Feb 03 2012
The Best Snow Blower
So you’re at the age when you’ve hung up the shovel and are perusing snow blower reviews, looking for the best product. If you grew up in the snowbelt, one of your chores might have been shoveling the walk. Maybe you even took your shovel from one door to the next, looking to make a buck. Good for you. You put in your time. Now it’s time to let a machine take over before you pull something.
Blowers have two broad types. They can be single or double stage. If your home is someplace where the winters are distinct but not legendary, and the snowfalls rarely exceed four inches, a single stage machine should be fine for you. Fine one with serrated augurs and you can really hack through ice.
The question to ask yourself isn’t whether you never see more snow than that. It’s whether, when you do see more snow than that, everything starts closing. Because that once-in-a-decade ten inch blizzard will at some point melt down to four inches.
The idea behind most single stages is to completely clear the ground, so their augers, usually rubber tipped, actually touch the ground. This can be bad news if the machine runs over gravel, because it’ll pull it in and spew it out. However, this also means that the whirling augers lend some forward momentum. It’s nice to have, though it won’t help much if you’re truly pushing uphill.
If you’ve got a slope and aren’t some sort of pro athlete, you’re better off getting a gas powered machine. Obviously, they’re a bit more trouble, since now you have engine maintenance to consider. If you’re not attentive, you can also find yourself in the annoying position of being snowed in, having a blower, but no gas. Still, that’s better than giving yourself a coronary pushing up-hill.
If home is truly in the snowbelt, with more than six inches a snow a regular event, a two-stage machine is right for you. They’re good for eight inches, and there are high horsepower models that can handle more than that. The augers aren’t rubber-tipped, and are designed not to ever touch the ground. This means they’re good for both heavy snowfall and for gravel.
The chute itself isn’t as unproblematic as the simple piece of plastic you might wish it were. Don’t get stuck with a model with a chute that’s tough to adjust. Your best bet is one that has toggle controls, so that you can easily change direction of the snowblast. Never stick your hand down the chute to unclog it. Find some sort of stick or handle and use that. Even then, be certain to turn the engine off first.
A halogen headlight might make a useful accessory, depending upon the size of your job and where your houselights are. It gets dark early, and light late, during the winter. If you’re going for a heavy machine and you’re not that imposing physically, find one with power steering. It also helps you maneuver if the wheels disengage one at a time, with the other still running. There’s a lot to consider now that you’ve decided to read the snow blower reviews.
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