The 6 Best Snow Shovels Reviews and Buying Guide

“Shovel the Snow and Clear the Path Easily and Effectively”

Snow Shovel is the perfect tool to remove the accumulated snow on driveways and yards. Latest models are specially designed to make manual snow removing process much easier and safe than ever.

These tools are eco-friendly as they don’t need any power or gas to use them. And moreover, they are a great way of exercising.

While purchasing a snow shovel, it can be a confusing process. If you want to choose the best, we recommend considering below factors.

• Blade Size: The range of shovel’s blade size will be 12 – 30 inches. Smaller blades are suitable for places with less snowfall. While the larger blades will push snow out of the way and used to clear snow in high-traffic areas. Also, a wider blade can carry more snow than a smaller width shovel.

• Shovel Length: Consider shovel length and width for effective and painless shoveling. The height of the shovel should match with the user’s height to comfortably clear snow. For instance, a short-handled shovel may result in backaches for a tall person, while a shorter person with a tall handle is unable to get proper leverage to clear the job.

• Blade Material: The shovel blades can be made of steel, aluminum, and plastic. Make sure to consider the climatic condition and snow type while looking for blade materials.

                       a. Steel blades are an excellent option for wet, & heavy snow or ice

                       b. Aluminium is a lightweight blade option that works for clearing snow and ice in your paths

                       c. Plastic blades work well for cleaning light snow and ice but not meant for heavy-duty tasks.

To learn more about snow shovel, we are here with a detailed “Buying Guide”. Go through this guide to know all about snow shovels and pick the best one, as per your requirement.

Using the same information, we picked up the best snow shovel after careful analysis and testing.

Best Snow Shovels

Snow Shovel	Shovel Width	Shovel Length	Warranty	Buy Now
Snow Joe Snow Shovel	18 Inch	41.3 Inches	2 Year	Check On Amazon
Trazon Snow Shovel	16 Inch	34 to 48 Inches	3 Years	Check On Amazon
Ergie Snow Shovel	18 Inch	48 Inches	-	Check On Amazon
Lifeline Snow Shovel	8 ⅝ Inch	32 Inches	6 Month	Check On Amazon
Garant Snow Shovel	24 Inch	54 Inches	90 Day	Check On Amazon
Subzero Snow Shovel	9.5 Inch	37 Inches	3 Year	Check On Amazon

Best Snow Shovels Reviews

1. Snow Joe Snow Shovel 

The Snow Joe 18-Inch Snow Shovel – Blue is a practical snow-clearing tool designed by the reliable brand, Snow Joe. Crafted from sturdy Poly material in a classic blue color, this lightweight shovel at just 3.7 pounds offers a straightforward solution for snow removal. Its ergonomic design minimizes bending and reduces back strain.

With an 18-inch blade and aluminum wear strip, it handles medium-to-heavy snow with ease. The unique spring-assist handle improves lifting leverage, lessening the physical effort required. The impact-resistant blade ensures durability, while the D-ring handle grips provide comfort during use.

This manual-powered shovel is a practical choice for winter chores. It also includes a 2-year warranty, offering peace of mind for your winter cleanup needs.

Best Features:

• 18-inch shovel width
• 3-inch shovel length
• Comes with a 2-year long warranty

Pros:

• Affordable price tag results in a budget snow shovel
• Offers a spring-assisted handle
• Long warranty for peace of mind

Cons:

• Build quality could have been slightly better

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2. Trazon Snow Shovel

Trazon presents the versatile Snow Shovel, your all-in-one outdoor cleanup solution. Crafted with a durable plastic scoop reinforced by a sturdy aluminum strip, this shovel is designed to tackle snow, mud, sand, and more. What sets it apart is the adjustable handle, ranging from 34 to 48 inches, suitable for users of all ages. Its ergonomic D-shaped grip, along with a soft foam handle, ensures a comfortable and secure hold, even in chilly weather.

Assembling and storing the Trazon Snow Shovel is a breeze, thanks to its user-friendly design. Plus, it comes backed by a reassuring 3-year warranty and top-notch customer support. Key features include an adjustable handle, a robust scoop, and a space-saving foldable design.

