Snow Equipment Owning/Operating time to upgrade

[RFB]

Clayton,

I wrote to you in your blog regarding the utilization of a tractor (versus a lawn mower) and also recommended this site.

I live north (closer to the 45th parallel) and west (of the mountains to your west) of you.

Not sure of your snow conditions, but these photos are typical of ours.

A tractor (not talking about a lawn mower genre as sold at bigbox.org)
will give much more utility year round, and you will find more capability for your intended use.

 

[frogfish]

I have a JD 345 (approx 15 years old, garden tractor) with 48 inch front blower on and a 'bota B3200. My drive is 1/2 mile in length. The JD will get me clean in 4 passes, I could probably do 2 passes but then the road starts to get narrow as winter progresses. If the JD ever decides to quit, I would look to getting a blower for the B3200 but until then the JD does fine.
Oh and this is in northern WI where we get a few good snows each year.

 

[whistlepig]

I have an ATV with a plow and the only problem is when the snow drifts deeply the plow, with no down force and not being that heavy, will ride up on top of the deep drifts. Its pretty flat here and snow drifts badly.

 

[dgleason]

I've got a 650-700' gravel driveway. Located north of Colorado Springs on the palmer ridge. In the 15 yrs I have been here, saw as much as 4' snow from a single storm. (blizzard of '97) I had to hire a front end loader to get me out that time.

After that storm I bought a walk behind 10hp 24" snow blower. Did a good job, doesn't move much gravel off the drive, but took me 4 or more hours to get things opened up. Wore me out muscling it around for 4 hours.

3 years ago I picked up a used polaris sportsman 500 atv and put on a 60" blade. Gets amazing traction in 4wd. Still took me 2 or more hours to plow. Have pushed some gravel off the drive. Takes a little practice to get the larger open areas clean.

This summer I bought a '07 JD2320 for moving manure and grading the driveway. Just had a 54" front mount blower installed. Except for the open areas, that's 2 passes, and the snow is thrown several feet from the drive. I'm hoping to reduce my time to maybe an hour. We'll see. I've also heard you can't go too fast with these bigger blowers.

I kept the snow blower and atv. The snow blower can get into places the tractor can't. And the atv seems like a more practical way to remove a few inches.

Lots of ways to go. Good luck with your decision.