Snowpocalypse 2025

[MacGyver]

Props to the metro Nashville government - something I rarely find myself saying.

They reported 40 trucks out starting before the snow.  Of 5800 miles of road in the county - they plowed 2900 of them.  

[OldIronFan]

1 hour ago, BigK said:

I wonder how many folks in TN own a snow blower. I've never seen one in real life.

So I went electric for my suburban yard a couple years ago. I have Kobalt 80V equipment. Mower, Blower, string trimmer, edger, hedge trimmer, and chainsaw. It has been fantastic and I have 3 or 4 batteries, a couple chargers and the tools. None have let me down. 

I ran across a Kobalt 80V snow blower on a local auction site. Looked unused and was said to work so I put in a low bid. To my surprise I won it for not much money so I put it away to wait until we got actual snow. I honestly did not expect to get much use out of it but it cost me near nothing to let it sit in my crawl space and wait. 

I have an extremely steep front yard and drive way. Steep enough it can not be cut with your typical riding mower or zero turn. Steep enough that anything lower than a crossover, suv, or pickup is probably scraping slightly on the transition. Steep enough that my 50+ something out of shape self is not easily shoveling it safely. And steep enough that if I try to get a car out when it is snowy or icy I could end up in my neighbors living room across the street. Hence the snow blower. 

It works ok on the very light fluffy snow we got here last year. It blows around a bit too much so you have to be mindful of wind direction and what direction you are throwing the snow with the nozzle. It works great with moderately wet or heavy snow like we got Friday. It goes where you point the nozzle and leaves a nice clean drive. It works ok but begins to fail as the snow gets excessively wet/heavy and begins to get icy. Mostly the nozzle starts to clog with build up and then the rotor starts acting more like a sweeper pushing the snow out the front. 

The electric works great for the minimal snow we get. Anything more than the 5 or 6 inches we got this last week and I would probably start to hit the limits of the electric unit. If we got 8 to 12 inches multiple times a year I would go with a gas unit for sure. There were a couple of times when I ran my electric full width into a drifted snow bank or berm it would try to bog and stall the motor. 

 

Edited Monday at 06:13 PM by OldIronFan