Winter is full of fun activities, from skiing down the slopes to making snow angels, but it’s also a time for painstaking chores. Perhaps none is more grueling than shoveling snow. Unless you own a snowblower — or know a teenager who’s willing to help you shovel in exchange for a few bucks or some…
The Solution? Cooking Spray
Getting snow stuck to the shovel is a far too common occurrence. And as snow freezes to the metal or plastic, it prevents you from scooping up a full load, making shoveling the driveway a lengthier and more arduous process.
Enter cooking spray: Much like it keeps food from sticking to a pan, it can also help prevent snow from sticking to your shovel. If you don’t have any cooking spray available, vegetable oil and wax are suitable alternatives. (Think candle wax, car wax, or even ski and snowboard wax, which is formulated for freezing conditions.)
Before heading outside, coat both sides of the blade with cooking spray. As you toil away, you’ll notice the snow sliding off with relative ease. This keeps your shovel operating at maximum efficiency, so you won’t have to waste time whacking it against the ground to unstick frozen snow. Reapply the cooking spray every 30 minutes or as needed.
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Know the Limitations
Despite the usefulness of this hack, there are a number of important caveats. First, if you leave the shovel outside in the freezing cold the night before shoveling, the cooking spray will do little to help. The oil isn’t powerful enough to prevent sticking if the shovel itself is too cold to begin with. This is why you should always store shovels inside a garage, foyer, or any location where temperatures remain above freezing.
Second, this hack works only with slightly slushy snow that has started to melt and would otherwise stick to the blade. If you’re dealing with dry, hard snow, that type won’t stick anyway, which makes applying cooking spray redundant.
