Best snow shovels, and why this category cannot be shopped on specs

A snow shovel is the simplest tool in this whole registry and the hardest one to recommend honestly. Five figures decide it — blade width, blade material, handle length, handle material and weight — and the category publishes four of the five at best. Weight, on a tool whose entire purpose is lifting, is published by nobody at all. This page ranks the three manual snow tools whose makers publish enough to compare, and tells you plainly where their own pages contradict themselves.

The short answer

What actually decides a snow shovel

In order of how much difference each one makes to the job, with a note on how often it is published at all:

1. Which motion the tool is for. Lifting and pushing are different jobs and the tools are not interchangeable. A lifting shovel has a deep scoop and a narrow blade; a pusher has a wide shallow blade and cannot raise snow at all. Almost always clear from the product name, which is the one thing this category gets right.
2. Blade width. Sets area per pass, and like a rake the trade is not linear: wider is faster on open ground and worse everywhere there is an edge, a step or a car. Always published.
3. Weight. The figure that decides whether you can still do the second half of the driveway, and the one we could not obtain from a single manufacturer in this category. Never published.
4. Blade material and wear strip. Poly slides and does not rust; steel cuts packed snow and rusts; a metal wear strip on a poly blade is the compromise and it is the part that wears out. Sometimes published, and sometimes published by the maker and contradicted by the retailer.
5. Handle length and material. Length sets how much you bend. Hardwood is stiff, repairable and needs dry storage; steel and aluminum tolerate a damp shed. Usually published, though Garant publishes two different materials for the same handle on the same page.
6. Warranty and replacement parts. On a tool this cheap a warranty looks like a formality until you notice the spread — 2, 3 and 5 years across the three tools here — and that one maker sells the wear part by SKU and the other has it listed as sold out. Usually published.

The spec problem, with the numbers

This is the finding that shaped the page. It is worth more to a buyer than a fourth and fifth pick ranked on numbers we could not stand behind.

Start with the one that is not a retailer's fault. Snow Joe publishes the best spec table in this category by a distance, and three of its rows cannot all be true at once:

The second contradiction is also the manufacturer's own. Garant's page for the 36 inch pusher describes an "ergonomic steel handle" in its feature list, while the same page's product title says "Aluminum Handle". Steel and aluminum are not interchangeable on a tool you lever against frozen ground — one bends and one is heavier — and Garant does not resolve it. We publish both, attributed, because that is the state of the information.

The third is smaller and tells you how carefully these tables are maintained. Snow Joe's spec table lists "Color Blue" for a product whose own model code is SJ-SHLV01-RED and whose photographs are red.

Then there is the gap that applies to every tool here. Not one manual snow shovel or pusher we researched publishes a weight. Snow Joe's eighteen-row table has no weight row. Garant publishes none for either tool. The only weight figure available anywhere is the 3.5 lb printed in the Snow Joe Amazon listing title, which is the listing's number and not the maker's — so we quote it as that and nothing more. For a tool you lift a few hundred times in a morning, this is the specification that matters most.

What this cost the page. Two popular tools were researched and not ranked. A widely sold 30 inch steel pusher from a brand that markets itself on American manufacturing has its blade published at both 24 and 30 inches by different retailers, and we could not reach a manufacturer page to settle it — a six inch disagreement on the single figure that defines a pusher. The best known poly snow shovels on the market have no reachable manufacturer product page at all, which is the same wall this site hit with leaf rakes before switching brands. If you shop this category yourself, the practical rule is simple: if the figure is not on the maker's own page, treat it as marketing.

Lift or push, which is the actual decision

Before the picks, the arithmetic that decides which of these tools you want. It uses only the two makers' published blade widths.

That is the case for the pusher, and it is a strong one on a flat drive after dry snow. Here is the case against it, which is not a number: a pusher cannot lift. It cannot raise snow over a bank once the bank is knee high, it cannot clear a step, it cannot clear a car roof, and it cannot deal with the compacted windrow a passing plow leaves across the end of your drive. Those jobs are why most people who clear their own snow own one of each, and why this page ranks both rather than declaring a winner across jobs.

If the answer to both is "neither, I want a motor", that decision has its own page: snow shovel vs snow blower covers the class choice, and electric snow shovels covers the powered version of exactly this tool, where Greenworks publishes an area-per-charge figure that no manual shovel maker can match for usefulness.

1. Snow Joe Shovelution SJ-SHLV01 — the one with a spec sheet

Snow Joe publishes an 18 in wide blade, "Blade Material Poly", an aluminum wear strip, a 41.3 in handle length, a 50 in assembled length, a 3.9 in assembled depth, a D-Ring grip, a spring-assisted second handle, a Medium-to-Heavy snow rating, an all-around snow clearing use rating, manual power type and a 2-year warranty. Eighteen rows in total. Nothing else in this category comes close.

Who it is for: most people. It is the versatile shape — a narrow enough blade to work a step, a path and the edge of a car, deep enough to lift, with a second handle partway down the shaft that takes some of the load off the back of the lift. Snow Joe markets that handle as the strain-reducing feature and it is the only design idea in this category aimed at the motion that actually hurts people, rather than at moving more snow per pass.

The honest cons. No published weight, on a lifting tool — the 3.5 lb in the listing title is the listing's figure, not Snow Joe's. Its three published length figures do not reconcile, as above. The table says the color is blue on a product coded red. Snow Joe's own store lists the replacement Hardware Pack as sold out, and the spring assembly is precisely the part most likely to fail on this design — a shovel with a mechanism is only as durable as the parts supply behind it. Two years is the shortest warranty of the three tools here. And a poly blade with a thin wear strip is not an ice-breaking tool; Snow Joe rates it Medium-to-Heavy snow and does not claim otherwise.