With the Trazon Snow Shovel, outdoor cleanup becomes a hassle-free task, making it a must-have for every home.

Best Features:

• 16-inch shovel width
• 34 inch shovel length
• Comes with a 2-year long warranty

Pros:

• Easy assembly and disassembly.
• Foldable for compact storage.
• Backed by a 3-year warranty.

Cons:

• Not suitable for heavy-duty snow removal.

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3. Ergie Snow Shovel

ErgieShovel introduces its snow shovel, a practical tool for snow removal. This lightweight shovel aims to simplify the process without making extravagant claims. It features an extra handle for better leverage, aiding in lifting and moving snow without causing excessive strain.

The 18-inch wide blade allows for more efficient snow scooping, reducing the need to bend repeatedly. Weighing just 4 pounds, it’s manageable, and its foldable design simplifies storage. Constructed with a steel shaft and polypropylene blade, it’s designed to be durable. With a 28-inch handle, it offers an extended reach.

The ErgieShovel snow shovel is a straightforward choice for tackling winter tasks without unnecessary fanfare, promising practicality and convenience for your snow removal needs.

Best Features:

• 18-inches blade
• 28-inches shovel length
• Comes with additional handle

Pros:

• Suitable for heavy-duty purposes
• Great pick for the price
• Portable and easy to handle

Cons:

• Doesn’t come with warranty duration

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4. Lifeline Snow Shovel

Unlike many other snow shovels in this article, the Lifeline Store’s Aluminum Sport Utility snow shovel stands out for its compact design and impressive user ratings. Ranked Forth in this article, its smaller size makes it ideal for on-the-go use, catering to both snow sports enthusiasts and campers alike. Crafted from lightweight aluminum, its 8 ⅝-inch blade strikes the perfect balance between portability and efficiency.

In terms of length, it can extend from its initial 25 inches to a maximum of 32 inches. What sets this snow shovel apart is its ingenious 3-piece collapsible design, allowing for convenient storage. Despite its foldable nature, the build quality remains commendable, and it even comes with a 6-month warranty for added peace of mind. For those seeking a compact, versatile, and reliable snow shovel for their outdoor adventures, Lifeline Store’s Aluminum Sport Utility snow shovel proves to be an excellent choice.

Best Features:

• 8 ⅝ inch shovel width
• 32-inch shovel length
• Comes with a 6-month long warranty

Pros:

• Compact and portable snow shovel
• 3 piece collapsible design for ease of use
• Decent build quality and warranty

Cons:

• Not the best option for heavy-duty usage

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5. Garant Snow Shovel

For those seeking a robust snow shovel designed for heavy-duty tasks, the Garant NSP24D is a solid choice for clearing substantial snow around your property. This snow shovel boasts an impressive 24-inch steel blade, making it one of the widest options in this article. Its steel construction ensures durability and strength, even when dealing with hard-packed snow. With a lengthy 54-inch shovel, you can comfortably reach every corner while maintaining an ergonomic stance.

Beyond the sturdy steel blade, this snow shovel features additional steel reinforcements, further enhancing its build quality. The varnished hardwood D-handle provides a comfortable and reliable grip, ensuring longevity and dependable performance. However, it’s worth noting that this snow shovel comes with a 90-day warranty, which is shorter than many other options in its category. Despite this, if you need a heavy-duty snow shovel with an expansive blade for tackling substantial snowfall, the Garant NSP24D is a reliable and powerful choice.

Best Features:

• 24-inch shovel width
• 54-inch shovel length
• Comes with a 90-day long warranty

Pros:

• Great option for heavy-duty usage
• Offers a wood handle for shock absorption
• Comes with a large steel blade for ease of use

Cons:

• Warranty duration is quite low compared to other options

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6. Subzero Snow Shovel 

SubZero Auto Emergency Shovel, your winter driving sidekick brought to you by the trusted SubZero brand. This shovel is your go-to tool for staying safe during snowy drives. It extends up to 37 inches, allowing you to easily clear snow around your car.

