Snow removal in Oshawa, priced for the whole winter.

Four parts of Oshawa, four different snow problems

Windfields, Kedron and the newer streets off Taunton still have open field on two sides of many lots. Wind carries snow across bare ground and drops it against the first thing that stops it, which is usually a wide double driveway. Thirty five minutes of shovelling up there is four minutes of machine time.

Samac and the streets around Taunton sit in between, with enough tree line to break the wind. McLaughlin, O'Neill and the older core are the opposite job: short driveways, narrow lots, cars on the street, and road edge banks that build all season. Donevan, Eastdale and Lakeview are mature streets, and Lakeview adds wind off the water, so snow that fell quietly overnight is rarely where it fell by morning.

On all of them, the ridge the city plow throws across the foot of the driveway belongs to you and not to the city. A blade has already packed it, it is the densest snow on the property, and it lands about ten minutes after you put the shovel away.

What a winter of clearing costs in Oshawa

A seasonal snow package covers one property from November 1 to May 1 for a single price, and that price does not move whether the winter brings four storms or twenty four. It is $800 on a small property, $975 on a standard one and $1,200 on a large one, plus HST. A laneway longer than 400 feet adds $200 for every 100 feet past that mark.

Two extras exist and no others. A salt only trip is $25. A windrow return trip, for the day the city plow seals you back in after we have been and gone, is $45.

If the lawn needs doing too, mowing without a membership starts at $75 a cut plus HST, and 26 cuts is $1,950 before any snow at all. Gold covers mowing and the driveway together for $2,268 a year. If you want to read the three against each other first, the memberships page sets them out side by side, and the snow removal page explains the 3 cm trigger in full.

What moves a quote up or down is rarely the driveway itself. It is the depth the work starts at, the hour it has to be finished by, and where the pile goes once the side yard is full. The longer piece on snow removal cost in Oshawa sets the City standard, the five Durham windrow programs and the cost per clearing arithmetic out in one place.

Whichever way you buy it, the time to ask is before November 1. I hold a place on the route for every property I take, and once the route is carrying as many driveways as it can still clear by a morning target, I stop taking them for that winter.

Questions Oshawa homeowners ask about snow

At what depth do you come out in Oshawa?

Three centimetres, and the route starts itself. You do not phone to set it off. Commercial and medical access properties go first, overnight. Platinum members follow with a 6:30 AM target and Gold members with a 7 AM target. Both are targets and not guarantees, because no operator can promise how a storm behaves. Silver members are cleared on a separate daytime pass by 5 PM.

Do you take the ridge the city plow leaves at the end of my driveway?

On Gold and Platinum it comes off as part of the morning clear, full width, down to the surface. If the city runs your street again later that day and seals you in behind us, a return trip is $45. On Silver that ridge is the whole of the winter service, cleared by 5 PM on the same day the member route runs.

Can I buy snow on its own, without the lawn?

Yes. The seasonal package above is snow and nothing else: no mowing, no spring cleanup, no fall cleanup. Plenty of Oshawa households want exactly that. If you would rather hand over both seasons on one payment, the year round Oshawa membership is the page for it.

Does the City of Oshawa help seniors with the windrow?

Yes, and if you qualify you should take that rather than pay us, because no contractor competes with free. The City clears driveway windrows and City sidewalks at no charge for residents who are 65 or older and for residents with a disability, provided no member of the household is under 65 without a disability. What it does not do is the rest of the driveway. It takes the windrow only, it starts once the ridge measures at least 20 cm, and no hour is promised, because crews finish the main roads and the residential streets first. Registration renews every year. The rules are on the City of Oshawa snow clearing help page. Paying somebody is the answer when the whole driveway has to be open by a set hour, which is a different job.

If you want the rest of it before you phone me, I have written out how a storm morning actually runs, commercial snow, which goes at 5 cm instead of 3, and how the billing and the cancellation work.

Summer on the same route: weekly lawn care in Oshawa.