ORONO, MINNESOTA
Your driveway is cleared within 10 hours after the snow stops falling. Not "as soon as possible." Not "we'll get to you." Ten hours from the last flake.
Orono holds its residential streets until a storm clears 2 inches. Under that, city plows run the major streets only, and ice control goes to the places that matter most for traffic — stop signs, hills, bridges and curves. A quiet side street or a cul-de-sac can sit unplowed for a while under an inch and a half.
Once a storm goes past 2 inches, every city street gets plowed curb to curb, and the city puts that job at 8 to 10 hours including the cul-de-sacs. Where your street falls in that order decides a lot: the plow that pushes a ridge across the end of your driveway may not come through until well into the next day. We are based next door in Wayzata, minutes from Orono, so crews are close by when a storm starts overnight.
Most Orono homeowners sign up for the season and stop thinking about it. Your property goes on the route before the first storm, service runs on a 2 inch trigger, and crews come when accumulation hits it — no phone call at 5am to ask whether we're coming. Seasonal flat rate or per push, whichever suits a winter that might bring four events or fourteen. Driveway, the walk to your front door and the steps are all part of it. Routes fill and then we're closed.
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Every residential truck we send out carries a rubber-edge plow. The reason is simple: steel cuts and rubber doesn't. Run a steel blade over a paver drive, a stamped concrete apron or asphalt that got sealed last summer and it catches every joint and lip on the way through, and by spring the pavers are chipped and the sealcoat has aged two winters in one. Homeowners usually blame the winter for that. The winter didn't do it. The blade did.
These are the same driveways we install in July, which is a fair argument for not tearing them up in January. Before the ground hardens we stake the drive edges, so a crew feeling its way down a long private drive near Casco Point at four in the morning knows where your surface ends under a foot of snow. Stone, brick and any spot a truck has no business being gets hand and blower work. We line up a backup crew ahead of every storm and keep spare capacity in every class of equipment we run.
Residential service triggers at 2 inches. When accumulation reaches it your property is on the route for that storm — nothing to call in, nothing to confirm.
An open driveway is only half of it if you still have to wade to your own front door. Walks and steps are part of residential service here, and they get done during the same stop as the drive instead of on a second trip somebody has to remember to make.
Worth knowing in Orono: keeping the public sidewalk adjacent to your property clear is the property owner's responsibility, not the city's. Orono maintains only select sidewalks. If there is public walk footage along your lot, we can fold it into your service so it is handled on the same visit rather than left for you.
Steps, stoops and service doors get hand crews. No machine goes up a set of front steps without rounding off the edges, so we don't attempt it, and the same restraint applies to the stone and brick entries on the older lots around Navarre and Bayside Road, where the surface costs more to repair than the minutes saved by hurrying.
A plow moves snow. It does nothing about what happens a few hours later, when sun on a cleared surface melts the last film of it and the temperature drops back after dark. What you get is a sheet of glaze, and on a drive that runs downhill toward Crystal Bay the difference between backing out and sliding out is exactly that sheet.
So we treat the drive, the walks and the entry steps — the surfaces people actually put their feet and tires on between storms. We also keep 100 tons of salt at the shop instead of buying it storm to storm, which means a regional shortage in the week after a big event stays our problem rather than becoming yours.
There is only so much ground beside a driveway to put snow on, and a February with four storms in it will find the edge of that. You notice it first backing out past a bank taller than the car, and then in the drive itself, which keeps narrowing as the piles on either side creep inward. Tight lots and short turnarounds out toward Casco Point run out of room earliest, because there was not much open ground to push toward to begin with.
When there is nowhere left to stack, the answer is to move the snow rather than build the pile higher — relocated to open ground elsewhere on the property, or loaded up and taken off it.
Most standard Orono driveways run $200 to $250 per month, November through April. One seasonal price, billed monthly.
What moves the number: the length and width of the drive, how much walk and step work comes with it, and whether the property needs snow relocated once the banks fill.
