Coalpail.com Forum

keegs wrote: ↑

Wed. Nov. 27, 2019 1:52 pm

Paul... is that 7 feet of run to every foot of rise? I thought about planting conifers but not sure. It's one of the reasons I went with the fence. Maybe a row of privet or something like that on the left side would work.

Keegs, yes, 7 feet horizontal for every foot of height.

Some say evergreens will protect downwind as far away as 10:1. All the old farm houses I've seen, that had evergreen windscreens, were never as far away as ten times their grown height upwind of the house.

Privet hedge verses evergreens, I'd see which grows faster in your growing zone. And keep in mind that once you get over a certain height, windblown drifting snow does not go over it, like it can with lower screens such as fencing. Likely why so many old timers used evergreens rather than fences.

Paul

Thanks to you both. There's a little over a foot on the ground up there now. I'm headed up this Sunday. I'll see how the new fence is doing.

yep 40 to 50 feet for the second one...
Also keep the downwind side of the drive smooth...
The snow bank will act as another snow fence...
If the drift fills between those two snow fences...
Put another on top...

Make sure enough light hits the lower branches...
To keep them to the ground...
Otherwise you have anti snow fence...

40 or fifty feet from the driveway is about at the front door so that pretty much narrows it down to a fence. 20 feet from the driveway gets me into where the septic field is so the 7/1 rule may not work. You guys gave some ideas to work with and I appreciate the feedback.

So I got up here in the afternoon yesterday thinking I would ski in to the garage but found the driveway had a base of ice a few inches thick with a topping of crusty snow. There was some minor drifting in the usual places but nothing the tractor blower couldn't make quick work of. Nothing too impressive going on with the snow fence thus far.

I had an idea yesterday that I'm gonna start working on today and tomorrow. I'm going to use the snowblower to make a row of snow starting a few feet from the front porch (it's hardly used during winter months), extending out (south) 100' or so. The row of snow would run parallel to and about 50' from the west side of the driveway between the new fence and the driveway. It may take some time and practice but the chute and the spout deflector on the blower can be configured to form the row. There's about 6 -10" of the white stuff on the ground now and the forecast is for 8" tonight. That should give me a start.

Truly a 'snow fence'...
Should work just fine...

Snow fence

That'll do as much good as a snow fence unless it melts. They use graders here in some farm fields near roads and make piles a mile long sometimes.

There are rare blizzards that can make it be worse but it looks like you have evergreens around. Ive seen neighbors that planted spruce real close to a driveway have drifts 20 feet high from those trees angling down and going across their driveways. But this is open flat land where it blows most the time.

Fighting snow with snow !! The sun is out and current temps are in the low-mid thirties... Ideally I'll see some melting followed by more seasonal sub freezing temps to make a crust that won't blow away... In my rooting around about snow fences months back I can't recall coming across anything about a row of snow but I think I get why others would do it. If it works, next year I might try removing the plastic and go with two rows.

keegs wrote: ↑

Wed. Dec. 04, 2019 11:32 am

Snow fence

IMG_20191204_111431140.jpg

That is my method for a snow fence.

One pass along the side of driveway and one beside the path to the ash mountain.

When the path drifts shut, just make a pass or two with blower again.

Look like your path is 60-72 inches wide, like mine are.

This kind you don't have to put up or take down.

You should see what happens here at the airport...
Security fence about 30 feet from the major road...
LOL...
They should take the airport blower right down the highway...
The drifts get really big...
If we get a good snow storm I will get some good pics this year...