![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
advances in medieval technology
Dec. 20th, 2009 01:03 pmLast year, my parents bought a wovel (darn, I thought it should be spelled "whovel"). It's a shovel on a big wheel for maneuverability and leverage. Once Mom showed me how to scoop-flick the snow off it rather than turn it sideways as I do with normal shovels, I got the hang of it, and it really is a lot more efficient.
Let's say a "parking spot" is a unit of area, equal to about a carlength and width with a margin on each side. Then my parents' driveway is probably about nine "parking spots" (three actual spots and a length of six), so shoveling the ~foot (30cm, but maybe it's only 25cm) of snow that we have here is an arduous task. I think the wovel tripled my efficiency, not because it's fast but because it can carry a big load. So why did we skip from the shovel to the snowplow without popularizing this thing? Its only disadvantage as far as I can tell is that without too much weight on the bottom of the shovel it doesn't really scrape the driveway. Instead it leaves maybe 1/4'' (1/2 cm) of snow and then wheels tracks over it, so either another shovel or in this case the sun has to take care of the parts left behind.
Um, right. No, nobody has asked me to advertise this and I'm not getting paid for it. :) I just think the concept is neat and am pleasantly surprised that it works.
Let's say a "parking spot" is a unit of area, equal to about a carlength and width with a margin on each side. Then my parents' driveway is probably about nine "parking spots" (three actual spots and a length of six), so shoveling the ~foot (30cm, but maybe it's only 25cm) of snow that we have here is an arduous task. I think the wovel tripled my efficiency, not because it's fast but because it can carry a big load. So why did we skip from the shovel to the snowplow without popularizing this thing? Its only disadvantage as far as I can tell is that without too much weight on the bottom of the shovel it doesn't really scrape the driveway. Instead it leaves maybe 1/4'' (1/2 cm) of snow and then wheels tracks over it, so either another shovel or in this case the sun has to take care of the parts left behind.
Um, right. No, nobody has asked me to advertise this and I'm not getting paid for it. :) I just think the concept is neat and am pleasantly surprised that it works.
