WAYZATA, 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.
Wayzata is not a service area we drive out to — it is where we are based. Crews and equipment are already in town when a storm starts at 2am, not coming from Bloomington or Eden Prairie once the roads are already bad. The rest of it is arithmetic: we cap the route so we can hold a 10-hour standard, rather than selling twice as many drives and servicing half of them at noon.
It also means we know the drives. The lots off Ferndale and Bushaway Road run long and private, with grade pitching down toward the water, and a drive like that does not clear the way a flat suburban apron does. Downtown, the problem is the opposite — there is nowhere to put what you push.
Most Wayzata 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.
Homeowners across Wayzata and Lake Minnetonka have left us 80+ five-star Google reviews.
Our residential crews and trucks run rubber-edge plows. Steel cuts. Rubber doesn't. A steel blade will find every joint, lip and edge on a paver driveway, stamped concrete or asphalt that was sealed this year, and by April you have chipped pavers and a sealcoat that looks two winters older than it is. Most homeowners never connect the damage to the plow — they assume that is what Minnesota does to a driveway. It isn't. It's the blade.
We build these driveways in the summer, so we are not going to wreck them in the winter. Drive edges get staked before the ground freezes so a crew working in the dark on a long drive off Bushaway Road knows where your pavers end under a foot of snow, and stone, brick and anywhere a truck does not belong gets hand and blower work instead. There is a backup crew lined up before every storm and redundancy in every equipment class we run.
Residential service runs on a 2 inch trigger. Once accumulation reaches it, your property is on the route for that event — no phone call, no waiting to find out whether this one counts.
A cleared driveway does not help much if the path to your front door is still buried. Walks and steps are included in residential service, and they are cleared on the same visit as the drive rather than on a second trip later in the day.
Stairs, stoops and service doors get hand crews. There is no way to run a machine up a set of front steps without taking the edges off them, so we don't try. The same goes for the stone and brick entries common on the older lots around Wayzata Bay, where the surface is worth more than the time saved by rushing it.
Plowing takes the snow off. It does not do much about the glaze that forms when a cleared surface melts in the afternoon sun and refreezes as soon as the temperature drops back. On a drive that pitches down toward the water, that glaze is the difference between backing out and sliding out.
We treat drives, walks and entry steps so the surfaces people actually walk on stay usable between storms. We also hold 100 tons of salt at our shop rather than buying per event, so a regional supply crunch after a major storm does not become your problem.
Every property has a finite amount of room to stack snow, and a long winter finds that limit. Sight lines go first — backing into the street past a bank taller than the car — and then the usable width of the drive starts closing in from both sides. Downtown Wayzata hits that wall earliest, because there is no open ground to push toward in the first place.
Once the banks are full, the snow gets relocated to open ground elsewhere on the property or hauled off it entirely, instead of getting stacked higher.
Most standard Wayzata 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 Wayzata ordinance 303.1A, parking on public streets is banned starting at 2:00 a.m. after a snowfall of 2 inches or more, and the ban stays in effect until the snow is removed or plowed to the curb line. Because the city plows curb to curb overnight, the end of the driveway gets buried after the street is cleared. That ridge is why our clock starts when the snow stops rather than when it starts — the window leaves room for the city to finish the street first, so we clear the apron once instead of clearing your drive twice. Parking ban details from the City of Wayzata.
Freshwater Landscaping
3425 Shoreline Dr Ste B, Wayzata, MN 55391
(612) 999-8067
Office: Mon-Sun 8am-6pm
You are cleared within 10 hours after the snow stops falling. That is a standard we can hold because we cap our routes rather than overselling them, so the last property on the list is not waiting until noon.
Yes. Wayzata plows public streets to the curb line after a 2 inch snowfall, which leaves a ridge across the end of your driveway. Clearing that apron is part of the route, not an extra visit you have to call and ask for.
Residential crews run rubber-edge plows, because a steel blade finds every joint, lip and edge on a paver or stamped concrete drive. We also stake your drive edges before the ground freezes so a crew working in the dark knows exactly where the surface ends, and stone, brick and tight areas get hand and blower work instead of a truck.
Residential service runs on a 2 inch trigger. Once accumulation reaches 2 inches your property is on the route for that event, with no phone call needed from you.
Walks and steps are included in residential service and get cleared on the same visit as the drive. Stairs, stoops and service doors are done by hand, and larger driveways, longer walks and extensive step work are priced accordingly.
No. Service runs on the trigger rather than on a phone call, so crews come through whether anyone is home or not. It does help to keep vehicles off the driveway when a storm is in the forecast, since we clear the full paved surface rather than working around parked cars.
Sometimes, but only if there is still room on the Wayzata route. We cap routes so we can hold the 10-hour standard, which means they fill and then we close them. Send us your address through the form and we will tell you honestly where things stand.
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.