Snow blower

[Frank Cox]

It's supposed to start snowing sometime this afternoon and will snow continuously until Wednesday night. Sigh.

Snow shovelling isn't getting any easier so I just bought one of these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-ReOZuXSZI

Hopefully it will be some good. It does have a fairly solid feel, not junky plastic.

The charger has more flashing lights on it than my sound rack.

Never had a snow blower before. I guess I'm turning into a wimp.

[Mike Blakesley]

I need to get myself one, too. I use a side-by-side with a plow blade to do our parking lot, but there are areas that I still have to shovel. I was looking at this brand too, last year...be sure to post your review when you use it.

[Frank Cox]

I'll let ya know in a couple of days!

I charged it up and revved it a couple of times in my garage and that's as far as I've got with it so far. Moves a lot of air, doesn't seem to be particularly loud. Sounds pretty much like a vacuum cleaner, actually.

My wife found an ad for it yesterday and I figured if I don't rush out and buy it then every time I have to shovel the driveway this year I'll be wishing that I had.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Those Lithium Ion battery packs look like they can be plugged into your Terminator T-800 too.

[Randy Stankey]

Not necessarily knocking battery powered equipment but, honestly, I still like gas engines better when it comes to things like lawnmowers and snowblowers.

Sure, battery technology is getting better but I just don't like the idea of having another battery operated thing to charge up before I can use it. With a gas powered snowblower, you can just fill it up and go.

Years ago, when I lived at my former house, my neighbor had a small snowblower just a little smaller than the one that Frank has. It was a Toro brand machine that used a rubber flap to scoop snow instead of a metal auger. One day, I was shoveling my driveway by hand when my neighbor offered to sell me the Toro. He said it didn't run right and needed some work. I offered him $50 for it and took it home.

It turned out that "somebody" had left it sit over the summer without running the carburetor dry, first. It was a two-cycle engine and the gas/oil mixture had congealed in the carb.
A can of carb cleaner spray and couple hours work got the engine running perfectly. I also replaced the rubber flap, plus the drive belt and, for less than $100 (plus the original $50 to buy it off the neighbor) I had a virtual, brand new snowblower! It worked great and would easily clear up to a foot of new snow or six inches of packed snow.

During the time I lived in that house, I discovered one problem with blowing snow out of my driveway. As soon as I finished cleaning out the end of the driveway, the township snowplow would come by and leave a pile of cruft, (a mixture of snow, dirt and road salt) a foot deep, blocking the driveway. If you didn't clean it out, right away, it would freeze solid such that virtually no snowblower could easily clear it away. My wife got her car stuck in it a couple of times and, of course, it was always my fault for not clearing the crap away from the end of the driveway.

I finally discovered a solution to this problem, though. If you stand at the end of the driveway, facing the street and look to the left, you'll see a berm of snow, left by the last snowplow run, along the edge of the road. The next time the plow comes, that berm gets pushed into your driveway. I started clearing the snow between the edge of the road, all the way back to the sidewalk for ten or twenty feet and, the next time the plow came through all of the snow from the street got shoved into that area and almost none went into my driveway. Problem solved! It isn't any extra work, either, because if I didn't clear away that snow from the curb, it would end up in my driveway, instead, and I'd still have to get rid of it. I'm just clearing the snow in a different place before it becomes a problem.

With just that little Toro and a little bit of brainpower, I kept my driveway clear, for years, until I finally wore it out.

The first time I took my "new" snowblower out, my neighbor's wife saw me using it and she got pissed at her husband for selling a perfectly good snowblower so cheaply!

That was, probably, the best $150 you could ever spend on a snowblower!

[Buck Wilson]

blower.png I bought one of these a couple years back... Corded electric snowblower. I wasn't so sure how it'd do but ill be damned if it doesn't really really launch some snow. It's fun. End up doing both neighbors' stuff too most times. The only issues I have with it is the chute clogging up if it's real wet sloppy snow and you don't use it 'just right', and the snow sticking to the wheels and clumping up and dragging, that's honestly a very annoying issue. But man almighty it certainly beats shoveling. I haven't been in anything so deep it can't handle yet.

Thing uses 15 amps... I enjoy seeing the post light dim a bit as I shove it into the deep stuff haha

Being quiet electric and with headlights(which are pretty darn decent) means I can snowblow at 2 am without waking neighbors. That alone sells me on the electric over gas.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Or move to Nashville. We have not gotten enough snow here in the six years I've lived here to even need a snow shovel. If it snows we have never gotten over half an inch. It has Iced up here once in my 6 years, trapping us at home for 4 days and we live at the top of a fairly tall hill. My better half worked from home then, so she continued as normal. I was doing dialysis and only made one session that week. By the following Monday, all was normal again. The towns and cities around here don't own any plows. Only.TDOT does.

[Frank Cox]

Me and my Terminator T-800 have moved a bit of snow and I'm pretty happy with it. My main concern was that it wouldn't have enough power to move a lot of snow but that doesn't seem to be a problem. It has a speed control and I haven't had to run it wide open yet, though we haven't had feet of snow so far either.

But it seems to be quite adequate and it takes about 25% of the time and 10% of the effort that shovelling out the driveway and fire exit with my snow shovel did.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Just remember where the emergency stop is located in case it's getting sentient and starts developing a taste for anything other than snow.

[Frank Cox]

My friend the "Coop cop" just told me a story identical to Randy's.

He said that his neighbour was dragging his snow blower out to the alley so he said, "Are you throwing that out? Can I have it?" So the neighbour gave it to him, he cleaned the carb and woohoo -- free snowblower.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I'm still waiting for the moment this idyllic story of man-machine harmony starts to turn into another episode of Final Destination or Black Mirror.