Snow Blower Sizing - Opinions Wanted

[Woodstock Walt]

How often do you get over 18" of snow? If not that often, you still have your bucket.

Not very often, probably 1-3 storms per year. Most of the storms in my area tend to fall in the 6-12" range. Yeah, I'm not too worried about my ability to clear a large amount of snow at once, I'm just looking for a way to clean up our typical storms more efficiently.

 

[airbiscuit]

It looks like you have R1s. That's good. If you have R4s you'll need chains. I have R1s and wheel weights on my 40hp New Holland. I have never had an issue with traction. My previous tractor had R4s and they turned into racing slicks in wet snow.

 

[sd455dan]

Just thought of a couple other things. If the Mahindra will rev a bit higher it should throw the snow farther than my tractor...
I was running about 1600 RPM in the vid. It is where my engine is happiest
So under 540 RPM.
Also the large 27" x 10 " deep Impeller is very precision built.
On mine none of the fan blades had even a 1/4 inch clearance to the housing.
Seems to make for a Very efficient pump.

Sorry about the italics, not sure what I did there

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

Not very often, probably 1-3 storms per year. Most of the storms in my area tend to fall in the 6-12" range. Yeah, I'm not too worried about my ability to clear a large amount of snow at once, I'm just looking for a way to clean up our typical storms more efficiently.

As wide as your road is, I would plow from the side to the center in both directions and use a rear facing snow blower and drive by mirrors. My driveway is a lot narrower than your road and that is my plan for next year. I already have 24-30" plow berms on each side of my driveway, but this is my first year with this set up, so there is still a bit to learn. A rear facing blower is a little cheaper and you won't have to worry about going through 24 inches of wet snow. I have an 84" plow and a 72" blower on a 50hp HST tractor.

 

[5030]

12-15 pto per foot width of blower. Real simple.

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

12-15 pto per foot width of blower. Real simple.

LOL That would limit me to 36 inches of width, which would be useless with a 6' wide tractor. Yeah, I think you are being a little conservative with you width vs. horse power. Perhaps if one was using a 4' tall double auger tackling 2 feet of snow in a commercial operation but for the average guy clearing a driveway or private road, that horse power standard is a bit much.

 

[Woodstock Walt]

12-15 pto per foot width of blower. Real simple.

Doesn't seem that simple to me, those numbers are way higher than any other rate I've heard/read about. If it was that simple then guys like me would be limited to 3-4' blowers on the back of a 6'-6" wide, 10k lb. machine. Nobody is going to do that.

I agree with 3 Horse Ranch, a 4' tall, double auger, commercial blower may require those numbers, but a single auger homeowner blower, which is what we're talking about in this thread, shouldn't. In fact, per the manufacturer specs if the 78" model requires a minimum of 50 PTO HP to run, that would be 7.69 HP/foot. 84" at 60 HP would be 8.57 HP/foot.

 

[Citydude]

Mine is also 74” with 32 PTO HP. I have not used it on deep wet snow.

I have and it takes all of that 32 HP and keeps the soot level down in the DPF.

 

[Rustyiron]

I maintain about 1 mile of 16'-wide private road. Our storms range from 3" of light powder to 24"+ of wet, heavy, heart attack snow.
-Knowing that the blower may be used in combination with a 84" snow pusher, how would that affect your decision on which size blower?

Any thoughts or input would be appreciated!

I think that you'll end up taking different approaches to different snows.
Even with a nice light 3" snow we're still talking about blowing at +/- a walking speed to clear it. This might be where you'd plow to the edges and blow the windrow away to avoid big banks.
Deeper or wetter snows your travel speed will be even slower and may create a windrow (if you plow to the edge) that requires more HP than available and at some point you can't go any slower than 1st gear @ 540 PTO engine revs so you start taking "half bites" prolonging the process.
I'm mainly talking about your time, think about a snow that you decide to completely blow, at +/- walking speed, for a mile, and 4 or 4 passes.
I'm rambling but I bought a 96" double auger for the same reasons as you except my road (also my first blower and experience) 95hp tractor (M9540 kubota) and overlooked some of my above points. I am fortunate that I can add a "creeper" gear to my tractor because even 8-12" of average snow 1st gear out of 12 is not slow enough.
I knew I was probably short of hp but no matter what, the 1st opening pass requires a full cut. I rarely use it anymore, it's a cool tool but I'd want to be in the 150 hp range before I'd hitch it back up".
Are you a resident in a community with this private road and get paid to clear it?
You might think about having a "push back" per time fee and continue plowing it open.
Good luck

 

[5030]

Doesn't seem that simple to me, those numbers are way higher than any other rate I've heard/read about. If it was that simple then guys like me would be limited to 3-4' blowers on the back of a 6'-6" wide, 10k lb. machine. Nobody is going to do that.

