Daugen, 7' on 5740 is too small, you need a trip blade.
agreed on trip blade, have transport weight issues so rear tires are not filled, yet...nor do I want to use chains due to macadam scratching, so have been conservative in blade size thinking.
The farm lane being plowed is fairly narrow, so I thought going down each side with a seven footer would take care of things. We have had several multi foot snow storms in recent memory and I'm trying to
make sure the aged property owners can get out ok. the rear road is very flat, so that is pretty easy, but the front lane has a serious hill on it, some curves and a blind crest. I will definitely plow that going down hill only. The open areas, and parking areas, well, like most, it's where do I push this stuff and not wreck some delicate landscaping.
I did a lot of plowing as a kid, my Dad was generous enough to let me use our John Deere B to plow out the neighbors, who of course were happy to pay me for my efforts. This was the 50
s so it was modest compensation. 5 bucks was big and 10 was memorable. I drove, I plowed, I froze, and Dad paid for the gas, and when I broke something on a hidden object, a snow IED, he was ok with picking up the tab on that. He wanted to help the neighbors and was happy to volunteer my efforts. So I've been peeling up grass, leaving tire tracks, and wrecking little mugo pines for a long time. But the worst is sucking into the snowblower a telephone book some cretinous delivery person threw out the night of the big storm. Man can those thing wedge in there. So far, the Ariens and Gravely blowers have not broken, but it took over an hour to get one really big phone book out. Even a Gravely "dog eater" can clog...luckily never hit an animal with it.
90 inches, maybe 96 should do it.
Let's see. Do I want to plow in the heated comfort of my Kubota, or freeze my rear end off on the open snow blown seat of the Gravely, blowing snow for quite some distance? It's actually not too bad until the wind kicks up. The warm cab and lack of icy wind is making this plow seem like a wise decision. It's not super expensive, well less than half the cost of a front mounted blower, and I don't like to be cold. Seems like a
real easy decision to me...
And I'm very impressed with my Long grapple bucket so having one of their snow plows, even their lighter weight model this time, seems logical too. The Long plow is substantially less expensive than some, but of course, more expensive than others. Somebody will always test the market and try to make a profit on a high margin due to low quality product. But have a bad Consumer Reports write up or get blackballed by Amazon.com and see sales plummet. But if you're the least expensive, that in itself is a potent marketing lure to dangle in front of the Black Friday mentality shopper.
I have a subsoiler built by the Cain Bros. from the same neck of the woods, and it is built like a tank. My experience with Southern mfg equipment is very good.