How our snow removal service works,
step by step
Our snow removal service runs on a written rule rather than a phone call: once 5cm has fallen, your driveway is put on the night’s route and cleared before the morning commute. Here is the whole thing in order — signing up, what starts a visit, what gets cleared, how you pay, and what happens when a storm does not cooperate.
Your price
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How do you sign up for a snow removal service?
You get a price from the calculator with your driveway size and postal code, we confirm it against your actual property, and the figure, the season dates and the 5cm trigger are written into an agreement. After that you do nothing: no sales visit, no weekly check-in, no call when it snows.
When do the crews come out? At 5cm
A visit starts when 5cm of snow has accumulated in your area. That number is written into your agreement and read against Environment Canada’s public Ottawa reporting, so nobody decides on the morning whether a storm counted. Below 5cm the route does not go out on its own; at 5cm it always does.
Once 5cm has fallen the run goes out. It is a number in your agreement rather than a decision someone makes on the morning, which means there is nothing to argue about afterwards. Priority dispatch lowers it to 2.5cm.
- Against the public weather record
Environment Canada publishes what actually fell, station by station. That is the record the threshold is read against, which means it is a public number you can check yourself rather than one only we can see.
Environment Canada — Ottawa forecast - Measured where you are
Against accumulation in your area, not at the airport. The service area is wide enough that a band can drop ten centimetres on one side and almost nothing on the other, and the trigger has to follow the snow rather than the headline.
- A long storm gets more than one visit
If it is still snowing when the route finishes, it starts again. A storm is not one visit by definition — it is however many the accumulation calls for, which is why the pass is priced by season rather than by visit.
City of Ottawa — winter maintenance
None of that requires you to do anything. The threshold is measured, the route is dispatched, and you find out by looking at the driveway.
What does a snow removal service clear?
Every visit clears four surfaces: the driveway to its full width and down to the pavement, the walkway, the steps to your door, and the windrow the city plow leaves across the end of the driveway. All four are done on the same visit, on every plan. Salting is the only add-on, charged per application.
- 01
The driveway
Full width and down to the pavement, not a single car-width lane down the middle. Your driveway size band is what sets the price.
- 02
The walkway
From the driveway or the sidewalk to the front door, so nobody wades through the snow to reach the house.
- 03
The steps
The steps up to the door, cleared on the same visit rather than left for you to shovel before you can leave.
- 04
The city windrow
The ridge of packed snow the municipal plow pushes across the end of your driveway. Included in the base price, return trip and all.
- 05
Salting, if you want it
The only piece charged separately, per application, so it happens when it helps rather than on every visit by default. Over-salting damages concrete and lawn edges.
What we do not do: Roof snow and hauling snow off the property. They are different jobs with different equipment and different insurance, and we would rather not offer them than offer them badly.
What is the windrow, and who clears it?
The windrow is the heavy ridge of snow a city plow leaves across the mouth of your driveway as it clears the street. It is denser than fresh snowfall because it has been packed and pushed, and it often arrives hours after your driveway was cleared. The City of Ottawa confirms that clearing it is the property owner’s job.
On a season pass, the windrow is part of every visit and part of the base price. If the plow comes back after we have been, so do we, and that return trip is not a second call-out or a second charge. It is the most common hidden line item in this trade, which is why it is spelled out here.
City of Ottawa — winter maintenance and windrowsWhat time do snow clearing crews arrive?
Crews work overnight and into the early morning, in route order, aiming to have your driveway open before the commute. There is no fixed clock time, because a storm does not keep an appointment. What is committed to in writing is the window and the sequence, not a guessed arrival time.
Almost all of the work happens while you are asleep, and that is a deliberate choice rather than a convenience. A service that starts at seven and works down a list is, by the middle of that list, arriving after its customers needed to leave. Finishing before the commute means the route has to begin during the storm rather than after it.
It also means the route order matters more than the crew size. Routes are built geographically so a machine is not crossing the city twice, and each one holds a fixed number of properties for exactly this reason: a route you keep adding to is a route that finishes later every year until the promise is no longer true.
A thirty-centimetre night takes longer than a five-centimetre one, and the last property on a route feels it. Season passes hold their order. What we will not do is promise every driveway by the same hour regardless of how much fell.
How does billing work?
There are two ways to pay for our snow removal service. A season pass is one fixed price for the whole season, $499 to $799 depending on driveway size, however much it snows. A one-time clearing is $49 to $99 per visit, paid after the work. Every figure is before tax.
| Season pass | One-time clearing | |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay | $499 to $799 for the season, by driveway size | $49 to $99 per visit, by driveway size |
| What it covers | Every 5cm snowfall from October 15 to April 15 | One clearing, booked when you need it |
| The windrow | Included, return trip and all | Cleared on that visit |
| A big winter | Same price; we keep clearing past the 275cm coverage figure | Each visit priced separately |
| Tax | Plus HST in Ontario; plus GST and QST in Aylmer and Hull | Plus HST in Ontario; plus GST and QST in Aylmer and Hull |
The season price is fixed once it is written down. How much it snows does not change it, including past the 275cm coverage figure, and neither does your distance from our Barrhaven base. The only thing that changes it is you changing the service — adding salting mid-winter, for example.
Which is cheaper depends on the winter. Divide the season price by the one-time price for your driveway size and you get the break-even: about 8 visits for a two-car driveway. Above that the pass costs less; below it, one-time does. One-time clearing takes no deposit.
What happens when something goes wrong?
Each problem has an answer decided before the winter, not negotiated on the day. A parked car is cleared around, a bad clear gets a free callback, damage is reported to you before you find it, and a storm that keeps going gets the route run again. These are the four situations that actually come up.
Five commitments, all of them checkable
These are deliberately written so that you can tell whether they were kept. A promise you cannot check is a slogan, and a company in its first snow season is in no position to ask anyone to take slogans on faith.
- 01The price does not move
What is written before you sign is what you pay for the season. Not a starting price, not subject to conditions discovered in February.
- 02The trigger is a number
5cm, measured in your area, written into the agreement. Not "when it is bad enough", which is a phrase that means whatever the contractor needs it to mean.
- 03The windrow is included
Clearing what the municipal plow leaves across your entrance is in the base price on every plan, including the return trip. It is the most common hidden line item in this trade.
- 04The operators are insured
Every crew and every machine, on every visit. Ask any snow plow service for proof of this before you sign with them, including us.
- 05A bad clear is redone free
You call, we come back, nothing is charged. No threshold to meet and no argument about whether it was bad enough to count.
Not all snow removal services are the same
— here's the difference
The difference between contractors is almost never the machine. It is whether the rules were written down before the winter started, or decided each morning after it.
Snow removal service: common questions
Where to go next
The pages people usually read after this one, depending on what they are still deciding.
- What it costsEvery plan and every driveway size, with the assumptions written out rather than hidden in a footnote.
- What is includedThe four surfaces cleared on every visit, and what is charged separately.
- Whether we reach youEvery postal code within 20 km of Barrhaven, Aylmer and Hull included, and the ten areas with their own page and their own winter problem.
- Just one stormThe same trigger and the same routes, booked for a single clearing rather than the season.
See your price
then decide
See your price, then decide Driveway size and postal code is all the calculator needs — a real range in about twenty seconds, with nothing committed until a written figure has been confirmed against your property.