EXCELSIOR, MINNESOTA
Snow Removal in Excelsior, MN
Driveway Plowing and Ice Control for Excelsior Homes
Your driveway is cleared within 10 hours after snowfall stops. Not "as soon as possible." Not "we'll get to you." Ten hours after snowfall stops.
In Excelsior the car has to move before the driveway does. A snow emergency is declared for every snowfall of two inches or more, and it runs from 1:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. What makes it different from a flat overnight ban is that the legal side of the street changes with the calendar: on an even-numbered date you park on the even house number side, on an odd-numbered date the odd side, for those six hours. Read the date wrong and the car is sitting exactly where the plow needs to be. If neither side works on a given night, residents can park in the Municipal Parking Garage at One West Drive while the emergency is in effect.
Everything past the curb is on the owner, and the code is broad about it. Under City Code Sec. 8-115 and Sec. 16-40, clearing the driveway, the steps, the sidewalk and the other walkways on the property is the property owner's responsibility — not one strip of public concrete, but every surface a person crosses to reach your door. City crews start plowing as close as practical to when snowfall stops, which is the right way to run a street and also means the ridge they leave across your apron shows up on their clock, often on the same morning you were supposed to have moved the car by seven.
- 10-Hour Clearing Standard
- Rubber-Edge Plows
- Walks & Steps Included
- Fully Insured
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Our Winter Services in Excelsior
Driveway Plowing
The street plow is not going to come back for your apron. Excelsior crews start plowing as close as practical to when snowfall stops, which is how a street ought to be run — and it means the ridge they leave across the bottom of your drive arrives on their schedule, sometimes while the emergency parking hours are still running. Clearing it is the owner's problem under the same code section that covers the rest of the property, and no amount of waiting changes that.
What we put against it is rubber cutting edges on every residential truck. Steel is what turns one ordinary winter into visible damage: it hooks the lip of a paver, jumps a stamped concrete seam, peels sealcoat off in strips that show up in April and get blamed on the weather. Rubber crosses the same surface and leaves it where it was. Drive edges are staked before the ground sets, so a crew working a narrow lot in the old grid at 4am can see where pavement ends and planting begins, and the tight work — brick aprons, short downtown drives, anywhere a truck has no business being — is done by hand or blower.
The trigger is 2 inches. Once accumulation reaches it your drive is already scheduled for that storm, with nothing to phone in and nothing to confirm.
On Every Excelsior Drive:
- Cleared within 10 hours after snowfall stops
- Driveway apron cleared when the city plow leaves a ridge
- Cleared snow stays on your property, never pushed into the road
- Hydrants on the property cleared to a four-foot radius
- Fully insured for residential snow work
Walks, Steps and Shoveling
Excelsior writes the obligation broadly. City Code Sec. 8-115 and Sec. 16-40 put driveways, steps, sidewalks and the other walkways on the property in the owner's hands — not a single strip of public concrete out by the street, but every surface somebody crosses between the curb and your door. Read that list against a corner lot with a wrapping walk and a flight of front steps and the scale of it becomes obvious.
Walks and steps are included in residential service, cleared on the same visit as the driveway instead of turning into a second thing to arrange. Front walk, the path around to a side entry, the treads and landings between the drive and the door: one stop, one ticket, and the whole list the code names gets covered at once.
The step work stays manual, permanently. A machine run up a stair tread rounds the nosing a little at a time until the edge is gone, so crews do stairs, stoops and service doors with shovels — the same reasoning that keeps blowers off the old stone and brick entries around Downtown Excelsior and The Commons, where replacing one damaged piece costs more than the minutes the machine would have saved.
Walkway Coverage:
- Walks and steps included in residential service
- Cleared on the same visit as the driveway
- Hand crews on stairs, stoops and service doors
- Larger driveways, longer walks and extensive step work priced accordingly
Salting and De-Icing
The surface that puts people on the ground is almost never the one with snow on it. It is the drive that was cleared at nine, took sun all afternoon, released a film of meltwater across dark pavement, and handed it back as glass once the temperature dropped after dark. From the back door it looks finished. That is precisely the problem with it.
So the treatment goes where feet and tires actually land — the drive, the walks, the entry steps — timed against the refreeze rather than against whatever hour happens to be convenient. The salt for it is bought ahead of the season instead of chased down inside it: 100 tons are in the building before the first storm, which is why a regional supply crunch after a major event changes nothing about what the route does the next morning.
Ice Control Coverage:
- Driveways, walks and entry steps treated
- Timed against the afternoon melt and overnight refreeze
- MPCA Smart Salting best practices
- 100 tons held on hand rather than bought per event
Snow Hauling
A plow does not remove snow. It relocates it, and every lot has a hard limit on how much relocating it can absorb. The older blocks here find that limit early, because they were platted back when a household kept one car and a carriage: drives run tight between the house and the line, side yards are narrow, and there is no spare corner to grow a pile in. By the third or fourth storm the bank has started making decisions for you.
Past that point, stacking higher stops solving anything and starts creating its own problems. So the volume leaves instead — moved to open ground elsewhere on the property where a lot has some, and loaded into trucks and taken off the property where it does not, which is what gives you back the sight line at the end of the drive and the width you have been paying for all winter.
