How to Plow a Gravel Road
When the snow starts to come down, it's time to plow the road. With an asphalt road, plowing is pretty straightforward. However, when you have to plow snow off of a gravel road, it becomes a harder to keep the gravel in place.
- Difficulty:
- Moderately Challenging
Instructions
-
-
1
Buy the right snowplow blade for plowing gravel. Use a back blade with a urethane edge instead of steel. The back blade lets you drag rather than push, keeping more gravel in place while you plow.
-
2
Keep the gravel road clear for the first snow by simply plowing above the level of the gravel. Listen for the sound of the plow scraping the gravel and raise it a touch when you get too low.
-
3
Let the snow pile up around 2 inches before you plow. When you plow it for the first time that season, leave a small amount of snow on top of the gravel. If weather conditions permit, this layer should freeze and keep the gravel in place. This gives you a hard surface to plow after future snowfalls.
-
4
Back drag when you plow. Push the snow near the edge of the road with the plow and lift the plow blade up onto the pile where the gravel has collected. Use your back blade to drag the gravel back into place. This method is best suited for driveways and parking lots.
-
5
Re-gravel the road in the spring. No matter how careful you are when you plow, gravel roads become a mess after the winter. Many snowplow drivers include the cost of re-graveling an area in the initial plow cost.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
When plowing a gravel road, work at angles that create evenly spaced piles of pushed off gravel, rather than simply driving straight down the road. This makes it easier to respread the gravel in the spring.
Related Searches
Comments
-
justme-
Jan 01, 2008
Talk about overkill. A back blade is completely unnecessary, and in most cases makes the plowing vehicle too large to be effective by adding about 3 feet in legnth. A poly cutting edge is a nice change to any commercially available normal snow plow to ease dirt and gravel driveway plowing over the aggressiveness of a normal steel edge, but it is far from necessary. Keep the blade about an inch and a half above the ground when plowing- that's all that's necessary. Over 8 years of plowing professionally, several gravel drives and no problems. -
justme-
Jan 01, 2008
Talk about overkill. A back blade is completely unnecessary, and in most cases makes the plowing vehicle too large to be effective by adding about 3 feet in legnth. A poly cutting edge is a nice change to any commercially available normal snow plow to ease dirt and gravel driveway plowing over the aggressiveness of a normal steel edge, but it is far from necessary. Keep the blade about an inch and a half above the ground when plowing- that's all that's necessary. Over 8 years of plowing professionally, several gravel drives and no problems.
