To clear snow from front of my house, what do I need - a shovel or a spade?
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Shovel - without a doubt.
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Funnily enough I was pondering this very thing, but involved shoveling salt - my neighbour had a spade I had an inherited shovel - seemed to have the edge (if you'll excuse the pun) in that situation.
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Either will do, although the lips on the side of a shovel can snag if there's some ice in the snow.
A good tip for whatever you use is to rub a candle over the blade to stop the snow sticking when you come to dump it.
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I bought an arf decent shovel from Homebase at the weekend.
I also bought 25kg of rock salt ...
if it don't get used, I'll bag it up in 1kg lots and sell it on ebay as Himalayan crystal salt.
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>> "No 2 Shovel with PD Handle"
Sounds like a quote from Ripping Yarns :-)
Last edited by: Old Sock on Wed 8 Dec 10 at 14:35
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Get a proper snow shovel, they can be up to a metre wide and you can clear huge volumes of snow really quickly.
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Sounds brilliant - but I read somewhere that more people die shovelling snow than during any other activity (including attempts in XJSs).
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I know I'm asking for some abuse here but what is the difference between a spade and a shovel? To me, they are the same.
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My assumption has always been:-
Spade is for digging 'oles.
Shovel is for moving stuff.
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A spade is flat. or very slightly curved.
A shovel is lipped around three sides of the blade.
You can cut or dig with a spade, a shovel is suitable only for lifting.
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>>www.kubota.co.uk/prdct.asp?pageref=30<<
Pah! when i was 19-20, give me a Bulldog size 6 an I could load a muckspreader faster than that thing!
Nowadays, I need that thing to drag me out of bed some days! ;-(
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Sadly you can't hire these these days without a "ticket" - bloomin' health and safety eh ?
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Been there - its great fun!
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>> ...more people die shovelling snow...
I suspect using a spade instead wouldn't help much :-)
It's probably due to a combination of more exercise than normal, and the low temperature.
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>> To clear snow from front of my house, what do I need - a shovel
>> or a spade?
You could probably do with both, as trying to shift compacted snow off a drive e.t.c with a shovel will be a right pita. At least with a spade you can break it up first then use the shovel to move it.
And watch your back :-)
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A brush is easier and faster.
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You can tell he's "management"...
:-)
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>> You can tell he's "management"...
>>
>> :-)
Yes, although my manager would tell me to use a trowel :-)
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Not if the snow's been compacted - it'd be useless.
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OK. I missed that. I agree.
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I always call a spade a shovel!! (and I bet Iffy does as well)
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 9 Dec 10 at 00:19
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Me too, but it's got me into trouble more times than I can remember!
Pat
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A fork is quite good for moving broken slabs of ice or compacted snow.
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Go on, do it!
Let's have a 'give the Mods something to do day':)
Pat
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...Go on, do it!...
We are in a mischievous mood today, aren't we?
My mother told me about being led astray by women like you. :)
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...I always call a spade a shovel!! (and I bet Iffy does as well)...
Ever since this thread started, I've been itching to crack what might be termed a Les Dawson-style joke about spades.
It's not worth it given the po-faced attitude of many on here.
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Whatever you use, be careful not to hack at the snow/ice and damage the surface underneath the snow ~ especially if it's tarmac.
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They take the choice of snow shovel seriously in Canada. A search at Canadian Tire, a sort of cross between B and Q and Halfords has a choice of 37!
www.canadiantire.ca/search/search_results.jsp
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Shovel if it really is snow.
It's icy here but thawing now so upside-down spade pushed to lift the ice and a shovel to fling it.
Many years ago my dad gave me a plastic snow shovel which lives in the car in winter; nothing like it for the scoop and fling action of the keen snow-clearer.
As for those of you who didn't know the difference; it's an education dipping in here, isn't it?
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A very light (thin steel here) shovel is perfect for snow. I'm amazed at the folks with no shovel understanding.
In the fen a shovel is for moving loose material and spade for standard digging. A 3/4 size heavy steel shovel is for digging with loose material and a grafter (long thin heavy spade) is for trenches and digging compacted material. For fence posts/deep pet graves we use a two handle post hole digger (like two spades joined together) which will get a small hole down to 3ft+ with ease.
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>> This should do it:
>> www.cat.com/cmms/14145652?x=7
Would make light work of CGN's pavement!
:)
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>> Many years ago my dad gave me a plastic snow shovel ...........
I bought a cheap plastic snow shovel a few years ago. When I got it home I discovered that the business end was curved upwards from the sides to the middle (probably caused by distortion after it came out of the mould), which decreased its efficiency. I straightened it by attaching a metal strip on the top and underside surfaces about an inch from the bottom.
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