When my neighbor was younger, he used to come by and do our berm with his snow blower. Always greatly appreciated.
I suppose on a sense they did that this year, too, as the snow plow guy who cleared a lot of my driveway cleared theirs, first.
I mean, it all depends. When I was in my 30s, I was certainly physically capable of shoveling my entire long driveway even if was only 3-5 inches, but the snowblower did it in 1/3 the time, and I wasn’t freezing & exhausted & sore when I was done. And I had a big enough garage that I didn’t mind giving it the space.
Yep - having the storage space makes so much difference.
Everyone’s experience differs. But when I see my neighbors with their 2-stagers, they look like overkill in all but the heaviest snows. I agree that for all but the lightest snows, the blower makes it ridiculously fast and easy. (And - sorta stupidly - it is sorta fun flinging the snow!) Something like this seems to be the most common in my suburban neighborhood - including mine. https://www.toro.com/en/product/38474 Has to be a MAJOR snow for mine not to be able to handle it. VERY deep AND heavy. And even with that, I can handle it by doing it several times during the snow. Sure, if I had the big 2-stage, I could just wait for the snow to end.
Another point - coincidentally this morning I saw the woman across the street trying - unsuccessfully - to get her Toro 1-stage to start. Snowblowers are pretty simple mechanical devices. But they are mechanical devices, and if you are not mechanically minded, or the type of person who performs minimal maintenance, there is the possibility that they could fail when you most need them. Not saying don’t get one. But don’t think you can completely ignore them, pay no attention to how they work, and just think they will work perfectly whenever needed.
I lived without a snowblower here in New England for about ten years, but I lived on the coast at the time. We usually only got 2-4” of snow at a time. Then I moved to interior Connecticut at a higher elevation, and after repeatedly trying to clear 6-8” of snow every few days our first winter I went out and bought a Honda single-stage snowblower.
This worked for nearly ten years until we started getting the occasional 12-18” snowfalls, for which the single-stage was completely unable to handle. It took me nine hours to clear one snowfall in particular. So I went out and got a two-stage snowblower as well. Now I clear with a shovel for up to 3-4”, use the single-stage for up 6-8”, and the two-stage snowblower for snowfalls in excess of that, as well as the mound at the end of the driveway from the plow.
I have a big (but single-stage) gasoline-powered snowblower, which I bought seven or eight years ago, mostly because I live on a corner, and the sidewalk along the side of the house is along a local arterial street, which means that that sidewalk gets buried under slushy snow by the plows. I used to have a smaller snowblower, which just couldn’t deal with that level and weight of snow.
I live a bit east (closer to the city) of Dinsdale, and similarly, I haven’t had much call for the snowblower in recent years – though I’m glad I have it when it does snow a lot. Yesterday, I used it to clear 5" of snow, which was the fourth time I’ve used it this season; that’s once more than I used it in the previous three winters, combined.
When I bought it, battery-powered snowblowers weren’t terribly good yet, but if I had to buy a new one now, I’d definitely buy an electric.
It’s still snowing!
This seems manageable with an electric…I’m going to start looking when they’re back in stock.
Minnesota resident here (although in the tropical southern part). Of course I have a two-stage Ariens snowblower, and used it only a few times last year for a couple of six- to nine-inch storms, when it sure was handy. This year I’ve been using it every other week, which is a more typical Minnesota winter.
Usually if there’s less than three inches on the ground, I’ll shovel since it’s relatively fast. No, change that, I’ll use a snow pusher, which is a curved (steel) blade that scrapes the concrete, but you don’t lift it except at the end of the path. I have a shovel, but it’s only used on the deck.
The time when a snowblower comes in really handy is after the city’s snowplow passes, leaving a ridge at the end of the driveway, usually right after you think you’re done and just took off your jacket. I’ll even do the neighbor’s driveway aprons, since they’re usually already at work after they shoveled their driveways but before the snowplow came by, and the last thing you want to do at the end of the day is to shovel again.
My daughter and her husband, who live nearby, wanted to buy a used one-stage snowblower for about $300. I said I’d buy them a “real” snowblower, a two-stage model, for Christmas. They were using a corded snowthrower, and said it was very much a pain to use. I’m such a nice dad, but it only cost about $1000.
That’s very neighborly of you. 
That’s really awesome!
As I live on the corner, and in a neighborhood which has alleys (into which most garages open), it means I’m also located where the alley meets the street. The “throat” of the alley gets choked with snow from the plows, so I use my snowblower to clear it out, as well as make sure that the side aprons to the alley entrance get cleared (to make it easier to turn into the alley from the street, and to turn into the street from the alley).
I’ve also taken to blowing the sidewalk in front of the next two houses on the street; neither of those homeowners have snowblowers, and it’s usually no more than another three minutes of work to take care of those.
My electric company (Xcel Energy) offers rebates for electric things. For snow blowers it is 60% of equipment cost up to $100.
Brian
One key thing to remember if you use gas-powered lawn equipment is to NOT use regular pump gasoline in them. When they sit a long time between uses (like lawn mowers over winter and snowblowers over summer) the alcohol in the gas turns to vaseline inside the carburer. Either buy the 1-gallon cans of non - alcohol gas to find a gas station near a boat launch,..they usually have a pump with no alcohol gas
Maybe you meant varnish instead of vaseline? Either way, the alcohol doesn’t turn into anything, it accelerates the oxidation of the gasoline that results in a residue.
I use gas stabilizer with regular gas (10% ethanol), and have not had any problems. I run it dry at the end of the season though.
I use regular gas, also 10% ethanol, in my snowblower, and I’ve never had any issues. I also run the engine dry each spring, and I discard the unused gasoline that’s still in my gas can.
I, also, run my lawnmower dry at the end of the season, just sitting on my driveway if need be. I use regular gas station gas and have never had a problem.
By coincidence, I just finished talking to my boss who has an electric snow blower. He likes it, but he feels it is under powered. When it snowed Sunday, he went out 3 times because, if the snow is more than 3 inches deep, it really labors and is not efficient.
I don’t know if they are all like that, all I know is what he said.
We shoveled yesterday, but more snow fell after that and our driveway had narrowed due to the 20+ inches that fell. Today, our neighbor came by with his new Ego single stage and it did an amazing job on the light fluffy snow we had. It made short work of the new snow and cut well into our snowbanks giving us back our driveway again.
Our big problem is finding places to put the snow over the now 4 foot high snowbanks and the snowblower was able to move the snow over them easily. The problem I see is we get heavy wet snow, and I don’t know if the machine would be powerful enough for that.
We have Ryobi 40V batteries for another tool and it may be worth it to get a snowblower in that family.
I just raked the back roof - or to be more clear, I raked the first 4’ or 5’ of the back roof, because I was wading through 2’+ snow, and it’s tiring. And as I did it, I thought, forget the electric snowblower, get me an automated electric roof cleaner - a Roomba for the roof if you will. A Roofba ™!
I suspect you could make such a thing.
IIRC electric heating panels on roofs are common enough. Try these folks selected at random from some Google results:
I was really only kidding about the Roofba™, but I looked at those roof systems a while back and they’re pretty ineffective at the temperatures and snow depth we get.
If I were really concerned about it, I’d go for metal roofing, which is effective and looks pretty neat.