New pull type blower

[PILOON]

Re pull type blowers.

As far as I know they were specifically designed with suburban door to door snow contractors in mind.
In suburbs like Montreal a contractor will have 20 clients on a street with one every 200 feet. He backs his 100 hp tractor up flush to the garage door, drops it drives out to next door (200 ft)
drops the blower again and drives out again etc etc.
About 5 mins per driveway.

But then the contractor assigns 200 drives per driver and gets $300 per season. A double wide drive is $450.(2 passes) Many also only lease the tractors for the winter season.

That suburban client does not to even shovel his garage door for 5 mins, he leaves for work and grabs a Tim Horten coffee on the way.
(For many an 8 hour workday is 10 - 11 hours when you include commute time.)

The pull blower is marginally more $ than the regular rear units as most components are same with few extra parts.
Front blowers generally need to turn faster (most match engine RPM) and want many different adapters (and gear box ) compared to rear that are simply class 1,2 or 3.

Notice than on CUTS many front blowers use components that are shared with walk behind blowers and hence not as heavy duty as will be found in pull behind units.

The whole 'pull blower' concept started off as a couple of handy type contractors welding up a home made pull type unit and eating up the competition thus creating demand for the type.
Then came a pivoted drop blade to get that last shovel full of snow at the garage door base.

Living in Montreal area I am very familiar with most blower concepts and major manufacturers as the key players are pretty well all within 75 miles of here and typically we generally enjoy (?) 200+ inches of snow per season with many being major events. (10-30")
Hey we even have a snow tire law. Fines are your reward and all season tires not allowed.

Hiway snow clearing is another interesting concept in itself.

 

[ericher69]

Jay - I've never had a pull-type pto blower - always a reverse blower. And yes, one of the MAJOR advantages is - you are driving forward. It took And as you indicated - that depth of snow in the pic you loaded would be problem even for my Kubota and a forward blower. To use a forward pto blower - you would have to blow that snow before it got so deep.

Not so!

Here is an example of a fairly small Kubota B series with front mount blower handling 24"+ of snow with zero issue!

http://youtu.be/BGa_VbKfK8I

Obviously the travel speed is slower as it has lower PTO hp than a bigger tractor but handles well regardless

Sent from my iPhone 5s 64Gb using TractorByNet

 

[DHD]

Not so!

Here is an example of a fairly small Kubota B series with front mount blower handling 24"+ of snow with zero issue!

http://youtu.be/BGa_VbKfK8I

Obviously the travel speed is slower as it has lower PTO hp than a bigger tractor but handles well regardless

Sent from my iPhone 5s 64Gb using TractorByNet

The video may say 24" +, but the cutting height of that snowblower (B2782) is 22.63",
if you look real close, the snow is bunching up in front of the blower, like his ground speed is a little too fast, even though he's going pretty slow,
look at the wings of the blower and the snow depth looks pretty low.

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

OP,
wondering if you have had a chance to compare the lucknow pull behind to the Normand/Pronovost blowers
hard to find much info on them in my part of the world. I imagine your experience has been good as you replaced a lucknow with a lucknow

I've run Lucknow, Normand, Pronovost, Bervac (sp?), MK Martin/Metor and one other cheaper brand (but can't remember the name) pull types. Personally, without question the Normand is hands down the nicest one of the bunch and the best built. I like the Bervac second then the Lucknow, Pronovost & Martin all tie for third. The weight and heft of the Normand is the nicest part. BUT, the downside is 10 grand for the Normand rather than 6k for the comparable size Lucknow or Martin. Pronovost is in between at about 8k. One of the biggest things in my mind is the thickness of the steel in the fan shroud. In just one season I beat the crap out of the cheap one from gravel drives and it wouldn't be worth more than scrap after only a couple seasons. The Normand ones I use are still showing no signs of wear in the shroud area after nearly 10 yrs. Longer side wings makes them much nicer to use (only the Normand and Bervac had them) that you can use them like a box blade when you have a section you need to drag (like between a couple parked cars). None of these were blowers that I paid for, all contractors for whom I've worked.

If it were my money to spend, and not trying to make money with it, the Lucknow or Martin would be top of the list and run skid shoes set an inch or so above ground to limit the amount of gravel picked up.

