Not enough tractor or bad strategy?

[Reg]

Had my first real snow and I failed to get out of my 1/4 mile lane. We had about 8 inches come down, I cleared that ok..then the wind came in. Overnight some parts of my lane piled up to 20-25 inches. I worked at it for about 4 hours and by time i got one spot clear the wind would cover it back up in a few hours. I had a hard time getting up my hill to try blading on the way down. After the wind died down I went back out and had a heck of a time. In the end I was bailed out by my neighbor with his Deere 8300 and massive rear bucket. It was very emasculating. Sitting there on my GC I felt like I just walked out of an NFL locker room shower.

I have a Massey GC2400 with an FEL and 4ft rear blade. The Blade would load up with snow and stop the tractor, the FEL was ok but I had nowhere to pivot and dump. I admit it, I am a city boy who just moved to the country and i have no idea what i am doing but I am willing to learn.

What am i doing wrong? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Should I switch to a blower set up? Should I get a bigger tractor? Should I bribe my Neighbor with my excellent cooking?

HELP!!

Worry not, Ya done good.
It takes practice, even with bigger tractors.
With a BIG tractor maybe you would never get good at it.
SOME small tractor owners can do pretty darned well in snow, but not their first time out (-:
You can develop a sense of how much you can get in the FEL bucket before you need to dump.
On open ground like that with a narrow tractor, just think "herringbone pattern" and it will come to you.
Don't try to "pivot", just go off the center-line enough to get off your trail, probably less than 30 degrees.
You will be "fanning out" as you gather and dump, perhaps to one side, perhaps to alternate sides, depends on the wind.

I would only use the rear blade for final clean up.
I would turn it around for a while, i.e. with the curved "back" to the snow, at least until you've had a bit more practice.
Instead of digging in and stopping the tractor it will ride up and over the tough spots.
OK, so you will need a few more passes, you will still be scraping SOME snow off.

Like I said, PRACTICE !
That and PATIENCE (-:

 

[flusher]

THANKS EVERYONE. And thanks for the nice comments about the house. If you are ever in Murdock, NE stop by (not in the winter unless you bring your tractor:laughing

Seems like we learn something new everyday since we moved to the country. We were cleaning out one of the outbuildings in the summer when we first moved in and we found rolls and rolls of old wooden snow fence. I shrugged it off and said "they must have hard winters back then". Well "they" now "us" still have hard winters it seems. Next year we will be putting up fencing as soon as the corn comes down.

This is what the place looks like minus the snow. Thank you again for all the advice.

Gio

Beautiful old farmhouse. Reminds me of my grandparent's place in central Wisconsin.

 

[tommu56]

I just scanned the thread and didn't see any one recommended snow fence.

That would be my first line of defense for a wind swept area.

even a couple in a line if its always bad.

With the rear blade you have to have a place for the waste to go!

tom

 

[ray66v]

We were cleaning out one of the outbuildings in the summer when we first moved in and we found rolls and rolls of old wooden snow fence. I shrugged it off and said "they must have hard winters back then". Well "they" now "us" still have hard winters it seems. Next year we will be putting up fencing as soon as the corn comes down.

If you don't still have the snow fence, the orange plastic stuff works fine, and is a lot less work to haul around, and store.

Note where the bad areas are for next year. Set the fence about 50' back from the drive. Put the fence on the windward side of the posts, 10' on center, or less. Really bad areas may require two rows of fence, aprox. 30' apart.

Once you get it figured out, you may only have to plow occasionally. Even when you do get lots of snow, the wind will do a good job of blowing it away, instead of blowing it in.

 

[bp fick]

I just scanned the thread and didn't see any one recommended snow fence.

That would be my first line of defense for a wind swept area.

even a couple in a line if its always bad.

With the rear blade you have to have a place for the waste to go!

tom

Snow fencing got mentioned more than once.
Strategic placement maybe? 1/4 mile of snow fence up in fall, down in spring??

Not a whole bunch of fun, but hey, as long as the beer holds out, maybe some buddies would help.

