Re: (ET) Wow, a little Elec-trak snow shovel!

[Charlie <medievalist gmail com>]

I have one of the little Toros George pointed out, and have used it
for the last four years.

The major problems with it are as follows:

 * plastic bottom edge and plastic screw are slowly grinding
themselves away against my ratty old tarmac lot

 * it picks up and throws gravel at painful velocities  (ow!  Hey,
watch it with that thing!) which is also an issue on my old blacktop

 * it's single stage, so it gets clogged up by small sticks pretty
easily and has difficulty in heavy wet snow

The good parts are:

 * really lightweight, compared to gas models

 * zero maintenance - no batteries or crankcase, so it hangs on a peg
in the barn wall all summer and wrens nest in it

 *  small enough to use up on my wooden deck, where it does no
significant damage (as long as I remembered to hammer down any
nailheads that popped up over the summer sometime before the first
snowfall)

A heavy duty silicon extension cord is highly recommended.  Any time
you need to use an "electric snow shovel" it will be cold enough to
make a regular extension cord annoyingly stiff.

Some people won't ever like it, because for sheer power it's just not
in the same league as stinky high-maintenance gasoline models.

But I like mine, and use it exactly the way Chris suggested - to clear
the path from the barn to the house, and to clear the deck if I don't
feel like shoveling.  You can develop a technique with it, after a
while, which minimizes the problems and lets you blow deep, wet snow.
First time out, though, don't expect to blow anything more challenging
than eight inches of bone dry stuff - until you've had some practice
it's not much better than an strong electric leaf blower.

--Charlie Brooks


On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 12:39 AM, George Beckett
<irishbeckett hotmail com> wrote:
> I believe the snow blower was a "GE" logo 120V, not an "Elec-Trak" logo.
> They gave many GE products away as prizes for contests, especially GE
> radios. It was similar to the Toro ones of today...
>
> http://www.toro.com/en-us/Homeowner/Snow-Blowers/Electric/Pages/Model.aspx?pid=1800-Power-Curve-38381
>
> I could be wrong, certainly have been a lot before!
>
> George Beckett
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> Date: Sun, 1 May 2011 23:57:05 -0400
>> From: cz alembic crystel com
>> To: elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
>> Subject: (ET) Wow, a little Elec-trak snow shovel!
>>
>> Whoops, resending.
>>
>> So I was looking through all the marketing fluff and found this:
>>
>> http://www.myelec-traks.com/72-32.pdf
>>
>> On page 2 you see some dealers who won lawn mower attachments, and one
>> guy who has a powered SNOW SHOVEL!
>>
>> What an amazingly cool idea! I mean right now I have to shovel out a
>> path from the walk to the driveway to get to the E20 and blower. But
>> with a walk behind small snowblower I could use that for the walks, and
>> not drive the E20 on the front walk which can cause havoc on the stone
>> paths.
>>
>> Wow! So has anyone ever seen one? Maybe it's time to get a broken one on
>> craigslist and put a mower motor on it or something.
>>
>> Wow.
>>
>> Chris
>>
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