Danny Bassette

Join Date 02/2003

Adventures in Snowblowing

not exciting, but still a story

       As mentioned before, this year the all important job of keeping the white fluffy stuff off the driveway has been passed to me. For years my dad would use a plow on a truck to clear it, but he sold the truck because we had two more cars then drivers (now we have four, go figure).
       So it snowed alot a day or two ago (probably over a foot) and I was out blowing it off the driveway. Is frustrating sometimes, I try to do a good job but it just won't get some of the snow, it's just too packed down by people having driven on it. But I get enough off you can drive easily enough.
       We get lots of wind here too, so the snow drifts. Often so much you couldn't tell it had been cleared off. So I was out to clear off the drifts today. No new snow, but plenty on the driveway. Which brings us to the machine used...
       Historically I do not start machines well. If it's more complicated then turning a switch I can't do it. Well I've gotten better and can actually start the snowblower (yeah me

), although it does take a while. I got it all started up and went out to blow but when I turned the blower on it stalled right out. Three times in a row, so clearly something was wrong. Looking at things more closly I noticed that the scary spinning blades weren't spinning.
Back into the garage I went, turned it off, pulled out the key and the sparkplug just to be safe. Then I stuck my hand into the blades to find out what was what. Turns out there was this chunk of ice stopping things from spinning. So I get a chisel type item and hack at it for a bit. Was hard, had to reach past scary blades to hit the ice, not a good angle. But I broke it up so things could spin again. At least once I put things back together, I've heard enough stories about people sticking hands where they shouldn't be and machines ripping things off to not want that to happen to me.
Once back together everything worked fine and I went about moving the snow that drifted from pile A onto driveway B to pile C where it would be blown to the neighbors backyard. The wind that caused the drifting helped by blowing everything east. Perhaps tomorrow I'll be out for more of the same, but I made sure there wasn't snow to form ice inside the machine this time.

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JillUser

Join Date 11/2003

+17

I can totally relate! Last year was my first year with a snowblower. I only had a shovel before but then we moved and now have a driveway twice as long as the last and I demanded a snowblower. Plow is better than snowblower but snowblower is still better than just a shovel!

Warm wishes coming your way!

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Better is relative, although I do agree with you. Shoveling will take longer, but is more exercise, and exercise is good. Snowblowing burns gas, but is quicker. But if your a busy person snowblowing is what you need, unless you have a plow. Although, when they get old enough you could have your kids shovel instead

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Cordelia

Join Date 07/2002

My Aunt lost part of her foot to those scary spinning blades on a lawn mower. Yikes! It's good you took precautions.

As a new homeowner we are going to have to decide on shovel vs. snowblower. It's a tough decision: make the husband shovel or make him use a snowblower. Hmmm...what to do...

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Get two shovels and you can work together? Then go inside and curl up together under a blanket with a mug of hot chocolate (or similar warm beverage)?

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KarmaGirl

Join Date 03/2001

+118

We have a long driveway (over 200') so we plow it. But we plow it with our Grasshopper tractor. We plan to get a snowblower for it next year. The blower is really needed to get the snow up and away. After awhile, with just the plow, you end up with a narrow driveway. And, by "we", I really mean my husband

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The trick to plowing is having someplace to push the snow too. We used our yard, ended up with a huge pile of snow most years. That doesn't happen with the snowblower, the snow is disperced over a large enough amount of yard we don't get much piling. I have a habit of snowblowing the lawn on the sides ofthe driveway, since I can't see where they end so the driveway is wider then it needs to be

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No snow here... *evil laugh*

Hehe, good luck with that Danny, I'm supporting you from far back

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