Michigander here. Over the years I’ve owned several battery electric snowblowers, including a 40v Snow Joe single stage, an 80v snow joe 2-stage, a 100v Snow Joe single stage, an ego 56v single stage, and my current setup, which is a Toro e21 60v single stage blower for most snowballs and a Toro 60v 2-stage 24 inch blower for the really serious shit.
The Toro blowers are far and away the most powerful I have used, doing a much better job even than the EGO. The e21 will easily throw fluffy Snow up 3 feet and over 12 feet if needed, though you may need to take it off EGO mode for that. However it is not self propelled in any way, so you need to push it. In thicker, heavier snow that can be challenge for someone smaller (I’m 6 feet and about 220 lbs of fat,muscle,and bone in that order). However, there is a reason I save the 2 stage for the worst snows. Those things are beasts to manage. Yes, they are self propelled but unless you find one with a turning axle, the self propulsion is in a straight line only. Sure, the snow helps you slide-turn it but it’s still heavy. Even the ones that are steering capable can be challenging to turn in a tight enough radius. Also, the 2 stage blowers with enough batteries to run them are expensive AF. Like 1500+. I got mine at an auction for about 900, and it’s not a steerable unit, so it only comes out if we get a doozy.
I have a small iceberg blocking half of my driveway. I did maintain a clearing for one car to easily exit the driveway but the accumulation from the plows was constant and decided not to clear all of it. Now the accumulation is mostly ice.
I was hoping it would gradually melt away but if we get another storm this weekend, it may actually grow larger. I am starting to think of it as a feature. I will refer to it as an “Arctic Outpost” and decorate it with plastic penguins.
Wheel driven are generally harder to turn around at thr end of the driveway/sidewalk. Auger driven wear out the auger more quickly and are really more auger “assisted" than driven
Yes. Snow storage. I recently lived in the mountains of Colorado, and that was a problem. I would plow and plow and plow. I had a Kubota tractor to move/break up the snow storage areas.
We had a nice deck that was about 3 feet off the ground. We shoveled that, but it would get to the point that that shoveled snow had to be moved. Usually about twice a year.
Do you actually discard it? I just put it into my car’s tank, even if it’s somewhat degraded over the past 6 months it’s diluted enough with the rest of the gas that it’s not going to cause any issues.
Yeah, it’s a lot easier to plan out the gas for a lawnmower than a snowblower though. I buy a can of gas around November to get ready, sometimes I buy 4 more cans over the season, sometimes that can is still full in March.
For the snowblower, I just buy a couple of bucks of premium when a major storm is predicted. I’m generally astounded at how little the blower uses, so I make a pint of not filling it up, so as not to have to burn it off in the spring. (Some years back I got tired of trying to siphon out the dregs.). If it hasn’t been used for a couple of months, I may empty the can into my car and buy another couple of bucks worth.
Very happy when we bought this house, as our neighbors’ driveways are at the opposite sides of their houses from ours. So we can spray/pile snow however we wish without having to keep it off a neighboring drive.
I decided to hire a plow guy. It seems that a snowblower that would reliably move snow over my retaining wall would be expensive, hard to use, and hard to store. I hired the company they employs the guy who gave me a free half plow. They do the driveways of the next door neighbor and the guy across the street.
They quoted us $25 per inch of snow that falls. I hope they don’t come by every time there’s a dusting, but unless we get a ton of snow, that’s going to cost less and be less work than getting a snowblower. The neighbor says they didn’t plow the driveway wide enough. But they also came by 3 times in the last storm, and got the driveways passable faster than i would have. And I don’t mind cleaning up around the edges. I don’t really mind shoveling if there’s not so much i get worn out.
Also, i never buy more than a gallon at a time. If there’s a lot of rain and I’ve fertilized the lawn, i may buy gas a couple of times over the summer, which is good. That means it’s always reasonably fresh.
Naw, they don’t carry it away. Last time, he dragged it into the street then shoved it into the snowbank “downstream” of our driveway. (To the right, looking out from the house.)
We’ll see. Maybe we won’t hire them next year.
Based on what the neighbor said they charged for the previous storm, they round down the inches.
We would have paid over $750 for the two storms in the last two weeks at those prices!
We have a ling driveway and a large 40’ X 40’ area at the top of it. We were quoted $175 for anything under 12 inches, and $250 for anything above that. I live in a really expensive town, top 10% town in one of the top 5 states for house prices. Everything is more expensive here.
