Best Snowblower?

[airbiscuit]

Smyth Welding Snowblower (also Canada)

 

[PILOON]

BIG NEWS FLASH

The best snow blower is the one that clears your drive every snow event!

OK, they will all perform +/- your expectations.
None are perfect for all events.
A lot depends on your budget and tractor.
They all blow!
More blades, the more efficient.
The wider blades even more so.
The pricier the more robust they are,
It all depends on $$'s and your needs.
Some say 5 HP/ft? ---Hydro? or gear shift?
It all ends up to technique and operational flexibility.

My setup exceeds many suggested parameters but my drive has been snow free for some 7-8 years,
Deep snow? take a small bite! and come back 4 another pass.
or, lift that blower and blow the top layer away and later blow the lower layer.
OK, not commercial and time is on your hands. Also you are outdoors and healthy,
I guess it is all about how much your CC can handle. LOL,

 

[BoylermanCT]

I have a Pronovost Puma 64" rear facing blower. Very happy with it. But if money were not object, I would get a Puma 64" inverted blower.

I picked my Puma up used two years ago for $900. Drove for 2 hours one way to get it, but it was worth it.

 

[fishhead]

I'm with most of these folks.
Pronovost or normand
I previously had a B3030 with the 63" front mount 2782 blower and moved to a JD3720 with a Pronovost p-74-inv and my clearing time was better than halved. Obviously the tractor is more powerful and the blower wider but the blower seems much more efficient and i would say much more ruggedly built, it probably weighs 3-400 lbs more than the Rad blower.

If money were no object, which 3pt snow blower would you purchase?

I have heard a lot of good things about the Pronovost blowers, but know they are top dollar.

I have had an Allied/Farm King/Buhler in the past and was impressed with it.

Many seem to like the Woodmaxx and PUMA, Lucknow, Meteor or Lorenz.

In which order would you go for best quality or best all-around snow blower?

Thanks for your thoughts and opinions.

 

[TimP]

Thanks to everyone who chimed in.

It does seem like Pronovost/PUMA are at the top of most of the lists.

Since I've already got a Front Mount unit, no reason to spend top dollar for a top end snowblower. (But if I had the money......)

I may just have to bide my time and try to get lucky with a real "deal" on a used 3PH unit.

 

[airbiscuit]

Well, it was a good thread while it lasted

 

[Peter 315]

Well, it was a good thread while it lasted

Why? ...... Its still winter for a few more months.....

 

[fishhead]

there will be another
I think that it might be the first thread mentioning inverted that didn't claim that you can't drive over the snow before blowing
I have a soft spot in my evil heart for one of these:

Fair Snocrete Snowblower vs car - YouTube

Well, it was a good thread while it lasted

 

[airbiscuit]

 

[fishhead]

Nice- Leonz favorite blower in action . I love the Merlo- I assume its like a billion dollars like a lot of the cool euro stuff

What did I do wrong in trying to embed the video I posted?

 

[airbiscuit]

Click on the little film strip and paste video url

 

[PILOON]

LOL, watching them blow what seemed to be sand brought to mind a local Municipality that was facing flooding.
They had dikes berms etc but how to handle overflow.
The solution was simple.
They backed up and parked the huge city snow blowers parallel to the dikes and blew/pumped the water up and over the top.
I watched a film clip and was quite impressed with the quantity of water blown.
The efforts save many homes from flood damage.

Stands to reason, snow is really fluffy water but hat's off to whomever had the idea.

LOL, as a side benefit all the salt deposits on the blowers were rinsed off.

 

[dnw64]

If money were no object, which 3pt snow blower would you purchase?

NONE!!

Maybe (probably) I am too old and spoiled. Turning my noggin 180ｰ from its normal position is not something I look forward to, though I do it occasionally for a few seconds here and there. Spending an hour each snow storm is a firm NO! from me...

I am currently on my 3rd front mount snowblower - open Case 444, after-market cabbed Massey 2300 and now factory cabbed Kubota B3030.

I can tell you, this recent 3' storm with moderate to high winds almost paid for a cabbed tractor in one storm. Granted, a $5,000 pickup would have cleared the driveway and kept me warm and dry, BUT if we get three more storms like this before April I would need to hire someone with a loader to move the snowbanks.

