THE SNOW ALMANAC CO. · AMBLECOTE & PERRIVALE · WALKS, DRIVES & THE BYLAW CLOCK
We publish the winter before we sell it.
The Almanac has cleared walks and drives across both towns since 1998, and it opens every season the same way: with the numbers. Snowfall by month, the bylaw clocks both councils actually enforce, the brine windows that worked — all printed, all client-audited, all below. If the figures suit your property, the rates are beneath them.
Twenty-eight winters of ledgers · Amblecote Bylaw 12-B: 24 hours from snowfall’s end · Perrivale Bylaw 30: 48 · (555) 035-2284 · desk@snowalmanac.example
THE BYLAW CLOCK, BOTH TOWNS — Amblecote 12-B reads from the END of snowfall and allows 24 hours to bare surface; Perrivale 30 allows 48 on the same standard. Fines issue daily. Every Almanac visit files a time-stamped completion photograph against the clock.
What we do
What the almanac sells
The season ledger, walks and drives
One price, fixed at signing, covering every trigger event from November to April: the drive plowed to pavement, the city-side walk cleared to bare inside the bylaw clock, the mailbox pad opened and the steps brined. The ledger arrives monthly — every visit, every timestamp, every photograph — so the season you paid for is the season you can read.
The brine window, kept by the forecast
When a named storm firms on the radar, the tank truck runs the list on dry pavement: 23% salt brine, the window thirty-six hours ahead at best and never less than twelve. Pre-treating after the snow starts is watering a plant in the rain — and the almanac’s brine log, by gallon and address, is why our cleared walks read black instead of scraped-grey.
The hand pages — steps, corners, basins
The two-person crew behind the trucks: stairs and railings to bare and treated, corner-duty turns both directions, catch basins opened so the melt has somewhere to be, and the side path to the bins your collector will not walk if it ices. The pages of the property a blade cannot read, written by hand each storm.
October to the thaw
How the season runs
The sequence below has not changed in a decade, because it is the sequence the bylaw clocks and the brine chemistry wrote between them.
October — the almanac is set
Walks measured, clocks noted
Every property is walked and wheel-measured; each client’s governing bylaw — Amblecote’s 24 hours or Perrivale’s 48 — is written onto the route card beside the trigger depth. The season’s figures are published the same week.
T-36 to T-12 — the brine window
The tank runs while dry
The forecast briefing at 4 p.m. decides the run: dry pavement, 23% solution, by the gallon and by the address. A missed window is logged as a miss — the almanac reports its own gaps, because a ledger that hides them is a brochure.
Snowfall’s end — the clock starts
Crews out before the sky finishes
The bylaw clocks read from the END of snowfall, so the crews stage during the storm’s tail and land the first shovel within hours of the last flake. Blades to the October map, brooms on the brick, poly on everything older than the truck.
Monthly — the ledger lands
One document, client and insurer
Visits, timestamps, photographs, brine gallons and salt tonnage, bound monthly. It is the same file we would hand a bylaw officer in March, sent to you first, because audited is only audited if you can read it.
Last winter, audited
The almanac, in figures
Published every October with the season rates, and reconciled every April against the invoices. The numbers below are last winter’s; the method for checking them is in the ledger you receive.
The rates, 2026–27
A rate card that behaves like the figures
Season, per-visit, and the honest boundary between them — priced the way the almanac prints everything, which is to say checkable.
Walk & drive season, Nov–Aprfrom $1,340
Every trigger event · bylaw-clock clearing · monthly ledger with photographs
Walks-only seasonfrom $640
For the houses that like the drive but not the deadline
Per-visit clear$42 / visit
Hand-cleared to bare, brined, photographed, filed
Corner-lot season+ $165
The second frontage and the corner-duty turn, both directions
Brine-only programme$0.05 / sq ft
The window kept for a property that clears itself
Client properties, client light
Pages from the ledgers
Six photographs from six monthly files — each one the same frame a bylaw officer or an insurer would receive, which is the point of filing them.
I am a bookkeeper, which means I distrust anything that arrives without a column for checking it. The Almanac sent me a rate card WITH a methodology note. Nine winters later I can tell you the number of trigger events on my corner lot each season, the brine lead before each named storm, and the photograph number that beat the bylaw clock every single time. My sister-in-law thought I was auditing my snow contractor. I told her that is exactly what they asked me to do.
The bylaw officer photographed our walk the first winter we owned it and the fine taught us what 12-B means. Now the ledger’s completion photographs carry the timestamps and the letters have stopped. The odd pleasure of the service is reading the monthly file like a magazine.
They published a MISS in their own almanac — a brine window skipped in January when the tank froze a valve, with the credit it earned us printed beside it. I have dealt with contractors for thirty years and never once seen a company report its own gap. That is the whole reason I still read it.
Our brick terrace was the reason the last company lost us — a steel scraper across it like a fingernail down a table. The Almanac’s card names the broom for the brick and the poly for the edge, and the crew carries the card. Four winters and the mortar has never been cleaner after a March than before it.
Asked every October
Questions the figures raise
The four that come up at every rate-card table. Anything else, the desk at (555) 035-2284 answers between the storms.
Whose bylaw clock governs my property?
The council you wake up in: Amblecote 12-B gives 24 hours from snowfall’s end to bare surface on the abutting walk; Perrivale 30 gives 48 on the same standard. Both fine daily, and both read from the END of the snowfall — which is why our crews stage before the sky finishes rather than after your call.
Why publish the figures at all?
Because a snow contractor’s promise is weather, and weather is exactly the thing a client cannot check. Snowfall totals, brine leads, trigger counts and our own misses are all printable, so we print them. The season sells no better for a hidden January — and no worse for an honest one.
Season or per-visit — what does the almanac say for my property?
It says count your triggers: the two towns average thirty-one trigger events a winter, and per-visit at $42 passes the season’s $1,340 at thirty-two. Long shaded drives and corner lots should sign; short sun-struck walks may honestly per-visit. The October walk tells you which, and the walk is free.
What exactly is in the monthly ledger?
Every visit with time on and time off, the completion photograph with its timestamp, brine gallons and salt tonnage by address, and any miss with the credit it earned. It is the identical file we would hand a bylaw officer or an insurer — bound for you first, because audited should mean readable by the person paying.
Season rates published each October and closed when the routes fill · (555) 035-2284 · desk@snowalmanac.example
Book the October walk
Fifteen minutes, frontage measured, your bylaw clock noted onto the card. The rate that follows is the printed one, and the first ledger arrives in November. desk@snowalmanac.example