Snow Attachments It seems like a good year for snow blowers

[jmfox]

I've been pushing snow around with my Posi-track and 4n1 bucket. I have plenty of room for piles and can handle them just fine, but I'm wondering how well a snow blower would manage. My initial impression is that they are slow and have a lot of moving parts, but I'm thinking maybe they only need one pass and there are no snow banks and no clean up passes. We have about 3+ feet on the ground and a couple of feet on the way. Should I be thinking about a blower for next year?

jmf

 

[MMagis]

I just recently bought one so my experience is limited. Due to my driveway (steep and uneven) I still need to finish with the rear blade. What the blower does best is move most of the snow out of the way so it’s not piling up to the point the blade is doing no good. With the blade only, eventually I have no place to put the snow when it gets deep. With an 84” blower I can make two passes and blow the majority of the snow into the fields. If my hill wasn’t so steep that’s all that would be needed. It takes ten minutes with the blower to do what could take thirty+ with the blade in deep snow. With as much snow as you get, I wouldn’t think twice.

 

[Spudland_Dave]

I've been pushing snow around with my Posi-track and 4n1 bucket. I have plenty of room for piles and can handle them just fine, but I'm wondering how well a snow blower would manage. My initial impression is that they are slow and have a lot of moving parts, but I'm thinking maybe they only need one pass and there are no snow banks and no clean up passes. We have about 3+ feet on the ground and a couple of feet on the way. Should I be thinking about a blower for next year?

jmf

I've done my driveway both ways and I'd say easily the blower is WAY faster & easier one pass and the snow is gone...no dribbles to clean up, no need to push banks back...driveway stays the same size because of no snowbanks, etc...
I dont think theres a lot of moving parts...but yes there is more to maintain then a blade.
Beauty of the blower is no matter HOW much snow you got, you can handle it. I've blown 24" in one pass before, and I've blown 2" snowfalls as well....only thing that changes is my ground speed.

I feel I have the best of both worlds with a blade on my FEL and the blower out back. The FEL blade makes it nice to pull snow back from the buildings, etc... so I can easily attack it with the blower.

 

[NHbotanut]

I also have a plow blade up front and a blower on the back. I've learned to angle the plow to the left on my first pass out and then use the blower going back. Two passes, and the driveway is done. No banks or messes to deal with.

 

[Dyer retired]

I feel I have the best of both worlds with a blade on my FEL and the blower out back. The FEL blade makes it nice to pull snow back from the buildings, etc... so I can easily attack it with the blower.

I have it the other way around. I have a Woods 5' blade on back and a 50" blower on front, but the result is the same. The blower and blade stay on all winter and balance each other out nicely. I angle my blade and have it rotated, so it's acting as a plow blade when pushing it backwards with the skid shoes set for about 1/4" ground clearance. I can cut a path to the road to get the cars out in about 10 minutes. Then it's about 2 hours of just having some fun moving snow around to finish up the job. For me, if I could only have one implement, it would be the snow blower for the same reasons others have mentioned.....no snow banks closing the driveway in on a heavy snow year. Dyer, retired

 

[Gary Fowler]

Now I remember the one thing I hated about living in Canada, the snow shoveling since I had no snow plow or snow blower. I remember once having to get a guy with a bobcat to come remove the snow from my driveway. Seems it came a record snowfall for Fort McMurry, Alberta while I was enjoying my 2 week Christmas holiday in Crosby Texas. Afte shoveling for 30 minutes just to get to my Jeep bumper and having piled the snow as high as I could throw it, I gave up. The snow was about 30" deep. Luckily my neighbor knew a guy that had the bobcat. Best $200 I ever spent. The snowpile was 15 feet high on both sides of my drive way when he finished. I think it was May before it all melted.

 

[Ductape]

I'm a snowblower cheerleader. I put my blower on my tractor at the beginning of winter and never look back. With my blower on, i find no need for my loader and never miss it all winter. I can blow the snow back 40 feet or more and have no big banks to obstruct vision or get in the way. When my town's plow goes by, i go out and blow back the snowbank he just made 75' in either direction. That way on his next pass his wing plow unloads long before it gets to the end of my driveway. Frankly, the only place i see a snowblower at a disadvantage, is in a really wide area like a parking lot where it couldn't physically reach beyond the edge of the parking area. Get the snowblower !

 

[turbo36]

I'm a snowblower cheerleader. I put my blower on my tractor at the beginning of winter and never look back. With my blower on, i find no need for my loader and never miss it all winter. I can blow the snow back 40 feet or more and have no big banks to obstruct vision or get in the way. When my town's plow goes by, i go out and blow back the snowbank he just made 75' in either direction. That way on his next pass his wing plow unloads long before it gets to the end of my driveway. Frankly, the only place i see a snowblower at a disadvantage, is in a really wide area like a parking lot where it couldn't physically reach beyond the edge of the parking area. Get the snowblower !

I do the same thing! People think I'm nuts for blowing the road but I don't come home to a 2" speed bump in my driveway.

 

[WayneB]

I have a rear mounted wood SS-60 and keep my FEL on during the winter. If I would have had the money back then I would have purchased the front mounted blower, but I felt I wanted to have the FEL and didn't want to be outside switching from loader to snowblower.

Bottom line is if you have the money go for the front mounted blower, it is certianly the way to go.

 

[Tig]

I'm confident that over the course of a winter I spend less time clearing snow with my blower than I would with a plow.
If we only get 4" I use high gear and zip along, so I'm not much slower on that day. Especially if you consider that it's one continuous pass up and then back. No pushing snow to the side.
I don't build plow banks to make drifting worse. That's where plows set themselves up for defeat around here.
I've watched plows spend an hour clearing the last 200' of my lane. Even on a bad day I do the entire 600m, my parking area and my two neighbours in that amount of time.
I've seen those plows give up because they can't push through the drifts the next time they come back.
I guess it all depend on your weather but for me it's no contest.