Shoveling stairwells below street level

[Lawn Lad]

I have a customer who has a stairwell that leads to a lower level basement below street grade - approximately 10' down. I need to shovel the stairs and de-ice. There is limited room for stacking snow at the base of the steps. Any suggestions on how to manage the snow on this stairwell? Shovel it into 30 gallon garbage buckets and haul up the stairs?

[Adams Plowing]

the garbage buckets would work aslong as there is 2 people to lift them they get heavy when full... but i would definatly price accordinly due to the excess work required for moving all the snow.

[JohnnyU]

Can you shovel up the stairs? It could get heavy by the time you got to the top, but in the event of more snow during the season, there is more room at the top of the stairs to stack the snow, or you could pile it up and let one of your trucks push it away. Less work for you, less risk of injury.

How heavy do you think those 30gal cans would be when full of snow? I wouldn't want to try to carry them up a flight of stairs...:zoinks

[CNY Joe]

I would agree it is best to start at bottom and work your way up. Especially if it is being done by a single guy.

[JCurtis]

What about applications of Caliber or magic? It might keep the accumulations down

[Big Nate's Plowing]

thats what I was thinking Jeff.

[WoofsPlow]

I agree it's definatly worth a trip over there early to pretreat with the liquid if you have it , if not, load it with salt.:smile3

[Snoworks]

I would hate to walk up to this stairway in a 6+ storm with slight winds or worse. Have you ever driven up to a loading dock to see it is not there!!!

I have a couple of stairwells that lead from the attic, above the garage, down to the driveway. There are no railings, just walls on either side. Pain in the but to due. Even with 3 or 4 inches, buy the time I get half way down the steps, there is snow 2 feet deep! I charge $200.00 plus for just the stairway shoveling for the year.

Chuck B.

[cat320]

This may sound stupid and be what a homowner would do but I will say it any ways.I have seen those electric power shovels if you started at the bottom you could blow most of the stuff up then use a shovel to do a clean up and also using the chemicals and salt.

[cardoctor]

i have a snow blower adaptor that attaches to my ryobi
weed wacker

i do a set of step i walk the blower up the steps one at a time

removes 80% of the snow in one shot:grinz








john

[WoofsPlow]

I just hope for your sake it's not light & fluffy and windy out:nope

[Chuck Smith]

I had a church with 2 stairwells years ago. They were a pain to do. That year, we happen to get a 30" blizard, and like Snoworks said "What stairwells?". They drifted right over.

My laborer shovel a path down into the well, then drove the snowblower down the stairs. Luckily, no one was out in this storm. With him and a helper, they positioned the blower at the bottom of the stairs, one guy ran the blower, and the other shoveled snow into the augers. It took them a long time, but they got ALL the snow out. We used a rope and my truck to slowly pull the blower up out of the well, backwards.

On lighter snowfalls we left piles in the corners at the bottom. Luckily, it doesn't melt fast in stairwells below grade. There was only a tiny 4" drain at the bottom. We also made it a point to shovel out snow from prior snowfalls when we were there for a 2 or 3" storm. I was worried about the freeze thaw cycle, especially at a church that didn't want any salt.... It was in the contract so I was most likely "covered" but I didn't want to take chances.

I will also say those wells doubled the price of the walks. Between the wells and the main road frontage (it was on a corner) the walks almost cost as much as plowing the lot.

~Chuck

[urethane dino]

We are bidding a site with the same issues. Caliber will break the bond, but I was told it wont melt it. I am actually thinking of using a torch down roof torch to melt it. Then apply the caliber.
Dino

[Mike Nelson]

Well we are thinking here.

Would it be worth your while to build some sort of cover over it with tarps? Just trying to think out of the box a little.

Dino like your idea on the torch, providing all the leaves are out !:eek:

[Mike Nelson]

Actually something like this

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/NTESearch?storeId=6970&catalogId=4006970&langId=-1&PHOTOS=on&KEYWORDS=green+house&kw_fmt=green+house

[NNJSnow]

When I was doing snow shoveling for a local guy a few years ago, we had the same problem, so either we just sucked it up took small amounts on the shovel and threw it over the wall on the ground or had the snow blower at the top and sent the snow somewhere with that. Ill get a picture of the one spot I had to shovel out, about 15 feet below the ground, was a pain.