Snow Relocation Capabilities:
- Piles relocated to open ground on the property
- Hauled off site when there is no room left
- Loaders and snow buckets into dump trucks
- Sight lines and full drive width restored
What Excelsior Snow Service Costs
A standard Excelsior driveway costs $200 to $250 a month across the November through April season, as a single seasonal price paid monthly.
Village lots tend to be closer-set, so the price here turns on the size of the drive, the walks and steps, and whether there's anywhere to pile the snow.
What Sets the Price:
The drive itself. Standard pricing covers a drive up to two cars, roughly 20 feet, wide and 60 feet long, about 1,200 square feet. Anything wider than three cars or longer than 60 feet, or one with a turnaround, runs higher, about one more pass for each added 1,000 square feet. An approach over 150 feet is quoted on its own.
Walks and entry steps. The standard price includes up to 50 linear feet of walk and up to four steps. More than that, such as a side entry, a walk around the house or a full stair run, is hand shoveling and priced higher per foot.
Space for the snow. Where the drive ends in open ground with room for the season, stacking costs nothing extra. On a close-set lot where walls, beds or plantings crowd the pavement, or the drive stops at the garage, it costs more. Relocating or hauling snow is quoted separately and is mainly a heavy-winter issue on tight lots.
Seasonal or per push. Seasonal service is one price in monthly payments from November through April. Per push is available; call and we'll help you decide.
Everything above assumes a 2 inch trigger. A lower trigger moves the price more than drive size, so service that keeps the pavement close to bare is quoted for each property.
Winter Route Coverage in Excelsior
A snow emergency is declared for every snowfall of two inches or more and runs from 1:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. During one, parking alternates by calendar date: on even-numbered days park on the even house number side of the street, on odd-numbered days the odd side, between 1:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. Residents may park overnight in the Municipal Parking Garage at One West Drive during a declared emergency. Crews start plowing as close as practical to when snowfall stops. Under City Code Sec. 8-115 and Sec. 16-40, clearing driveways, steps, sidewalks and other walkways on the property is the property owner's responsibility. Snow and ice removal details from the City of Excelsior.
Areas We Cover Around Excelsior:
- Downtown Excelsior
- The Commons
- Gideon's Bay
- Tonka Bay
- Greenwood
- Christmas Lake
Excelsior Winter Contact:
Freshwater Landscaping
3425 Shoreline Dr Ste B, Wayzata, MN 55391
(612) 999-8067
Office: Mon-Sun 6am-6pm
Excelsior Snow Removal FAQ
Ten hours after snowfall stops, your pavement is open. That holds because the route is capped: the crew is never carrying more drives than a single shift can finish, so the standard does not quietly stretch on the busiest nights of the winter.
It depends on the date. An emergency is declared for any snowfall of two inches or more and runs from 1:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m., and during those hours parking alternates by the calendar: even-numbered days on the even house number side of the street, odd-numbered days on the odd side. If neither side works for you that night, residents may park overnight in the Municipal Parking Garage at One West Drive while the emergency is in effect.
You do, and the rule reaches further in Excelsior than most people expect. City Code Sec. 8-115 and Sec. 16-40 make the property owner responsible for driveways, steps, sidewalks and the other walkways on the property, so it is not only the public strip along the street. Walks and steps are included in our residential service and cleared on the same visit as the drive, which covers all of it in one stop.
Not the way steel would. Rubber cutting edges are standard on our residential trucks because a steel blade finds paver lips, stamped concrete seams and sealed asphalt, and takes a little off each of them every pass. Drive edges are staked before the ground freezes so a crew can read the boundary in the dark, and tight or fragile areas are finished by hand or blower.
Yes, and it is part of the visit rather than an extra on the invoice. City crews start plowing as close as practical to when snowfall stops, so what comes off the street piles across the end of your drive on their timing and not yours. Clearing that apron is included, and nobody has to call and ask for it.
No. What sends the crew out is accumulation reaching two inches, so the visit happens whether you are home, at work, or away for the month. The one thing that genuinely helps is an empty driveway when snow is in the forecast, because a slab with a car sitting on it cannot be cleared properly.
Sometimes, though it depends entirely on whether the Excelsior route still has room in it. We cap that route on purpose, since a 10-hour standard is only worth stating if the crew can actually hold it, and once it is full we stop taking properties until the following winter. Send us the address and you will get a straight answer either way.
Get on the Winter Route
Routes fill and then we're closed. Tell us about your property and what needs clearing, and we'll get you a spot. Once you're on the route, you'll get a text when crews head out.
One Company, All Year
In Excelsior, a good share of our snow clients started with a garden bed, a patio or a weekly mowing route, and added winter service later.
On a close-set village lot, it helps to have one crew that knows exactly where the beds, the walk and the property lines are, in every season.
We set pavers and stone for a living, so we plow them with rubber cutting edges instead of dragging steel across them.
What We Do the Rest of the Year:
- Garden beds, mulch and planting
- Patios, walkways and walls
- Weekly mowing and seasonal cleanups
- Tree work and stump grinding