8 Ways To Use A Snow Shovel (When It's Not Snowing)

If you live in a warmer region where it doesn't snow often, you've likely passed up more than one opportunity to purchase a snow shovel (not an electric snow shovel) from your local home improvement store over the years. Or you might have made your first home purchase and are looking for some tools any new homeowner can use. On the other hand, you might already have one tucked away in a shed, the corner of your garage, or hanging on a wall.

Wherever you are in the snow shovel ownership cycle, you might be wondering if it can serve a purpose even when it's not snowing. If you like tools that are useful for more than one task, you'll be interested to know that a snow shovel is capable of more than being used to clear the snow from your driveway, sidewalks, and patios. In fact, snow shovels are useful for moving a wide variety of materials with fewer shovels-full than a standard shovel, and they can serve as the basis for adding an artistic touch to your home.

Before we depart from the visions of winter weather that started us down the snow shovel path, let's consider some activities related to the chore of shoveling snow. While the efficiency of performing some of these activities depend on the hardiness and design of the snow shovel in your possession, all types should be capable of carrying some amount of ice melt from your storage location to areas that need treatment, such as steps and sidewalks. If your shovel is designed with a sturdy metal edge, it can be used to chip and scrape ice either before or after the application of any melting accelerants.

In the springtime, your snow shovel, along with a few other tools you'll want for yard projects, can be used to move garden soil, sand, compost, and mulch into raised garden beds or other garden areas and to spread grass seed and fertilizer around your lawn. However, it's advisable to use caution with materials that could prove excessively heavy in snow shovel sized scoops.

You can also use a snow shovel to move piles of leaves into bags or compost bins in the fall. That big scoop shovel can also double as a large dustpan in your garage or workshop, or as a pooper-scooper to clean up after backyard pets year-round.

Any antique tool, including a well-loved (or neglected) snow shovel, as a decorative element is an eye-catching addition to the front walkway of nearly any home. The flat surface of a snow shovel provides an ideal surface on which to paint your name, street address, or any other short message you wish to convey to anyone approaching your home.

Another artistic use for a snow shovel is using it to shape and contour sand in a backyard Zen Garden. Taking advantage of the shovel's flat sides and unique angles to form patterns in the sand that other tools are incapable of can transform the shovel from its utility tool status and give it a new purpose.

Perhaps using the term artistic to describe a snow shovel is a stretch, but you get the idea. Sometimes the only limit to a tool's usefulness is the tool operator's imagination. And then again, sometimes the best use for a snow shovel is shoveling snow.