 

[dnw64]

Cool, but. Pretty sure that's more about HP than the blower. I bet that nearly any new snowblower could blow dirt like that with enough HP.

 

[metalbender]

Just waiting for Publisher's Clearing House to come through, I'll run down and grab a Merlo.

 

[leonz]

Sadly for a snow thrower buyer now mk martin who owns the designs and builds them has ruined them by employing a 16 inch diameter snow blower rotor on all the Riest snow throwers that were equipped with 13 inch diameter snow blower rotors.
These machines "they" claim they will operate correctly on are too small in PTO horsepower and mounting them in front is a joke because the compact tractors do not have enough power to run them either, case in point being the video they show with a single stage unit with the 16 inch snow blower rotor mounted on the front of a kubota with a loose mounting system clearing 2 inches of snow.

They made a very very very big costly mistake trying to overcome simple physics where a smaller snow blower rotor will operate more efficiently than trying to use a 48 inch wide 16 inch diameter snow blower rotor on a 15-30 horsepower PTO rated machine. The other big costly mistake they made was eliminating the adaptability feature of the Riest snow throwers by eliminating the end users ability to switch the single stage unit from a PTO unit to a hydraulic drive unit by removing the three point hitch installing the quick attach plate and replacing the right angle gear box with the hydraulic motor and converting it to complete hydraulic drive to use on a skid steer or for that matter a loader with a hydraulic power pack running off the rear power take off.


I can always build the snow thrower like the old Reist units up to 8 foot wide with a 13 inch snow blower rotor and have a better implement with one chute and spout with 4 wider discharge paddles and a wider chute.

They ruined a beautiful design (proven on lawn tractors for decades) by eliminating it and they wont even build a custom width unit like reist would with the smaller rotor.

My thoughts anyway.

 

[Reb954]

I'm not sure there is a "best" snowblower, or at least not best for all situations.

I have used both Kckee (out of business now ) and Wifo blowers quite a bit and both are good blowers with their advantages and disadvantages. The twin augers of the Mckee worked better than the single larger auger design due to the single auger tends to flip snow out in front and to the sides of the blower. That isn't a big issue but if you like the area left clean it does make a difference. I also prefer a round chute as compared to a box chute as the round chute tends to throw the snow further by keeping the snow more concentrated. The flat surface of the deflector also tends to cause the snow to broadcast which can cause visibility problems at times.

As others have mentioned, make sure you have plenty of horsepower and if you have a gear machine, make sure it has plenty of low end gears to handle the different quantities and types of snow.

Something to be careful of, I have read on here how some seem to have a lot of problem with the chute plugging. In my experience there are two reasons that cause that. One is a poorly designed impeller, the other is operator error. I had a neighbor a few years ago that his chute plugged up a lot. After looking it over I found the impeller blades were set at an angle that tended to capture the snow rather than sling it out the chute. There were other problems with the design but that was the worst one so I modified the impeller blades and it worked better, not great but better. I also had to caution him to slow down. Regardless of the snow conditions he ran at the same speed, fast. Once we modified his blades and he slowed down for the conditions he rarely plugged the chute.

 

[RjCorazza]

snip
... I also prefer a round chute as compared to a box chute as the round chute tends to throw the snow further by keeping the snow more concentrated. The flat surface of the deflector also tends to cause the snow to broadcast which can cause visibility problems at times.

The chute does make a difference. My LuckNow blower has a 12" diameter round chute, and I have only clogged it once by going too fast in 35" of wet snow.

 

[dnw64]

I'm not sure there is a "best" snowblower, or at least not best for all situations.

I would expand that to say that there is no "best" anything, or at least not best for all situations...

I also prefer a round chute as compared to a box chute as the round chute tends to throw the snow further by keeping the snow more concentrated. The flat surface of the deflector also tends to cause the snow to broadcast which can cause visibility problems at times.

Makes perfect sense to me. But I'm not going to re-engineer and re-build mine! :laughing:

 

[Reb954]

Makes perfect sense to me. But I'm not going to re-engineer and re-build mine! :laughing:

At some point on mine I will change the deflector on mine to a semi round one. I did that on the old Mckee blower and it made a world of difference.