Re: (ET) E20EA troubles - and here comes the snow!

[Max Hall <mhall maxmatic com>]

Plow is not right for this much snow. The blower would have been the RIGHT tool. The plow was only ok.

The challenges in snow this deep (>2') include:
- blade rides up with increased pressure... not bad, you can build banks that way (about a 25 or 30 degree ramp, final pushes at bttom give about 45 degrees), see pic... http://www.flickr.com/photos/26110615@N03/8465411569/ and note the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink added weight)
- spill over the top, spill in from the sides... even if you could keep the blade down, snow would fall back in from beside you and over the blade as you pushed an ever-larger pile ahead of you. And of course you have to keep the amount of snow very small around the wheels for traction.
- angled blade is worthless... you can't push laterally for beans against that much mass.

What this all means is frontal pushes, forward 8', back 6', repeat. Many, many times.

One more pic... a long way to go. http://www.flickr.com/photos/26110615@N03/8466513786/

On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 3:49 PM, Christopher Zach <cz alembic crystel com> wrote:

The biggest headache in this whole procedure was dealing with snow
that was higher than the blower intake.  You have to make 2 passes at
it, one with the blower lifted and one with it down.  It occurred to
me to extend the intake, with a slanted piece of metal, perhaps.  But
then I wasn't sure if this would be such a good idea because it would
make it much harder to see the snowbank that I was trying to attack.

That's a problem. I used the lift heavily on my tractor to handle that, or I would undercut it, then back off so it would collapse the top, then hit it again. Keeping the auger full was never a problem :-)

I did consider installing drift cutters on the sides of the blower; three days after the first fall we had another 2 feet, and the drifts were getting insane. But I managed to clear it with the lift trick.

With the lift powered by 36 volt now, this would take a lot less time. Not sure though if I would burn out the lift.

C



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