[Stonehenge]

Our driveway at our new place is much longer than our old one, and I'm finding that snow has a tendency to drift over the drive in places. I want to use snow fence, but I'm not clear on how you go about using it to prevent drifting. Is it placed relative to wind direction, or pathways you want kept open, or what?

[Nebraska]

About the only thing that you need to know is that the drifts will form on the leeward side of the snow fence and install far enough away (into the direction of the wind) to create the drifting before the driveway.
For the future have you thought about planting a windbreak with conifers? It would create a natural snow fence.

[scl]

I had a customer last year that kept drifting by her garage so she put a fence right there. Man talk about a big drift! Keep it back 75-100', there is a formula, but I don't recall it.

[dan deutekom]

Yes there is a formula. I have it here in the house in an old book somewhere but darned if I can find it right now. Just make sure that you put it far enough away from the drive that the drift forms on the lawn and not the drive.

[Stonehenge]

Hmmm - I don't have a lot if width to the driveway - total of 60' wide, 150' long. And I now have a dozen 2" flowering crabs on each side of the drive, 12' in from the outside edge of the drive.

If I put the fence downwind of the driveway, could that prevent drifts on the drive?

[Nebraska]

On the side of the driveway that the winds are coming from. In our area it most often is the north and west. Try 15 feet from the edge??
I'm sure someone will chime in with the formula soon.

[dan deutekom]

That wouldn't help you at all. What the snow fence does is slow the wind velocity so that the snow drops out of the air and is deposited where you want it.

[Stonehenge]

Ok - I was thinking it'd be like a sort of wind tunnel or Venturi effect - speed up the air by changing it's path, only to slow down once over the fence, depositing the snow.

We get winds mainly out of the Northwest, too. I can try it at the lot line, along the drive and see where it gets dumped, unless someone else has the formula.

[dan deutekom]

Still looking for the formula. I remember where I had it now I just got to find it. It was in an old Harrowsmith magazine. It had a complete article about controlling drifting snow across roads and around buildings. I will keep searching because my interest has been peaked

[dan deutekom]

Try this site http://climate.umn.edu/snow_fence/Co...troduction.htm or http://www.wrds.uwyo.edu/wrds/rmfres/fenworks.html
or http://www.agr.gc.ca/pfra/shelterbelt/shbpub46.htm.

Non of these have a simple formula but they give plenty of information with charts pictures and technospeak that you can make an educated guess.

[dan deutekom]

Best one so far is http://www.ag.iastate.edu/department...SHRP-H-320.pdf

After reading all this stuff I would just keep the skidsteer handy to plow my way out

[greenieboy]

I think the formula is that the distance from the fence to proposed protected area is 15-20 times the height of the fence. The fence should be placed with 1 foot of clearance below it. So a standard 4' snow fence should be about 80-100 feet towards the windward direction.