I have three attachments: Original thrower, New Two Stage I modified to work with the electrak and a plow. My drive is 180' and 4 cars wide by the house.
The Plow is lots of fun. I changed the tilt angle to a more severe angle for wet snow. I have used it in as much of a foot of snow. In 12+ inches it is limited. In 22+ it does not work. The problem I have is your snow banks creep in during the winter. Once you have 2-3 feet tall banks, that have been around for awhile, there is no moving them at all. The machines weight is a real advantage. I use chains but no added weight. It is impressive to see the large wave of snow rolling off the blade.
The single stage worked OK but not great. Prone to cloging in wet snow. Hard to go slow enough to limit power use. Two big advantages. The unit gobles up any snow infront of it. I does not tend to plow a wave of snow infront like the two stage. (example you stop just short of the garage door - the single stage will not leave a mound when you back up. Second, the auger spins so fast it is very good at grinding away older wet snow that has refrozen - Just be careful not to break any windows etc.
The two stage unit (a modified sears/MTD) is belt driven, makes almost no noise. It works well and draws less power. If you go too fast, it tends to plow the snow without bogging down. It is less prown to clogging. It is light and will not grind hard ice and snow.
If it were easier to change the attachments, I would leave the plow on (more fun) and change over when we get more than 6-8 inches. Given the limited time I have, I left the two stage on this winter. My biggest surprise is that either way you go it really works, so I sold my gas tractor a few years ago.
Rob NH
Max Hall <maxo iname com> wrote:
Hi, all,
man, what a great series of posts on batteries, charging, and temperature. I'm sure a lot of you are typing or reading the same things over by now, but I just keep on soaking up them good data. I'm humbled and happy to be on the list, as ever.
I have worked hard to keep my snowthrower throwing over the last couple of years, and am, by and large, very, very happy to have the thing. I doooo wonder, though, about the simple efficacy of a plow blade. Up here near Boston, we get light fluffy snow from time to time (more rare) and that is a dream to throw. (Thanks to the cold weather we had about 3" of the lightest stuff you've ever seen. It seemed like Utah, or fake snow from the movies. I got to run the tractor at its highest speed while throwing snow without taking the current draw gauge into the yellow. Unprecedented for me.) Mostly we get wet heavy stuff, though, and I have worked hard on my dynamic speed-tuning snowthrowing technique to avoid clogging. And it still clogs, despite waxes, paints, Pam, lucky charms, etc.
Someone just posted about trying a plow and never going back... So how about plows and heavy snow? Particularly, how deep a wet snow can you plow?
Mid-winter and grinnin'
-Max
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