 

[Diamondpilot]

Yes a bigger tractor can do it easier and quicker but your small tractor can do it if you have time a patience plus the proper equipment. First thing I would do is install snow fence in the winter down the drive. A 3 point blower is also a good tool along with a front mounted blade in lue of the FEL bucket.

Chris

 

[jenrow33]

For my drifts here in Michigan I have found the loader to be most effective and piling at an angle downwind is a must. Final cleanup with the rear blad gives a nice, clean finish. I recommend keeping what you have for a season or two and deciding after you've had some practice.

Although, if you want to swing for one, a 3ph blower rocks through drifts. If you've never used one, you would be amazed at what a small tractor and blower can do!

 

[851 roger]

I think I'd call in sick
build a nice fire
get a hot drink, nice chair by the window
and just enjoy doing nothing.
( it's okay to do that ya know )

 

[JDGreenGrass]

You have a tough row to hoe right there.

I would recommend a 3pt. snowblower. I think you could handle a 54" blower.?? That would do it but, it will take a while to get the job done.

What you really need is a 30 to 40hp tractor with a front blower. And a cab.

Personally, I would choose that set up over a plow truck. A blower rids the snow. Go into once and it is gone. Very efficient.:thumbsup:

Honestly, I think the tractor is too small for the task.

 

[gladehound]

If I were you I would use this as justification for a monster tractor!

But if that's not in the cards right now and you want to make due for a while without spending money I'll just say a few things as a fellow small tractor owner who also started out with a rear blade.

1. Find a front blade (night and day compared to a rear blade) - I got one for free out of a feild. Looks horrible, works great!
2. Chains
3. add weight
4. add weight
5. add weight
6. Finally, and this may be my most important advice! Find out what kind of beer your neighbor likes. :thumbsup:

But seriously, It's surprising what properly set up little snow tractor can do!

 

[Jaylegger]

For the lowest expense/effective ratio a front blower with your existing tractor and a snow fence to mitigate the drifting in the area depicted would work well, would easily cut the time to clear in half (I just finished a little more than half mile lane with a GC2600 and front blower albeit less snow 8 inches in 1.5 hours with a lot of jiggin around in a few places including my own good size car park area) and might actually turn that work into good fun.

 

[adjusterr]

As you can see by the pic, I have a Kubota L2250 with a bucket and hoe. My driveway or lane is .2 miles. Last year we had one snow that exceeded 30 inches. Although it took a long time to do it, I simply moved the snow a bucket at a time, load the bucket, backup, turn toward the wind and dump the bucket. I also have a 1010 JD with a front blade, that does a good job but with no power steering, it wears you out. If I'm home when the snow starts, my favorite snow plow is a Suzuki 500 with a blade. I plow wide and often to keep it open but it's so fast and easy to maneuver, you make a few passes then back to the house and sit by the woodstove.

 

[RoyJackson]

I'd suggest a bigger tractor. That SubCUT is OK for mowing an acre or so and other small tasks, but your drive is quite an undertaking.

 

[gladehound]

For the lowest expense/effective ratio a front blower with your existing tractor and a snow fence to mitigate the drifting in the area depicted would work well, would easily cut the time to clear in half (I just finished a little more than half mile lane with a GC2600 and front blower albeit less snow 8 inches in 1.5 hours with a lot of jiggin around in a few places including my own good size car park area) and might actually turn that work into good fun.

That seems like a lot of time. A front blade would do that in a few minutes if you have enough weight to push it. A sub-CUT may be able to be set up with enough weight with chains to do a good job with a front blade. My 19 hp CUT does great with a 6 foot blade without chains but it is quite a bit heavier (5000 pounds when plowing).

 

[20 20]

Not sure if this was mentioned, next year I'd start by adding a snow fence, cheap and easy to put up. That will help with snow drifts you can also angle the blade to push the snow to the side away from the drift. You also should plow extra wide and push the white stuff as far back as possible. I NEVER plow out for the storm that just hit I always plow out for the storm that will be on its way, in other words make LOTS of room for the snow. The size of the machine can make a difference but don't forget yesteryear folks plowed with horse or used shovels.

