs back across the drive, it refreezes in the same place every night; why a driveway ices in the same spot covers this and the other usual sources.

A good spot is downslope of the drive and walks, on grass rather than planting beds, clear of the house and its utilities, and big enough to keep growing until March.

How much room do the piles need?

More than most people plan for. The National Weather Service's normal for Detroit Metro Airport is 45.0 inches of snow a season. On a 720-square-foot two-car driveway, that is about 2,700 cubic feet of fresh snow over a winter. Settling and melting shrink it, but the piles still grow from December to March, and the road plow adds its ridge to the pile nearest the street. Plan two or three spots, so no single pile has to hold everything.

Where should snow never go?

The vents, meter, hydrant and drain are covered in what to clear after a snowstorm.

Why keep the plow off the septic field?

Undisturbed snow is good insulation for a septic system. NDSU Extension notes that 10 inches of fresh, fluffy snow insulates about as well as a 6-inch fiberglass batt, but compacted snow insulates far less, and it advises keeping every kind of vehicle off the system in winter. The EPA's SepticSmart advice is never to park or drive on the drain field. A truck pushing a pile onto the field does both: it drives over the system and leaves dense, packed snow on top. Let natural snow lie there, and stake the tank lid, cleanouts and field so nobody pushes onto them.

Why keep piles low near the street?

The end of the driveway is where you back across a sidewalk with children walking to school, and where you watch for oncoming cars. A five-foot pile at the corner of the apron hides both. Keep the piles near the street low and put the tall pile farther up the lawn; on a corner lot, keep the corner itself clear. Near the street, pile on the right side of the drive as you face the road, a trick the windrow guide explains along with Michigan's law against pushing snow into the road. The same law, MCL 257.677a, also bars putting snow onto the road or its shoulder in a way that blocks a driver's line of sight.

How do you protect shrubs and the lawn?

Snow from the driveway carries the salt you spread. Piled on a bed, it delivers a winter's worth of salt to the roots, so keep salty piles on lawn you can reseed instead; salt damage to grass and plants covers the repair. Heavy, wet snow also snaps branches, so never bury foundation shrubs. See protecting shrubs from snow damage.

Then stake it. Markers at the corners of each storage spot tell a crew, or a family member with a snowblower, where snow goes, and stakes over the septic field, a sprinkler head or a buried light say where it does not. Put them in before the ground freezes; see driveway markers.

What if your lot is tight?

On narrow lots in Roseville, Eastpointe, Center Line and older parts of Warren, there may be one realistic spot, and by February it is full. Plan before the first snow:

1. Walk the lot and pick every spot that drains away from the pavement.
2. Decide which spot takes snow from the apron and which takes snow from the top of the drive.
3. Accept a fallback for a heavy winter: a strip of lawn you reseed in April, or one parking space on the drive.
4. Tell your snow company in the fall, before the first storm.

Macomb Lawn & Snow Solutions back-drags the apron in front of the garage so snow is not left packed against the door, and on a tight lot would rather settle where the snow goes in November than in the middle of a storm.