With a wide 9.5-inch blade, it gets the job done efficiently, and its lightweight and compact design make it a breeze to store in your vehicle. The D-shaped handle is comfortable to grip, and the steel construction ensures durability. You can choose between Blue or Gray to match your style.

Weighing just 1.2 pounds, it’s easy to handle and a great addition to your car or truck for those unexpected winter weather challenges. Stay safe and prepared with the SubZero Auto Emergency Shovel, the practical solution for winter driving

Best Features:

• 5-inch shovel width
• 37-inch shovel length
• Comes with a 3-year long warranty

Pros:

• Great snow shovel for emergency usage
• Offers an extendable handle for ease of use
• Comes with a long warranty duration

Cons:

• Not ideal for heavy-duty usage

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Factors to Consider When Purchasing a Snow Shovel

The type of snow shovel you require will depend mostly on the amount of snowfall in your area for the particular year. So, one has to take various factors into their account to find out the right model, as per their requirement. Let’s get into these factors.

1. Type of Snow Shovel

Usually, the snow shovels are divided into three main types – traditional, combination, and push.

• Traditional Snow Shovel: A traditional snow shovel comes with a rectangular blade of flat 18-inch to 24-inch. It is suitable to use in smaller areas to move snow, especially where a pusher is hard/unable to reach. The longer the shovel is, the more leverage it offers.

This type of shovel comes with a plastic blade and wood shaft. A few heavy-duty options are made with steel, aluminum, or other metal alloys. One can easily find the traditional snow shovels in almost all lengths.

• Push Snow Shovel: Pushers come with a larger curve-shaped blade than traditional shovels. With its large size, it can quickly and efficiently plow large amounts of snow. This type of snow shovel is an excellent option for driveways, as it quickly clears the snow with less effort.

This is the best option to remove light snow, even in large quantities. Yet it would be a hassle to remove the snow, where its precipitation is heavy and wet. Snow sledges are newly added to this type.

• Combination Snow Shovel: As the name implies, it is suitable to use for pushing, lifting, and tossing the snow. The blade on this snow shovel is a bit wider and more curved compared to the traditional shovel blade. This makes it perfect for both lifting snow and pushing away the snow.

It would be rare to perfectly cater to a particular type of shovel in a winter storm. Yet, most people prefer to choose this combo shovel due to its versatility. One has to push, lift, loss and chip the following snowfall to clear their way/homes. So, a combination snow shovel is a right option for those looking for one shovel to perform all these tasks.

2. Blade Size

We notice snow shovels with blades that range from 12 – 30 inches. One has to choose the right blade size of a shovel to depend on the amount of snowfall and your requirement.

• A snow shovel with smaller blades is perfect for scooping up snow, whereas a shovel with larger blades is good to push out the snow from your way.
• If you want to clear high-traffic areas like sidewalks or driveways, then a shovel with a larger blade will be your best option.
• If you are living in an area where you won’t receive much snow, then a small blade shovel works best to remove the snow.

Also, the width of a shovel blade is essential to consider. A wider blade will allow you to carry more snow and they are heavier compared to a shovel blade with a smaller width.

3. Shovel Length

Don’t want to strain your back after a few snow shoveling sessions? Then prefer to choose a shovel that perfectly matches your height. For instance, a short handle shovel may lead to backaches for a taller person. The same is the case with a shorter person using a shovel with a tall handle. Here the user won’t get the proper leverage to do the job.

4. Blade Design

We generally notice some snow shovels look like an ice-cream scoop, while others resemble miniature plow versions to clear the street.

However, these two different designs have overlying talents. Have to clear snow on a large flat area of pavement, then a plow-type shovel will be the better option. As snow piles up in front of the blade and gets pushed along.

While the scoop-type snow shovel is considered the best shovel type for clearing snow in tight areas, stairs, and undulating pavement. These are versatile that let you deal with clearing any kind of snow in your area.

