Snow Removal in Oshawa: Gold and Platinum Plow the Driveway, Silver Clears the Windrow

Snow here is sold inside a membership that covers lawn season and snow season together, billed in twelve equal payments on the last day of the month. There are three. Gold at $189 a month plus HST and Platinum at $279 a month plus HST plow the driveway. Silver at $129 a month plus HST does not plow the driveway. Silver gets a separate daytime pass that clears the windrow the city plow leaves across the foot of your drive, by 5 PM, plus four banked full clears a season on request. That difference is stated plainly on this page, in every place it matters, because it is the one thing people get wrong when they compare one snow contract to another.

What happens at your house in Oshawa after it snows

Once the snow stops, the route runs in a fixed order and that order does not change to suit whoever called last.

Commercial and medical access properties are cleared first, overnight, because those are the places somebody has to be able to walk into before the sun is up. Platinum members are next, sequenced first on the residential route with a 6:30 AM target. Gold members follow with a 7:00 AM target. Silver members are cleared on a separate daytime pass, a windrow clear at the end of the driveway, by 5 PM.

Read that against what else is published in this market. The largest operator serving Oshawa publishes that in a heavy storm it may take up to twenty four hours after the snow stops to get to you, and that in a storm running over more than one day it clears once a day. That is an honest thing for them to publish and it is also the thing to compare. Our targets are 6:30 AM and 7:00 AM, before the drive to work, not a day later.

What we will not do is call any of it a guarantee. 6:30 AM and 7:00 AM are targets. A truck can break down, a storm can drop thirty centimetres sideways, and no operator in this province can promise snow will behave. We publish the target, we publish the order, and we tell you where you sit in it before you sign anything.

The 3 cm trigger, and why the number is published at all

We go out at 3 cm. That is the trigger, it is automatic, and you do not phone to start it.

Most snow companies serving Oshawa publish no trigger depth anywhere on their website. That is not an accident. A trigger that is never written down is a trigger the operator can decide on the morning, and on a morning with five centimetres down and a full route waiting, the decision tends to go the way that saves the truck a run.

Three centimetres is a low number on purpose. It is the depth at which a car starts pushing snow rather than driving over it, and it is well under the depth where a packed driveway turns to ice for the rest of the week. If it snows four centimetres overnight on a Tuesday in February, we come. You do not have to judge whether it was enough.

The three memberships, and exactly what each one does in winter

Silver, $129 a month plus HST

Silver does not plow your driveway and carries no 7 AM target. Be clear on that before anything else. What Silver buys in winter is a separate daytime pass by 5 PM that clears the windrow, the hard ridge the city plow throws across the bottom of your driveway after it goes by, plus four banked full driveway clears a season that you call on when you want them. There is no salting on Silver, ever. Silver suits a household that shovels its own drive and wants the heavy, icy plug at the end of it taken off by a machine.

Gold, $189 a month plus HST

Gold plows the driveway and carries the 7:00 AM target after overnight snow. This is the middle tier and it is the one most Oshawa households actually want: the drive is open before the morning drive out, cleared by a machine rather than by you in the dark at six. Salting is available on a Gold membership as a salt only trip at $25 when you want it, rather than automatically.

Platinum, $279 a month plus HST

Platinum is sequenced first on the residential route, with a 6:30 AM target, unlimited automatic salting, and first choice of service day in lawn season. Unlimited automatic salting is the line worth reading twice. Most operators in this market either charge per salt application or expect the homeowner to keep a bag by the door. On Platinum the salt goes down when the conditions call for it and nobody bills you for it and nobody waits for you to ask.

The windrow at the end of your driveway

In Oshawa, when the city plow runs the street, it leaves a ridge of compacted snow across the end of every driveway on that street. Clearing that ridge is the homeowner's problem, not the city's. It is also the worst part of the job: it is the densest snow on the property, it has been packed by a blade, and it usually arrives an hour after you have finished shovelling.

Here is how each membership handles it. On Gold and Platinum, the windrow is cleared as part of the morning driveway clear. If the city runs your street again later in the day and blocks you back in after we have been and gone, a windrow return trip is $45. On Silver, the windrow pass is the service: a separate daytime run by 5 PM, and no return trip is needed because the pass happens after the city has been through.

Snow removal in Windfields, Kedron, Samac, Taunton, McLaughlin, O'Neill, Donevan, Lakeview, Eastdale and North Oshawa

North Oshawa is a different snow problem from the core and it is worth saying so. In Windfields, Kedron and the newer streets off Taunton, the driveways are wide, often double, and there are still open fields on two sides of a lot of them. Wind moves snow across open ground and drops it on the first thing that stops it, which is your driveway. A wide double drive with drifting on it is thirty five minutes of shovelling and about four minutes of machine time, and that gap is the entire argument for a plow membership up there.

Samac and the streets around Taunton sit between the two. Mature enough to have trees breaking the wind, new enough to have a real driveway rather than a strip of concrete.

