Almost silent snow removal

The Hardware Aisle has already praised the Sno Wovel, a large, wheel-mounted, hand-operated shovel that uses seesaw technology to easily fling snow out of the way. So why bring it up again? For one, snow season is upon us—again. For another, the $120 Wovel (rhymes with shovel) has been redesigned to weigh less and fold flat for easy storage and transport. And did I mention the fact that it’s quiet? I live in the city, where it’s so noisy you can’t walk and think at the same time, yet it’s often while I’m out in scenic New Canaan, Conn., visiting my mother, that I’m rattled by the ceaseless whine of combustion engines. There isn’t a homeowner within earshot who isn’t armed with a motorized hedge clipper, lawnmower, leaf blower, SUV, or all of the above. The only sound you’ll get out of the Wovel is the sandy grating of metal meeting a hard surface; it shovels so efficiently you won’t even pant, says the inventor, Mark Noonan—a New Canaanite, as it turns out. “It’s quite more sophisticated than the original,” he says of the new model. Not that it’s any less funny-looking. Haul one of these 19-pound, adjustable-height contraptions out of the garage and start wheeling it down the drive, snow flying, and you may hear your neighbors’ laughter all too clearly. Unless, of course, they're running their snow blowers.