Who should skip it: anyone whose problem is a long flat driveway after dry snow, where the arithmetic above says buy the pusher instead. And anyone whose real problem is packed ice, which wants a steel-edged chopper this page does not rank because none we found publishes specs.

#ad Check the Snow Joe Shovelution SJ-SHLV01 Spring-Assist Snow Shovel, 18 in price on Amazon — how we're funded.

2. Garant 36 in pusher — the one that removes the lifting

Garant publishes a 36 in polyethylene blade on what it calls an "extra wide 36-inch pusher", a tool-free knock-down assembly system, a rated use of "occasional or professional", a 5-year warranty, and a replacement blade by part number — SKU 80025 at $37.73 CAD. It describes the blade as "light and not too deep" rather than publishing a depth figure.

Who it is for: a flat driveway, a long path, a deck, a rink. By our arithmetic it halves the walking against an 18 in shovel, and more importantly it replaces the lift with a push, which is a different kind of tired. The 5-year warranty is the longest here and the published replacement blade is the detail that separates a tool from a disposable: the blade is the part that wears, and Garant sells it to you by SKU instead of selling you another pusher.

The honest cons, including one we have to flag. Garant's own page cannot agree on the handle material — "ergonomic steel handle" in the features, "Aluminum Handle" in the title. Beyond that: no weight, no total length, no handle length and no blade depth published, so the only dimension you can verify is the width. A pusher cannot lift, which rules out steps, banks, car roofs and the plow windrow. Our own reasoning rather than a published figure: a 36 in blade loaded with wet snow is more than many people can push, and the wider the blade the worse that gets. Garant publishes no price and no add-to-cart anywhere on its site — only a "Find a store" button — so the retail listing is the only price you will get. It is also the most expensive of the three.

Who should skip it: anyone with a sloping drive, wet heavy snow, or steps and corners to clear. Buy the lifting shovel first and add this if the drive is long.

#ad Check the Garant 36 in Ergonomic Snow Pusher (YPP36KU) price on Amazon — how we're funded.

3. Garant Nordic NPM18KD — the repairable traditional one

Garant publishes an 18 in polyethylene blade, a 42 in stained hardwood handle, a ribbed poly D-grip, a rated use of "ideal for occasional use", a 3-year warranty, and a list of replacement parts on the product page itself.

Who it is for: anyone who would rather own a tool with no mechanism in it. There is no spring, no linkage and no second handle to break, the handle is hardwood and therefore replaceable, and Garant lists parts for it — which, against a competitor whose replacement hardware pack is sold out, is the stronger long-term position. The rated use is worth more than it looks: Garant is one of the very few makers in this category that tells you how hard to work the tool, and we would rather have an honest "occasional" than silence.

The honest cons. No published weight, no published total length — retailers print 51 in; Garant does not — and no published blade depth or blade height. Garant publishes no price and no add-to-cart, same as the pusher. "Occasional use" is the maker's own rating, so this is not the tool for a daily driveway in a snow belt, and we are going to hold Garant to its own word. It costs more than the better-documented Snow Joe and has no strain-reducing feature at all. A stained hardwood handle wants dry storage. And one oddity: the replacement part that surfaces on the page is labeled a 46 in pusher handle, which does not obviously match a 42 in shovel handle — so confirm the part before ordering.

Who should skip it: anyone clearing snow every few days all winter, on the maker's own use rating, and anyone who wants the spring-assist handle.

#ad Check the Garant Nordic NPM18KD Snow Shovel, 18 in price on Amazon — how we're funded.

The three, side by side

Every cell below is the manufacturer's own published figure or the word not published. Nothing here is filled in from a retailer listing.

Read down the weight row. Three tools, two manufacturers, one job that consists entirely of moving mass, and not a single published figure for how much the tool itself weighs before you put any snow on it.

Who should buy none of these

• Anyone clearing the same flat path all winter. A powered shovel does that job without the lifting and without the pushing. Our electric snow shovels page ranks two, and Greenworks publishes an area-per-charge figure at two snow depths — the single most useful spec in the whole snow category.
• Anyone with a long or sloping driveway in a real snow belt. That is a snow blower problem, and the snow blower buying guide covers the stage choice. Gravel changes the answer again — see snow blowers for gravel driveways.
• Anyone whose snow is mostly ice. None of these three is an ice tool. A poly blade with a wear strip slides over packed ice rather than breaking it, and we will not rank a steel chopper on specs we cannot find.
• Anyone who already owns a shovel that works. There is no performance figure published anywhere in this category that would justify replacing a functioning snow shovel. Spend the money on the rest of the winter checklist instead.

The verdict

Buy the Snow Joe Shovelution if you are buying one tool. It is the best-documented manual snow tool on the market as far as we can establish, it is the cheapest of the three, it handles the awkward jobs a pusher cannot, and its spring-assisted handle is the only feature in this category designed around the motion rather than the snow. Accept that its spec table contradicts itself on lengths and that the replacement hardware is currently unavailable.

Buy the Garant 36 in pusher instead if your driveway is flat, your snow is dry and your drive is long — it halves the walking by our arithmetic, carries more than twice the warranty, and sells you a replacement blade by part number. Buy the Garant Nordic if you want a tool with nothing in it to break and a handle you can replace, and you are honestly an occasional user, because that is what Garant rates it for.

And whichever you buy, buy it on the handle system and the warranty rather than on the numbers. The numbers in this category are not reliable enough to decide anything, and the makers are the ones who made them that way.