Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

What my wife and I were thinking is using a Toro 1800 for light snow and slush that the 2 stage won't really pick up. That 1/2" of slush turns into glare ice and our entire driveway is uphill. Will the electric Toro handle like 2" of slush wet snow and leftovers from a 2 stage or a small storm? We really do want it down to bare pavement. If you have one we'd love to hear about it. We would not be using it for EOD or anything substancial, just cleaning up the light and small nuisance stuff. That would open up a lot of possibilites for us if the Toro 1800 really works as advertised. Don't need to throw the snow 30 feet as long as it can be thrown a few times. We live with my 85 year old aunt and she broke her hip because of the ice in the driveway 2 years ago. That's why we want it down to bare tar. Our driveway is uphill and is not perfectly flat. Thoughts?

Thanks.

Steve, Here in NH (I live near Nashua... I believe you mentioned you live up by Concord) it's not  realistic to expect that  if you can get rid of snow down to bare tar you will have a driveway that's not slippery. 

For example, yesterday afternoon we got about one inch of wet snow.  Rather than use the blower, I got out my push shovel-- you know the kind, with a wide blade that's very concave... designed for pushing the swow across the drive onto the grass.  I pushed off the snow/slush so that virtually every iota of snow was removed.  Walking down the drive this morning when it was about 15 degrees, I could see that the trace moisture from the snow remained on the blacktop and had frozen, making the drive quite slippery in spots.

It's possible that if we had gotten a bit more wet snow, I would have likely used my blower, perhaps leaving more snow behind than I did with the shovel.  Now, that snow would have also frozen and perhaps made the drive slippery, but maybe less slippery than it was this morning.   Perhaps the mounds of snow and remnants left behind would have frozen and provided more traction than a thin layer of black ice-- I can't say.  But in any event, I think it's dubious to expect that after blowing snow with a single stage machine the driveway will be consistently less slippery for your aunt than if you did it with a two-stage machine. 

Still, I can understand the logic of having a small machine and a big one to address various levels of snow, especially if you have a good-sized driveway.

By the way, why not get your aunt a pair of Yak-Trax for her boots?  You can get them at EMS in Concord-- they are pretty effective at giving good traction on ice.  When I hike in the winter, I wear Micro-spikes, which are like mini-crampons that let you walk up icy inclines easily.

amazer98 wrote:

Yes I'm up in Concord, NH. We are on a slope so it will be slippery at times no matter what. But we are IN the woods, no A/C ever here, never needed one. It's cold in the summer and colder in the winter. All the tree's we have. If we don't get down to bare tar then we have a skating rink. Both my wife and I have fallen a few times already this short winter and I really banged up my shoulder someting fierce. Bare tar isn't realistic all the time what with blowing snow like we are getting right now. But the stuff that you don't want to fire up a 2 stage for is what I think we need a power shovel for. I put out several pounds of ice melt and it didn't make a dent in what we had. That's why I feel if we had something to blast away the slush and small stuff it would keep it so that what little sun we do get will melt it. That is the theory anyway. I'm not sure how realistic it is but last year we had so much ice and it was so built up that nothing would remove it. I don't know, I'm just trying to find the right way to do this because my aunt can get really cranky as it is. I don't want a repeat of her busted hip, she also managed to break her wrist in 3 places last year falling in this driveway. The boots are a good idea, I'll mention them to my auntl. We got a solid 2 inches here and in Nashua you got an inch, same type of snow tho the blowing snow is awful out there and not enough that a 2 stage would notice it.

Steve, I owned a Toro 1800 Power Curve. I bought it used but in good condition. At the time, I was using a garden tractor with a snow thrower attachment to clear my driveway. I wanted a smaller machine to do my front walk. The 1800 would throw 6" dry powdery snow about 15 ft., but in any other conditions (wetter, deeper, or crusty snow), it was not up to the task. The 1800 does not have the type of rubber paddles that help propel a gas powered single stage machine forward, probably because it did not have any power to spare. The power cord was a nuisance. On the plus side, it was quieter, had no exhaust smell, and was easy to store and maintain. I sold it after one season.

I see where 'ask the builder' used slip-on ice cleats for snowblowing:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CT76InY7WA

 

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/links/link.jsp;jsessionid=MHGNCMYMENYDBLAQBBKSCO3MCAEFAIWE?id=0074019831265a&type=product&cmCat=froogle&cm_ven=data_feed&cm_cat=froogle&cm_pla=0610106&cm_ite=0074019831265a&_requestid=5296

 

http://www.shopwiki.com/climbing+Cleats

 

http://www.amazon.com/Ultra-Snow-and-Ice-Grip/product-reviews/B000XZZLV0/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

bw12 wrote:
Thanks for the info. I know it's not a very powerful machine but I'm only looking to clear up what a 2 stage leaves behind. So you don't think it will blow that snow and get down to pavement? I won't be blowing more than a inch or so of anything except maybe slush. I've seen YouTube videos and it seems to do a good job with small stuff. Do you think the 1800 has enough power for that? I'm not having a lot of options. My wife thinks we should have the guy plow and use a smaller single stage to get EOD and the places the plow doesn't get. She phrases it a bit differently but that's what she means. She thinks a Toro 421 would work if we were plowed and just went over it to scrape it down. But I don't know if a toro 421 would do that.