I agree with 3 Horse Ranch, a 4' tall, double auger, commercial blower may require those numbers, but a single auger homeowner blower, which is what we're talking about in this thread, shouldn't. In fact, per the manufacturer specs if the 78" model requires a minimum of 50 PTO HP to run, that would be 7.69 HP/foot. 84" at 60 HP would be 8.57 HP/foot.

Whatever. You get in deep wet snow, you'll wish you didn't have a weinie tractoor.

 

[bdhsfz6]

I maintain 1.25 miles of private road. I found a blower to be too slow to do that much road. Over the years, I've found the most efficient method is to use the 8' FEL plow going forward and cleaning up the "windrows" in reverse with the 78" rear facing blower. That way, I clear snow in both directions when there is no place to turn around. The 78" blower matches the tractor tread width so I offset it on the 3pt hitch and work one side at a time.

 

[Rustyiron]

Whatever. You get in deep wet snow, you'll wish you didn't have a weinie tractoor.

Or a hydrostatic transmission.
I've never seen any other PTO operated equipment gobble up HP faster than a snowblower, that includes a 15' batwing mower.
Unfortunately hydro's are only available in lower HP tractors and there's a "dead zone" of utility sized tractors before you get to the IVT trannies and very expensive machines.

 

[5030]

I might add my Lucknow can pull down my 90 horse M9 in deep wet snow and make her smoke. It's only 84 wide too. All depends on snow depth and moisture content. Didn't even use it or the plow yet. Cold but no snow.

 

[stumblinhorse]

I have 69 PTO HP for my 84” rear mount and this weeks storm was, at times, all it could handle. Everyone running 50hp with an 84” blower, I have no idea how you get thru it without stopping all the time. I would rather run a more narrow blower and make more passes than crawl for a mile each way. Mine is rear mount. My neighbor has an inverted 84” on his 90hp NH. He does pretty good with that for his drive, about 1 mile long. But with how wide your tractor is I don’t know what choice you really have. My 75C is 78” wide.

 

[5030]

Or a hydrostatic transmission.
I've never seen any other PTO operated equipment gobble up HP faster than a snowblower, that includes a 15' batwing mower.
Unfortunately hydro's are only available in lower HP tractors and there's a "dead zone" of utility sized tractors before you get to the IVT trannies and very expensive machines.

Mine are both gear drive hydraulic shuttle (12-12's) I don't do hydrostats here, too much parasitic power loss. Fine for little tractors, I farm with mine.

 

[JJT]

I've been running a 78" blower behind my 30 pto hp HST Kubota for 25 years with no issues. It's seen 4" - 4' of snow at a time. HST is the key, with the deep wet stuff I go slower. My vote - 84", you'll be fine.

 

[sd455dan]

Whatever. You get in deep wet snow, you'll wish you didn't have a weinie tractoor.

So his tractor is on the heavy side of a
kubota M 7060 not exactly a "weinie"
I will concede the 7060 has quite a bit more power at the PTO

Tractorbynet is mainly geared to CUTs and IIANM started as a predominately Kubota site

There is Always a Bigger tractor out there.

For whatever reason WIFO placed a 40 HP minimum on the blower in question. Maybe it is just a very efficient design due to auger and Fan size.?
All I can say is my 55HP tractor runs this blower just fine.
With 4-6 inches of fresh snow I can run in 4th gear no problem, and the tractor only has 6 gears.
The OP has a 12 speed gear box.

If a person were to get 30 inches of snow and then have it rained on to bring it down to say 24 inches then yes it would be slow going.

SKU	ELL-WIF-WBPT84
Weight	1220.0000
Horsepower Recommended	40 HP Minimum (29.8 KW)
Width - Overall	84" (7 Feet; 213 cm)
Width - Working	84" (7 Feet; 213 cm)

 

[Woodstock Walt]

Whatever. You get in deep wet snow, you'll wish you didn't have a weinie tractoor.

So mature, thanks for your input.

 

[Woodstock Walt]

I might add my Lucknow can pull down my 90 horse M9 in deep wet snow and make her smoke. It's only 84 wide too. All depends on snow depth and moisture content. Didn't even use it or the plow yet. Cold but no snow.

Well, that is some good input actually. That's what I'd like to know, how well other people's setups work. What size tractor they have, what size blower, how well it works, ect. If an 84" blower can bog your M9 down, then I can expect the same to a worse degree with my 5155. That's good to know, so thank you.

Between the bucket, my 8' FEL plow, and an 84" snow pusher, I have plenty of options besides a blower. I'm just curious what I could expect out of a specific sized blower on a tractor of my size.

 

[Citydude]

Whatever. You get in deep wet snow, you'll wish you didn't have a weinie tractoor.

Weinie tractor aside, anything over 18-20" I use my loader to push a trail in and then blow the snow. With that, not having a loader and a pull type blower isn't going to work out very well with large dumps of snow.