 

[nuffer460]

Snow removal is a science. The answer is all of the above. I have an interesting issue. First off, I live on the shore of Lake Ontario. I have a 4 acre front lawn. We can get snow from the West,North West, North, North East, and East. The Nor Easterns can burry us for a couple of days. I've put up two snow fences. Four snow fences. 60 hp 2wd loader tractor. Honda Fourtrax with snowblade. Now, I have added a 25 hp 4wd with FEL. I still have them all. The 4wheeler worked faster and better than the 2wd tractor. The 25 hp tractor works faster than the 4wheeler,but they work great together. My tractor has a 5' boxblade and really works well for the final cleanup. The next option for next year will be a snow blower. I find that for me every storm changes how I have to clean out. I've lived here for 15 years and still haven't figured out my driveway.:confused2: As you have found out the wind rows of the past snows, just fill in the driveway deeper. Sometimes, I think God must just be laughing his butt off watching us deal with a little snow.:laughing::laughing:

 

[radioman]

I think you really need more weight. get the rears filled and add chains to your tires. You also should grab any towing chains you got and wrap on the frame of the rear blade for more weight. Since its only a 4 ft blade, I would push rearward pushing snow to direction of snow it blows so it doesn't pile up again. Dont tackle all the snow at once. If the snow us deep, turn it backwards and angle it as much as possible. Keep the rear blade an inch off the ground so the weight is on the rear tires for better traction. Once the major amount of snow is moved out of the way, you can drive forward with blade turned so it scrapes the most scraping snow off the driveway. On the side where wind starts blowing, I would clear an extra width away from driveway if it possible without getting stuck. This way the blowing snow will not fill up the driveway as much.
I have to do the same at my place.

 

[PointyHairedBoss]

... Even better would be two rows of asparagus ...

mmmmmm ...
asparagus

 

[RalphVa]

I had a similar problem last winter here with our record 56" of snowfall for the winter. A couple were 2 feet to 30". Took a while with the FEL filling and then turning sideways to dump on the first fall. On the next, I didn't let it pile up but got to it with the 5' back blade on my 4010 (about the size of your tractor). With the blade pushing backwards and going sideways a little bit to push it up over a bank (raising it as I got to the bank, of course), the blade worked great.

If we got these snowfalls very often, I'd get a rear snow blower. A friend in NW Va (I'm in central) has a rear snow blower for his longer driveway.

I had a Gravely before the JD that had both a 4' snowplow and a snow blower. It would have handled the big snow pretty well, too.

My 4010 has turfs. No problem pushing the snow with either the FEL or back blade.

Ralph

 

[Kal130]

Had my first real snow and I failed to get out of my 1/4 mile lane. We had about 8 inches come down, I cleared that ok..then the wind came in. Overnight some parts of my lane piled up to 20-25 inches. I worked at it for about 4 hours and by time i got one spot clear the wind would cover it back up in a few hours. I had a hard time getting up my hill to try blading on the way down. After the wind died down I went back out and had a heck of a time. In the end I was bailed out by my neighbor with his Deere 8300 and massive rear bucket. It was very emasculating. Sitting there on my GC I felt like I just walked out of an NFL locker room shower.

I have a Massey GC2400 with an FEL and 4ft rear blade. The Blade would load up with snow and stop the tractor, the FEL was ok but I had nowhere to pivot and dump. I admit it, I am a city boy who just moved to the country and i have no idea what i am doing but I am willing to learn.

What am i doing wrong? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Should I switch to a blower set up? Should I get a bigger tractor? Should I bribe my Neighbor with my excellent cooking?

HELP!!

How about this, have some fun this summer and do away with snow removal all together. Rework the elevation of your drive so it is the highest relative point to the surrounding area or at least level. Hard to tell from the picture, but I'll bet your drive is below grade to the surrounding fields. There in lies your problem.