Snow blowing with a Toolcat - 1500' gravel driveway

[Dave2425]

My wife and I are scheduled to close on a new place at the end of October. We'll be in the country and have a 1500' private drive we'll need to maintain. We live in central North Dakota so we'll likely have a lot of snow to deal with.

My current plan is to buy a JD 3720 with a 66"-78" blower but a friend that has a Bobcat Toolcat is trying to talk me into buying one. He doesn't blow snow with his but thinks it might be a good fit. I don't know much about Toolcats other than what I've researched online and read on various forums. We have two kids so the side by side seating would be nice but I don't know if it's worth the extra money. Would a Toolcat with blower work well in my situation or am I better off with a compact tractor?

I've added three pics that show the driveway. It is relatively flat with around 1100' running east/west and 400' running north/south.

Any comments, suggestions, etc are greatly appreciated.

Dave

 

[tcartwri]

That's pretty open space. I don't think you're going to have a whole lot of accumulation if it's typically pretty windy. The trees may cause some drifting that could reach the lane depending on the direction of the prevailing winds. You could prune the bottom branches off to cure that. For your first winter, I would just contract a plow truck and see how it goes.

 

[melgibson]

Impressive road; I wish mine looked like that.

 

[SSdoxie]

In answer to your question, Toolcat with the Hi-flow option is a great snowblowing machine.

 

[simoutdoors]

I work on a college campus in Maine. The grounds crew had a hundred excuses why they couldn't use snow blowers to clear campus walks. Sr. management was tired of all the damage to grounds caused by 3/4 ton plow trucks on the walk ways.

Now after two seasons, I was talking the Supervisor about snow removal. He was saying only way to go was the snow blower, they spend less time moving piles of snow and fixing turf in the spring.

Now in your case until gravel freezes up you may not be happy with the blower.

 

[tmarch]

I have a similar drive way tho not as level and I use my Toolcat with a rotary broom for snow. Our snow is generally the dry powdery stuff that blows around and the broom works well until it gets over 15 inches or so.
I prefer the broom because the gravel would be hard to get clean without picking it up and that's tough on blowers.

 

[1965tontruck]

I use my 5600a (non high flow) in Maryland wet snow and it does fine. Plus my drive is a steep hill and the tool cat works great. I think one of the best investments I made was to add a snow blower to my attachment inventory. An added benefit of the tool cat is my 8 year old daughter can ride with me. She loves it. I use the snow blower to clear both paved and gravel areas. With gravel you need to be careful not to dig the blower in or you will be blowing stone.

With a hi flow model you should have no problems with the drive you show in your pictures.

 

[Dave2425]

An added benefit of the tool cat is my 8 year old daughter can ride with me. She loves it.

We have a 5 and 2 yr old and I know they'll want to ride with so that extra seat would be really nice. That's the feature I like the most. I'm just not sure we can afford it. I'm thinking the tractor with loader and blower might be the better financial decision right now.

 

[tmarch]

We have a 5 and 2 yr old and I know they'll want to ride with so that extra seat would be really nice. That's the feature I like the most. I'm just not sure we can afford it. I'm thinking the tractor with loader and blower might be the better financial decision right now.

FWIW: I would recommend the Toolcat over the tractor loader. Cost new is possibly a little more, but you'll never regret spending time with your children.
I've used my (well OUR) Toolcat to do everything we needed on my 1200 acre "ranch" for the last 3 years. My wife can drive it without a problem and we enjoy using it.
I haven't had a tractor at all and mowing or snow removal has been a big part of it's use.

 

[radman1]

I have a TC 5610. For that length of driveway, I would opt for tractor or TC 5610 with rear blade or TC 5600 with front snow plow. One pass up and down the road and you will be done for most snows. I have a 3 pt snow blower but it is much slower to move snow than a plow/blade. I use the blower only for drifts and really deep snow that can't be pushed easily. Blade the snow toward the side away from the direction of the wind. Then the ridge of snow will not cause drifting over the road.

I had a cabbed JD 3720 before the TC. A loaded cab 3720, FEL with a blower may be approaching the price of a TC with front blade. Extremely easy to change out front attachments on the TC. Just get out to hook up the hydraulic hoses if needed.

I have homemade front snow blade (made from a pickup snow plow), 3 pt rear blade, snow pusher, broom and 3 pt blower all for my TC. The front blade gets used the most, then the pusher, then the broom. The blower only for deep stuff. I will probably get rid of the broom in the near future. Can't use the broom near doorways well and it can't do deeper snow. I would not use a broom on a 1500 ft gravel driveway. Too hard to keep from removing the gravel and can't do snow well over 4-6" deep.