Driveway length and width. Standard is up to two cars wide, about 20 feet, and up to 60 feet long — roughly 1,200 square feet. Wider than three cars, longer than 60 feet, or a courtyard or turnaround at the top moves it up. Every additional 1,000 square feet is roughly another pass. Approach drives over 150 feet get quoted on their own.
Walk footage and number of steps. Standard covers up to 50 linear feet of walk and up to four steps. A second entry such as a side or service door, a walk that wraps the house, or a full stair run is hand work and costs more per foot than open walk.
Whether snow can be stacked on site. No added cost when there is open ground at the end of the drive with room for a season's volume. It moves up when retaining walls, beds or plantings sit tight to the pavement, or when the drive dead ends at the garage with nowhere to push. Relocation or hauling is quoted separately and usually only comes up on tight sites in a heavy winter.
Seasonal or per push. Seasonal is one price split into monthly payments November through April, and seasonal clients are cleared first. Per push is available — call us and we will talk through whether it fits your property.
All of the above assumes a 2 inch trigger. A tighter trigger moves the number more than driveway size does, so a property that wants closer to bare pavement all winter gets priced on its own.
Under Orono Code Sec. 66-81, parking is prohibited on all city streets and municipal lots any time there is 2 inches or more of snow, and it stays prohibited until the streets have been cleared. Orono also bans street and municipal lot parking from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. year round. Because clearing every city street after a 2 inch snowfall takes the city 8 to 10 hours, that restriction can run well into the following day — and so can the wait for the plow that ridges your apron. Ordinance and plowing details from the City of Orono.
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3425 Shoreline Dr Ste B, Wayzata, MN 55391
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Ten hours after the snow stops falling, the driveway is open. We can promise that only because the route has a hard cap on it, so nobody ends up as the property we get to sometime the next day.
Not for your own driveway. The city figure covers plowing every public street curb to curb after a 2 inch snowfall, cul-de-sacs included, and your side street may fall late in that order. We clear your drive on our own schedule, and when the city plow finally leaves a ridge across the apron, clearing it is part of the route rather than a call you have to make.
In Orono that falls to the property owner. The city keeps up only select sidewalks, so the public walk running past your property is yours to keep clear. We can add that footage to your service so it gets done on the same visit as the driveway.
Our residential trucks carry rubber-edge plows for exactly that reason, since steel will catch every joint and lip on pavers or stamped concrete and take chips out of them. Drive edges get staked before the ground hardens so a crew working before sunrise can see where your surface ends, and brick, stone and tight spots get cleared by hand or blower rather than by truck.
Walks and steps come with residential service, cleared during the same stop as the drive rather than on a return trip. Steps, stoops and service doors are handled by hand crews, and a long walk, a big drive or a lot of step work is priced to match the extra time.
No, because the trigger sends us out, not a phone call, so the crew works whether the house is occupied or empty. The one thing that helps is moving cars off the drive when snow is in the forecast, since we clear the whole paved surface instead of steering around bumpers.
Only when the Orono route still has a spot open. Capping the route is what lets us hold the 10-hour standard, so once it is full we stop taking properties for the winter. Send your address through the form and we will give you a straight answer either way.
Most of our snow clients did not start as snow clients. They hired us for a patio, a drainage fix, or weekly mowing, and kept us through the winter because the crew already knew the property.
It works the other way too. The crew that plows your drive in January is the same one that can edge the beds in May, keep the lawn on a weekly route through the summer, and take down the tree that has been leaning over the garage since the last storm. One company, one number, one crew that already knows where your sprinkler heads are and which side of the drive holds water.
That is also why the winter work is careful. We know what goes into setting a paver drive on a proper base, so we are not going to spend four months dragging steel across it.
Routes fill and then we're closed. Tell us about your property and what needs clearing, and we'll get you a spot. The storm-alert checkbox is optional — check it and you'll get a text the moment crews head out.