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

I used two cylinders to be able to put uniform down pressure for scrapping hard snow and to avoid having to fabricate a beam structure on the blower to take the force of one cylinder.
I did the fabrication and fitting up using my small mig and then had a real welder come and secure everything.
Cylinders at Princess Auto are cheap.
Some company units just use chains to pick up the blade when the blower is lifted.
A guy who does driveways for a living stated on this forum the chain type is more idiot proof with the operators they have. However they loose the down pressure ability.
I can push back heavy snow with the blade. Catching on a rock is not a problem. Factory units are made of 1/8" stock and can be easily bent.
Thanks for your interest.
Dave M7040

Nice back blade Dave, especially the way you braced it with the angle iron. Where (what brands) have you seen 1/8" back blades? I can't imagine any manufacture using that thin of metal. All of the ones I've seen are 1/2" or thicker, that included Normand, Pronovost, Lucknow, Martin, Bervac, and another cheap one I can't remember. The vast majority of them are bent from catching curbs, manhole covers, or rocks buried in the snow bank while pushing. And they all have additional bracing on the inside corner that your's doesn't. BUT....they were/are being used in commercial setting not private and with mostly in-experienced operators. That being said, I've bent a few and I've been blowing snow for 30 yrs.

Re pull type blowers.

As far as I know they were specifically designed with suburban door to door snow contractors in mind.
In suburbs like Montreal a contractor will have 20 clients on a street with one every 200 feet. He backs his 100 hp tractor up flush to the garage door, drops it drives out to next door (200 ft)
drops the blower again and drives out again etc etc.
About 5 mins per driveway.

But then the contractor assigns 200 drives per driver and gets $300 per season. A double wide drive is $450.(2 passes) Many also only lease the tractors for the winter season.

That suburban client does not to even shovel his garage door for 5 mins, he leaves for work and grabs a Tim Horten coffee on the way.
(For many an 8 hour workday is 10 - 11 hours when you include commute time.)

The pull blower is marginally more $ than the regular rear units as most components are same with few extra parts........
.

You guys in Montreal must have very laid back customers to take 5 min a drive. 200 drives at 5 min each would make it a 16 hr run for the driver (that's only 12 drives per hr). Here in Ottawa, Our regular drivers are expected to produce 25/hr, supervisors are contracted at a minimum of 30/hr and there are a couple of us that regularly average 40-45 per hr and that's including driving between them. I've had several runs where I was under a minute per drive with perfect conditions.

My experience has also shown that pull blowers are approx double the cost of a comparable conventional blower. Neighbour on the next road just bought a new 8' Martin conventional for $3800 CDN, same thing as a pull type was $6500 with the orbital motor for rotation

 

[fishhead]

CDN farmboy, thanks for the input, my use would not be commercial, i have a couple long drives to clear so the snow clearing throughput becomes somewhat important as it relates to travel speed, too good throw would really help as in a few spots i am forced to blow up a steep hill and if the snow can't go very far it will eventually slide back down.

 

[fishhead]

hey, CDN (or others), any opinion on Smyth?

 

[Jay4200]

For older gear transmission tractors the choice of reverse gears when using a back up type snow blower can be limited. I used to have a Nuffield 465 and the reverse gear was way to fast to blow snow. I managed to find a lower reverse gear and installed it but it was a lot of work and still too fast. With the inverted blower you have may more gears to select available and better able to match the tractor ground speed to the load on the blower.
Dave M7040

Ahhh yes - I see how that could be a problem - typical gear tractors only have one or two reverses. I'm accustomed to my GST, which has 8/8, so I didn't see that as an issue.

 

[Jay4200]

The video may say 24" +, but the cutting height of that snowblower (B2782) is 22.63",
if you look real close, the snow is bunching up in front of the blower, like his ground speed is a little too fast, even though he's going pretty slow,
look at the wings of the blower and the snow depth looks pretty low.

What, you're not supposed to have snow bunch up in front of the blower?

 

[tcartwri]

hey, CDN (or others), any opinion on Smyth?

My Bobcat came with an Erskine. Very heavily built unit. Shoots gravel really well....