How to Keep Snow and Slush Out of Your Garage

Winter is a beautiful thing to look at…from the warm confines of your house.  Untouched snow covering the ground outside, snowflakes lazily drifting past your window—but there are the ugly side effects winter brings.  Trodden slush, grimy ice chunks, matted dirt, pools of stained gray water, and it all ends up in your garage.  It’s disheartening and frustrating, especially if you’ve just conquered the fall task of cleaning and organizing your garage, only to have it covered in snow and slush weeks later. Here are a handful of tips to keep your garage dirt, snow, slush, and debris-free this winter.

Garage Mats

In the wet wintertime, rubber garage mats are your best friend and a perfect weapon against combating the perpetual parade of snowy tracks.  Get a mat for everything: your shoes, your snow shovels and equipment, where you park your car, and for foot placements within your car.  You’ll thank yourself when winter breaks and all you’ll need to do is grab the mats and hose them down. Mats made of polyvinyl are the best choice, especially for the large one that will go beneath your snowy car.  Winterized mats should have raised borders to contain the slosh of melting snow, ice, and pooling water.  The best mats have removable borders so you can easily clean them off with a squeegee without having to haul them outside.

The Cardboard Trick

Mats can get expensive, so if you don’t want to invest your entire paycheck into polyvinyl mats for your garage, then consider using cardboard boxes instead.  Think about how many boxes you receive anyway just from ordering online—you could easily line your garage with the cardboard shipping boxes in a matter of weeks! Flatten out the cardboard boxes, preferably large ones so that you don’t have to overlap.  Put the cardboard in places that you know will get wet and want to protect, like underneath your car and on the way to the door leading to the house.  Cardboard does absorb the water and can get a bit soggy, but this is a short-term solution—and a very cheap one that will protect your garage from snow and slush.

A Blower Fan

Look into getting a blower fan.  This isn’t your ordinary house fan; this is a fan that’s high powered and will dry your garage floor in no time.  In areas that experience heavy snowfall and winters that seem to last forever, a blower fan is a wise investment.

Squeegee

This tool is a staple for homes with garages that experience cold, snowy winters.  Like the carboard trick, this purchase is cheap, yet effective.  Squeegees are cost effective, and you can find versions with long handles that allow you to use them like a broom.  Simply sweep out the collecting water and snow and say goodbye to a wet garage, even when there’s an onslaught of snow outside.  You can easily keep the concrete floors of your garage clean and dry with this inexpensive tool, and it requires little work on your end to do so.  

Sprinkle of Salt

Using salt during the winter can be just as messy as the inside of your garage in this wet season when you don’t take care of it.  Instead, toss some salt outside your garage throughout the winter and along your driveway.  If you’re not a salt user already, you’ll notice a huge difference.  You won’t experience any patches of slippery ice, which can be a risk for falls and injuries, and you’ll come to find that snow melts almost upon impact when there’s salt on the ground. Salt does leave behind white stains (it’s not permanent and can be washed away with warm water easily) so using salt inside of your garage is not the best idea.  But using it on the driveway can drastically cut down on the elements your car runs over and brings inside, which means less clean up on your end.

Brush Off Your Car

In the same vein, brushing off your car before pulling it into your garage will also save you the task of constantly squeegeeing out loads snow and slush.  Sure, it won’t prevent all the snow and water from entering the garage, but you’ll likely notice a big difference if you take the time to clean off your car before parking it inside.  Spending a few minutes sweeping off the roof, the hood, and the windshield will save you a lot of time in the long run.

Spring Cleaning

When spring finally comes around the corner, you can feel satisfied that you won’t have that much cleanup work to do in your garage.  All it will take is just a brief washdown instead of scrubbing out the stains of debris that accumulated all winter from a neglected garage.

Taking Care of Your Garage

It doesn’t hurt to clean your garage every now and then.  By taking care of dirt, dust and grime you can avoid running into expensive problems and repairs down the road. Is your garage more of the eye sore? Having a new garage will improve and increase your home’s value and curb appeal tremendously. There’s one garage builder that Chicagoland homeowners look to – Danley’s. Get a free quote now for your new garage.