While taking away the wet and heavy snow by using plow type shovels, then it becomes like a workout, as it is unable to lift the snow. However, it won’t be a correct option when moving the snow up onto a pile to clear it out of the way. If you want to purchase a plow-style shovel, then you require a traditional scoop and throw shovel for removing snow efficiently.

5. Blade Material

The shovel’s blade material will let you use the snow shovel in any given situation. Usually, the blade material of shovels will range from lightweight plastic to heavy-duty steel, along with some options in between. Make sure to consider the snow type and climatic condition in your area before checking out for blade materials.

• Steel Blades: Considered the best option to remove wet, heavy snow or chipping hardpack and ice.
• Plastic Blades: Works well for clearing light snow and performing large shoveling jobs with its lighter weight.
• Aluminum Blades: The best lightweight option but can’t perform any challenging task of moving large quantities of wet snow/precipitation.

In general, a shovel with plastic blades is a quite common blade, as it can easily handle various jobs and efficient at performing them. In case, a strong plastic blade will be sufficient while having a single shovel in the garage and it won’t damage any sensitive surfaces (such as wooden decks).

But remember that plastic blades are less effective in breaking the ice or scraping hard-packed snow. For this reason, most poly blades feature metal wear strips. Even though they are considered useful but not works as a real replacement for an aluminum or steel blade.

Compared with plastic, these metals are heavier and steel may prone to rusting. Yet it would be the best option if you want to have a calf-deep in ice-crusted or heavy snow.

6. Wear Edge Material

This edge comes in contact with the ground to help you get through the ice. Most experts prefer plastic ones are the best option. These are lightweight, and has a slightly rounded edge, which makes the shovel slide easily over uneven surfaces without jamming up. They add durability and also soft enough to work on stone walkways or decks by not damaging the surface.

Compared to plastic, the metal can hold up better but they are sharp, which makes them end up hooking on uneven surfaces. Thus, make the shovel user’s arms and shoulders get aches.

7. Handle Material

The shovel’s handle can be made of fiberglass, steel, wood, aluminum, or plastic, in which aluminum and steel are strong, durable, and can easily handle a lot of snow weight. Yet more prone to become cold to touch in winters.

While plastic and fiberglass are lightweight and unable to hold a heavyweight (or) use to move snow in a large area. Here the fiberglass may crack/break easily if left in the sun, whereas plastic unable to hold much weight as other materials. While wood is considered a better middle ground in terms of strength, but it can splinter, warp, or rot.

8. Shaft Design – Straight Vs Curved

One can notice a slight difference in the shaft design of the shovel, it can be either straight or curved. Both can create a mechanical advantage in different situations, and choosing your right shovel shaft design depends mainly on how you use it. Let’s know about them in detail.

• Straight – Handle Shovels: They are used for lifting, chopping, and tossing snow. It offers the best hand position for the user to lift, carry, and throw snow (perfectly move the snow away). So, the straight handle shovel will lend better to chop blocks and thereby clears hardpack snow in particularly stubborn areas.
• Curved Shaft Shovels:  A perfect designed option for pushing snow. Here this shaft’s curvature hinders can efficiently, easily and safely lift a heavy shovelful of snow and push. Its bent handles will reduce the stress on the lower back whenever you apply a push force to move it forward. This type of shovel won’t allow the user to bend excessively and also overuse the ground while moving snow.

9. Handle Features

A few shovel models offer a second handle, which is close to its blade. They provide proper leverage and lifting power to the user. A few handle rods are cushioned with foam to reduce hand fatigue. While some other models offer wide, D-grip handles that shaped like D to give a more comfortable and firmer grip compared to a straight handlebar.

One can find a fully adjustable handle in the telescoping handle shovels, which let you find and adjust the perfect length as per your height and personal preference. Thus, it eases the strain caused by shoveling a lot of areas.

10. Comfortable Handle Diameter

While performing long shoveling jobs, it is quite essential to choose a shovel having an ergonomic handle that boasts its diameter and fits perfectly into your palms. It will definitely reduce the strain on your hands and also avoid the risk of getting blisters. So, it allows you to do your shoveling job easily, without any problem/fear to pick the shovel again.