McLaughlin, O'Neill and the older core are the opposite job. Narrower lots, shorter driveways, street parking, and plow banks that build up on the road edge through the season until there is nowhere left to put anything. There the value is less about volume and more about the windrow and about somebody arriving before you need to be out.

Donevan, Eastdale and Lakeview are mature residential streets with a mix of both. Lakeview gets the additional problem of wind coming off the lake, which means the snow that fell politely overnight is not always where it fell by morning.

We book by geography, one truck, one route. The tighter the members sit together in Oshawa, the earlier everybody on that stretch gets cleared, which is a genuine reason to tell the neighbour two doors down.

What it costs, and how you actually pay for it

The membership is billed in twelve equal payments on the last day of each month, by card on file. It covers lawn season and snow season together, which means there is no separate snow contract to sign in November and no seasonal lump sum to find in the middle of Christmas.

Silver is $129 a month plus HST. Gold is $189 a month plus HST. Platinum is $279 a month plus HST.

Paying the year up front saves 5 percent: $1,470.60 on Silver, $2,154.60 on Gold, $3,180.60 on Platinum.

Two extras exist and there are no others. A salt only trip is $25. A windrow return trip, where the city reblocks you after we have already cleared, is $45.

If you send us a neighbour, you both get 30 percent off one month, with a floor of $50 each, so nobody comes out of it with a token discount.

Season dates, and the day the Oshawa snow route closes

Snow season runs from mid November to mid April. The snow route closes on 15 November and that date does not move.

One truck can carry a fixed number of driveways and still hit a 6:30 AM and a 7:00 AM target. Once those spots are taken, they are taken, and the honest thing is to say so in advance rather than take the money in January and miss the morning. If you are reading this in October, you are early and you should be. If you are reading it after the first real snowfall, ask anyway, but ask expecting the answer to be about next season.

Who you are actually calling

Andrew, the owner, runs the truck. One truck, one operator, fully insured and HST registered. The person who quotes your driveway is the person who plows it, which is the part a franchise cannot copy.

Office hours are Monday to Friday 7 AM to 7 PM and Saturday 7 AM to 5 PM. We are closed Sunday. We reply the same day, Monday to Saturday, not seven days a week, and we would rather say that plainly than publish a promise we break every Sunday. During a snow event somebody is watching messages through the overnight and the early morning run, which is a different thing from office hours and is the part that matters at 4 AM.

Phone 905-244-5779. Email andrew@northlinepropertycare.ca. Green in summer. Clear in winter.

Questions Oshawa homeowners ask

At what depth of snow do you come out in Oshawa?

Northline clears at a 3 cm trigger. Once 3 cm has fallen, the route runs automatically and you do not need to call. The order after a storm is commercial and medical access first overnight, then Platinum members by a 6:30 AM target, then Gold members by a 7:00 AM target, then Silver members on a separate daytime windrow pass by 5 PM.

Does the $129 Silver membership plow my driveway?

No. Silver does not plow the driveway and has no 7 AM target. Silver includes a separate daytime pass by 5 PM that clears the windrow left at the end of the driveway by the city plow, plus four banked full driveway clears a season on request, and no salting. Driveway plowing is on Gold at $189 a month plus HST and Platinum at $279 a month plus HST.

What time will my driveway in Oshawa be cleared?

Platinum members are sequenced first with a 6:30 AM target and Gold members follow with a 7:00 AM target after overnight snow. Both are targets, not guarantees, and no snowfall guarantee is made. Silver members are cleared on a separate daytime windrow pass by 5 PM.

Do you clear the ridge the city plow leaves across my driveway?

Yes. On Gold and Platinum memberships the windrow is cleared as part of the morning driveway clear. If the city plow reblocks the driveway later the same day, a windrow return trip is $45. On Silver the windrow pass is the service itself, run in the daytime by 5 PM.

How am I billed, and is snow a separate contract?

Snow and lawn are one membership, billed in twelve equal payments on the last day of each month. There is no separate winter contract and no seasonal lump sum. Paying the year up front saves 5 percent: $1,470.60 Silver, $2,154.60 Gold, $3,180.60 Platinum. A salt only trip is $25 and a windrow return trip is $45.

Book snow removal in Oshawa before 15 November

Call 905-244-5779 or email andrew@northlinepropertycare.ca and say which street you are on. We will tell you where you sit on the route and whether the morning target is realistic for your address before you commit to anything.

Everything we do in Oshawa

• Lawn care and snow removal in Oshawa: the combined membership, month by month.
• All three memberships and what each one clears, with the arithmetic shown.
• What snow removal costs in Durham Region, seasonal, per visit and per month side by side.
• Commercial snow removal in Oshawa and Durham Region, on a 5 cm trigger and a photographed site log.
• Our hours and service area, and what happens on a storm morning.
• Snow removal in Whitby, the next town over on the same route.
• Snow removal in Courtice, the next town over on the same route.
• Frequently asked questions about billing, triggers and cancellation.