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Snow job: Can you clean your driveway without polluting your air or stressing your heart?
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Snow may be pretty to watch as it's falling, but as soon as it lands, you've got to do something about it. While human-operated snow shovels are easy on the Earth, the intense exertion isn't so easy on your heart. But gas-powered snow blowers are just the opposite. So what is the greenest and healthiest option when considering snow-removal equipment? We asked a cardiologist and spokesperson for the American Heart Association for his input.
This: Snow Shoveling
Pros: It's free exercise. The Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health considers 15 minutes of shoveling snow to be as vigorous as swimming laps for 20 minutes or walking for 30—great for burning off all those holiday cookies.
Cons: Shoveling snow could spell disaster for people with risk factors for heart disease, thanks to the combo of hard work and hard weather. There aren't many hard statistics on the number of heart attacks caused by heavy snow shoveling, but anecdotal evidence has shown that emergency-room visits due to heart attacks spike in the 24 hours after a heavy snowstorm, says Roger Blumenthal, MD, professor of medicine and cardiology and director of the Ciccarone Preventive Cardiology Center at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "That's partly because when it's really cold, it's hard to judge how hard and how actively you're exercising, and how strenuously you're pushing yourself," he says. But it's also due to the fact that cold weather constricts your arteries, leading to a decrease in blood flow and an increase in blood pressure, he says. All of those factors are more likely to lead to a heart attack. Even seemingly healthy people can succumb to heart attacks after an intense bout of snow-shoveling, says Dr. Blumenthal, because we tend to overestimate how healthy our hearts are.
no real choice for me
As I am both a small motel owner and the sole caregiver for my ailing spouse I cannot risk either injury or heart attack, and the local options include plowing prices that are prohibitive or doing it myself with a power thrower. My driveway is entirely too large to do by hand, and out here in the boonies there are no 'kids next door' asking for work. So I compromised; I got a powerful, reliable machine which gets the job done as quickly as possible to do the major part of what needs doing. Once the worst is done I use the shovel for the finicky close-in work by the building. That takes as long as the thrower does to do the rest, but it cuts back on both the pollution and my health risks.
Snow removal alternatives
Two offbeat snow techniques
1. Use a large fixed tine garden rake, it will move snow without a lot of stress. When you get down to the sidewalk or drive, then your shovel can clean up the leftovers.
2. Use an electric leaf blower. I use my B&D Super Vac'n'Mulch to blow the snow from both walk and drive. This works for light snow which will fly easily, if the blower is making little snow balls, then the snow is too wet and you need plan A.
Hugh Crawford
Oshawa, Ontario
Welcome to Canada - The land of two seasons, Last Winter and This Winter.
you are dreaming
I would like anyone of you to come and blow my driveway and not have your heart rate go up. When I come in I am sweating a storm and I hurt. No not as much as shoveling but if you want the snow done properly you need to push that blower foreward and down. It is strenuous. The only no heart rate increase with a blower is a sit on tractor unit. A wlk behind is not easy.
I live in a snow belt in Northwestern Michigan. We average 4-6 inches a night. This past weekend until today we have gotten over 20 inches. Probably close to 24inches. No walk in the park.
That is since December 3rd we have had snow. We will probably stop getting snow somewhere around the 15th of April. I will gladly let someone come and leisurly walk behind my blower. You will do it right or do it over though.
Joe Deater
Lake ann Michigan