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How to Choose a Snow Shovel
Posted by Chaya Goodman
Nov 30, 2009
There are two factors to consider when choosing a snow shovel: Your body size and the type of snow you will be shoveling. Shorter people should choose shorter-handled, smaller shovels. This should come as intuition, but the popularity of long, bent-handled "ergonomic" push shovels has obscured that fact. Push shovels are useful for taller people and light, fluffy snow. Because of the width of the blade, it is difficult to flip snow off of a push shovel, especially for a shorter person. If you're under 5'7", you'll find that you will have better leverage if you use a smaller, lighter-weight shovel. Forget choosing a shovel for it's ability to remove ice - it's not worth the extra weight. Metal garden edgers make the best ice scrapers. Stiff push brooms work great for clearing light snow off of stairs and driveways - they get closer to the surface so that less ice builds up.