11. Choose Shovel That Matches With Your Strength

One has to pick the shovel that exactly matches with their strength. For instance, choosing an all-metal snow shovel (heavyweight) by a short and slender user will result in strenuous and cumbersome for their back, arms, and shoulders. Whereas, picking a small, lightweight snow shovel is not a good option for a stronger user having a higher forearm strength.

12. Construction Details

How strong is your shovel? How effectively it can move the snow? does it use small screws & how many? All these depend on the construction details of a particular snow shovel. One has to check out these construction details before purchasing a shovel. The reason is that a single storm will leave you to wind up moving tons of snow (heavy) to clean up the area.

Using thin-wall tubing and tiny hardware will limit the longevity and usage of a shovel and its acceptance to the repairs. So, consider a spot where the handle of the shovel connects to the blade, which has to be strong. This will let you pick up heavy snow (shovelful) and move to clear it effectively, instead of flexing or wobbling around while using.

13. Price

Look for budget-friendly models but avoid choosing cheaper models, as they are more prone to brittle and won’t work effectively. Though, quality snow shovels are a bit costlier, yet provide the best performance and durability that last longer. So, it is always best to go with quality over price while selecting the snow shovel (or any product). Also, a higher-end model offers a lot of warranty.

14. Warranty and Durability

Make sure to check the reliability and durability offered by a given snow shovel. This will ensure you that the shovel will last for a longer time without any issues. For this, you have to check the build quality offering a sturdy and rigid construction to last the shovel for a long time. A steel snow shovel is strong and reliable than other types. Some options offer a 6-month warranty to 2-year warranty, while a few come with a 10-year long warranty on the product.

Safety Tips for Snow Shoveling

Here are some safety tips, which you have to follow while using the snow shovel to make it work effectively.

• Always wear boots with good traction while moving the snow.
• Be cautious while walking on the slippery pavements.
• Make sure to lift as little snow as possible (less quantity more comfort to lift).
• Continue doing the shovelling process periodically throughout the storm rather than waiting till the last fallen flake. This makes it a heavy task to move the snow.
• It is a great idea to place a small emergency shovel in your car to ensure that you will lift only a reasonable amount each time you move the snow.
• Using a heavy plow-type shovel will let you push the snow through the way.
• Bend your knees every time you lift the shovel off the ground to reduce the back strain, and thereby prevent backaches after shoveling.
• Always, wear a loose-fitting scarf over the nose and mouth while working to move the snow to warm up the breathing passage.
• Take frequent breaks while moving the snow and warm up with a hot beverage and take some rest before returning to the snow-clearing job.
• In case, if you begin to overheat, avoid removing a layer of clothing. Simply, come to your home, remove outerwear. Drink water and rest for some time to cool down before dressing and going back outdoors.
• If you are suffering from any form of illness, then make sure to stay indoors and hire a professional to clear snow in your way.

Snow Shovel – FAQs

Conclusion

While there are even powered tools for getting rid of snow from your surroundings, a snow shovel is quite an effective tool for doing this. Even though these are manual tools, you can easily and quickly move a lot of snow. Hence, we have already mentioned some of the best snow shovels up above in this article.

To help you in choosing the perfect one for you, we have provided their major features and options along with a detailed buying guide. While these should be enough for most of you, you can also consider going with one of the following recommendations if you want to buy the perfect snow shovel:

• The Trazon Snow Shovel is the largest option mentioned in this article. It offers the largest shovel width of 24 inch along with a pretty high shovel length of 204 inch that allows you to get rid of snow from the rooftop of your house quite easily.
• If you want a highly durable and reliable snow shovel, then you can go with the Subzero Snow Shovel. You get an excellent build quality with this 9.5 inch shovel that comes along with a 3 year-long warranty which is much higher than most other options out there.
• For those of you who are on a budget, the Snow Joe Snow Shovel makes a lot of sense. Even though it is one of the cheapest options out there, you get a pretty decent shovel width of 18 inches and a shovel length of 41.3 inches along with a 2-year long warranty.

Make sure to share your thoughts in the comments section. You can also post any questions down there if you have any!