ORONO, MINNESOTA
Snow Removal in Orono, MN
Driveway Plowing and Ice Control for Orono 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.
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.
- 10-Hour Clearing Standard
- Rubber-Edge Plows
- Walks & Steps Included
- Fully Insured
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1.5 million square feet of commercial lots on contract and counting, for clients including Thunderbird Aviation at Flying Cloud Airport, Holiday Inn Express and Comfort Inn.
Our Winter Services in Orono
Driveway Plowing
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.
On Every Orono 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 kept clear and accessible
- Fully insured for residential snow work
Walks, Steps and Shoveling
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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 Orono Snow Service Costs
Most Orono driveways come in at $200 to $250 a month, November through April. It's a single seasonal price, billed in monthly installments.
On Orono's longer estate drives, the price depends mostly on footage, the walks and steps that come with it, and where the snow can be stacked.
What Sets the Price:
Drive footage. Our base price covers a drive up to two cars, or about 20 feet, across and up to 60 feet deep, around 1,200 square feet in all. Past three cars wide or 60 feet long, or with a turnaround or motor court at the house, the price climbs by roughly one pass for every additional 1,000 square feet. Private approaches longer than 150 feet are quoted on their own.
Walk and stair work. The base price includes up to 50 linear feet of walk and as many as four steps. Anything past that, like a service-door path, a walk around the house or a long run of stairs, is shoveled by hand and costs more per foot.
Snow storage. If there's open ground beside the drive that can take a winter's worth of snow, storage costs nothing extra. Plantings, walls or beds crowding the edges, or a drive with no exit past the garage, raise it. Moving snow elsewhere on the lot or hauling it away is priced separately, and it's mostly a tight-site, big-winter issue.
How you pay. A seasonal contract spreads one price over monthly payments from November to April. If you'd rather pay storm by storm, call us about per push service.
These prices are built on a 2 inch trigger. Lowering the trigger affects the cost more than any change in footage, so a drive that needs to stay near bare pavement all season gets its own quote.
Winter Route Coverage in Orono
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.
Orono Neighborhoods on Our Route:
- Crystal Bay
- Stubbs Bay
- Casco Point
- Navarre
- Bayside Road
- Smith's Bay
Orono Winter Contact:
Freshwater Landscaping
3425 Shoreline Dr Ste B, Wayzata, MN 55391
(612) 999-8067
Office: Mon-Sun 6am-6pm
Orono Snow Removal FAQ
Ten hours after snowfall stops, 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.
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
Many Orono properties come to us for a summer project first, a new terrace, a drainage fix or a weekly mowing route, and then stay on for the winter.
Keeping one company year-round means the crew on your drive in February is the one that knows your beds, your stone and the low spot that holds water.
And since we install hardscapes ourselves, we plow them the way we'd want our own work plowed: with rubber, not steel.
What We Do the Rest of the Year:
- Terraces, patios and retaining walls
- Lawn mowing and spring and fall cleanups
- Tree trimming, removal and stump grinding
- Grading, drainage and excavation