Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania is four winters at once. Philadelphia gets a couple of dozen inches of wet, marginal snow and a lot of sleet. The Lehigh Valley and the Poconos get colder and more often. Pittsburgh gets many small storms on genuinely steep hills. Erie gets more than a hundred inches of lake-effect powder.
Zippy Snow installs a self-driving Yarbo snow blower on your property and runs it all season. It clears in layers while the snow is still falling, so it never has to fight a foot of accumulation, and it keeps working at 3 a.m. when the plow contractor is still forty driveways away. Our Pennsylvania crew works out of West Chester.
Routes grow every season. If your town isn't listed, ask anyway — we'll tell you honestly whether we can reach you this winter.
The January 2016 blizzard tells the story: about 8 inches in southern Delaware, 16 in Wilmington, 22 in Philadelphia, and 32 in Reading and Allentown. Forecasts along that line bust regularly, which is why we watch the radar ourselves on marginal nights rather than trusting the automatic trigger.
Pittsburgh averages about 42 inches but only sees a foot-plus storm roughly once in fifteen years. Many small storms suit a robot perfectly. The hills are the real question: Yarbo rates the snow configuration to a 36 percent grade, and we measure yours with an inclinometer instead of guessing.
A hundred inches a year across fifty-plus snow days is a lot of clearing. Because the robot works through the storm and recharges between passes, it keeps the driveway at three inches instead of letting it reach thirty.
PennDOT runs one of the largest winter operations in the country and pre-treats with brine, which makes for heavy, salty slush and an apron berm that refreezes hard. If you live on a state road like US 1 or Route 13, the plow schedule is different from your township’s. We map the apron as its own zone either way.
| Where | Time to clear |
|---|---|
| Erie | 3 hours |
| Lancaster | 5 hours |
| Philadelphia | 6 hours |
| Allentown | 10 hours |
| Pittsburgh | 24 hours |
| Harrisburg | 24 hours |
| Bethlehem | 24 hours |
| Scranton | 24 hours |
| State College | 24 hours |
| Lower Merion | 24 hours |
| Cranberry Township | 48 hours |
Measured from when the snow stops. Philadelphia wants a 36-inch path and fines $50 to $300; Allentown can reach $600 a day. Nearly every borough also bans throwing snow into the street. Check your own municipality before relying on any of it.
Same people who install and service robotic mowers for Zippy Lawnz. One crew, one app, both seasons.
Yes. Our Pennsylvania and Delaware crew is based in West Chester and covers the Philadelphia suburbs and southeastern Pennsylvania, with routes growing every season. Map your driveway and we will tell you honestly whether we can reach you this winter.
Often, yes. Yarbo rates the snow configuration to a 36 percent grade, which is about 21 degrees, and most driveways people describe as very steep are under 20 percent. We measure the steepest section at the site visit, fit traction spikes where the surface needs them, and plan passes across the slope rather than reversing down it.
That is the pattern it handles best. The 12-inch intake is per pass, not per storm: the robot clears a few inches, docks to recharge, and goes back out for as long as the snow falls. Lake-effect powder is also the easiest snow a two-stage auger will ever move.
It should already be done. Philadelphia starts its clock when the snow stops, and asks for a 36-inch path. A robot that has been cycling through the storm has the walk clear before the six hours even begin.
The Yarbo hardware lists at $4,999 for snow only, or $7,199 for the mow-and-snow combination. Installation depends on your property, and there is a fully managed plan if you would rather not own the machine. Your crew quotes the full number after seeing the site.
In Pennsylvania that pile is yours, whether the plow belongs to your township or to PennDOT. We map the driveway apron as its own zone and schedule a pass after the plow’s usual window, so the robot meets loose snow rather than a refrozen wall.
