Questions for Matt (OP)
- 1.5 acres of lawn, any other property other than the house/garage?
- Veg garden plans (in or outside the current mowed area)?
- How many "obstacles" in the mowed area?
- What shape is the mowed area? Lots of curves, square corners, middle of the lawn planters or a large rectangle?
- How wide is the 75' driveway and is that from the garage door or are there "turn around" or other surfaces?
- How flat (or not) is the area to be mowed?
- How flat (or not) is the driveway?
- How much open space do you have to the sides of the driveway and is it flat out there or does it drop down or rise?
I started as you did, figured to get one machine to do everything. Lawn around the house, behind the barns and the "used to be a" riding ring is ~1 acre. Mess of plantings and fences, angles of course. Additional pastures are ~4.5 acres. My problem is "everything" includes future trips into the 20 acres of woods to cut firewood. A tractor big enough to do that would be too big and too heavy to mow a lawn.
A friend gave me a 1995 Yardman with 50" mower and 42" blower and I've used that (with some repair costs) the 3 years we have owned the place thus putting off the big decision (and expense). It mowed OK and blew snow OK as long as I didn't have to back up any sort of slope. If a front wheel starts to go down sideways, it can't be steered out, even in reverse, it just slides down farther. The blower (even though it was made for the tractor) is really too heavy for the Yardman on non level surfaces even though it has 50# rear wheel weights and a weight box in the back and chains on the rear tires. Which meant last winter I shoveled down to the barns in a foot of snow, then through the 3' feet that was deposited by the wind blowing between the barns to get to the bottom to let the chickens out one morning. Sure would have been nice to blow it!
The Yardman needs new rubber (one rear tire sidewall shot, doesn't hold air and the bead is bad), I can't get the rear wheels off (keyway and cotter pin) and I gave up on it for the summer. I figured to get a real tractor this fall with a front snow blower (I can't do it in reverse) that can also do whatever I might need in the future in the pastures and woods. I considered a Zturn for mowing since I have almost as many obstacles as lawn but there are some slopes and I've read they can be iffy on slopes and if you drop a front wheel, big trouble. I don't need the thing sliding into the pond behind the big barn. Plus the land, lawns included, are all kinds of lumpy where those front wheels could be "suspended" by the deck scalping the lawn so I got a 54" Craftsman Garden Tractor to mow with figuring I could get a rear tiller for it if I can get all the rocks out of the veg garden area first. The "additional" pastures were left wild (no animals to graze) until this July when I had a guy up the road sickle bar mow the 4+ foot tall vegetation. I have mowed them with the Craftsman a few times since. It is slow because there are rocks and ledge sticking up JUST enough waiting to attack the blades (and they have managed to do so almost every time I've mowed even being careful at max height of 4"). It takes about 1.5 hours to do the lawn, primarily because of all the things the Zturn could have done more quickly and about an hour per acre in the pastures. With no rocks that could be cut down substantially. The 54" would be just as fast as a Zturn due to the discomfort one would suffer going more than about 3-4 MPH anyway (the Craftsman can do 7 MPH forward).
I am not in a financial position to get the real tractor at this time so I am still in a quandary WRT snow removal this year. I can't put new rubber on the Craftsman without taking the wheels off (how do you think the bead got screwed up??), and it would cost a couple of hundred at least for rear tires anyway. The Yardman blower won't fit on the Craftsman and I don't want to fork over $1,300 for a new blower if it isn't going to be any better on the hill down to the barns than the Yardman (I don't really have any reason to believe it would). AND my wife leaves for work at 6:15 AM every day but Sunday and the guy that moves snow around here doesn't start working until the sun is up and he has had breakfast. I've got probably 3 times as much "driveway" surface to clean as you have so I'm not sure even a large walk behind would be a great plan. Plus anything big enough to do the job on the parking area would cost more than the blower for the GT AND not likely be wonderful going down to the barn and back up. Decisions, decisions.
You've had suggestions of front or back blades for snow handling. Where is the snow going to go and how are you going to wing it the second or third decent snowfall when the banks block the new stuff from going anywhere but straight into the road if you use a SCUT? Neither of those two would be run at a speed to move the snow out sideways very far and there is no wing capability so you would STILL be spending time moving it with the FEL. For the morning "have to get out times" you only need to clear enough space for 1 car and if early is too early, park closer to the road when a big dump is expected overnight; shoving snow off a car isn't that hard and you only need to blow out the snowplow banks and maybe 10 feet of driveway with a self driven 2 stage blower. Deal with the rest when you get home in the evening.
If you really aren't going to do anything with the property other than mow it, I'm sorry (not manly enough) I don't see a need for a real tractor. Sure, a FEL would be nice for moving stones or dirt around but if you don't have a need to do that soon, or not often, you'll be hard pressed to figure out why you have it. I got a dump cart with the Craftsman and though I have to muscle the stone, dirt, firewood into it, I've moved a lot of weight that I understand you REALLY should not do with a Zturn and would have taken a whole lot more trips in the garden cart via "Bruce power".
