[HN Gopher] The secret lives of snowblowers
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The secret lives of snowblowers
Author : zdw
Score : 100 points
Date : 2024-08-17 18:32 UTC (4 days ago)
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| echelon_musk wrote:
| I immediately recalled this scene from Short Circuit:
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=XLn38HQNSYo
| MisterTea wrote:
| I once broke a shear pin after a length of old sump pump
| discharge hose buried under a snow pile became entangled in the
| auger blades. The spare shear pins were missing, so I figured I'd
| take a cheap steel 1/4-20 bolt and grind it down until its just
| about a 1/16 of an inch diameter at the point where the auger
| tube and drive shaft meet. It did not work as the following snow
| fall I hit a rock and the damn thing jumped violently and I let
| go of the drive clutch which prevented it from completely self
| destructing. The auger tube hole was gouged from the screw on
| both sides, the screw bent into a Z shape and the housing was
| slightly bent askew. After some reforming in my shop it was
| working fine again and still runs to this day. That Craftsman 5HP
| blower has taken a hell of a beating, is in rough shape but still
| runs. I keep wanting to up the HP a bit but its seen enough
| abuse.
|
| Pro tip: always winterize the engine to keep it running for
| years. Drain the fuel completely, and drain the carburetor bowl.
| Pull the spark plug and put a cap full of motor oil in the
| cylinder and gently turn the engine over by hand using the pull
| cord to coat the walls. Also helps to tape over the exhaust and
| stuff the intake port with steel wool to keep critters out of the
| passages. I once had a generator suddenly stop working and upon
| pulling the plug found a dead spider across the electrodes which
| shorted it.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I'm sure you're tracking: but those shear pins shear for a
| reason. :)
| floatrock wrote:
| In a pinch, you can just put a quarter across your fuse
| terminals if your fuses keep popping for some reason!
| SteveNuts wrote:
| I like to use old .22 bullets, they fit perfectly!
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Or buy an electric one.
|
| The entire array of two stroke lawn tools are obsolete with
| electric batteries and electric motors that are more compact,
| higher torque, quiter, and far less polluting.
|
| Soon, they will be cheaper. Unfortunately EV based tools
| slotted in the luxury upscale segment, abut vastly declining
| battery costs still haven't trickled down to the consumer.
|
| High density lfp and sodium ion and solid state should change
| this.
|
| The other crappy thing is that the tools use their differing
| shapes and molds to lock in you to a single line of tools., so
| you can reuse batteries across tools only of the same maker
| (which enables you to have a second set of freshly charged
| batteries when the primary drains, and you can charge the
| battery will hold you use the second set)
|
| Emer really need formalized standards to force battery
| companies to use an interchangeable standard like disposable
| batteries, electric plugs, railroad rails, etc
|
| ...and while they're at it, please force the plastic tote
| business to use a standard lid
| floatrock wrote:
| Electric lawnmowers and leafblowers are great, but everyone I
| know who's tried a (battery) electric snowblower complains
| it's either underpowered for anything more than a dusting or
| it burns out after a season.
|
| All for electrifying all the things and getting rid of as
| many polluting two-stroke engines as possible, but heavy wet
| snow seems to be one place where the energy density of
| gasoline is the right tool for the job.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Even electric lawnmowers can be a bit underwhelming power-
| wise. I share one with a few neighbours and it works well
| enough for our small downtown yards, but I would be pretty
| annoyed with it if I was trying to do a job any longer than
| about 30 minutes.
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| I don't know... I watched my grandpa hand shovel heavy wet
| snow until the year he died. If we really care about
| polution, we'd just buck up and use a hand shovel.
| apercu wrote:
| I have a diesel tractor and a 4WD vehicle. But I'd argue
| my carbon footprint is a hell of a lot smaller than most
| Americans (unless they live in a city, take public
| transport, don't own a car and don't travel by air
| often).
|
| I don't leave the house much, haven't driven to work for
| over 10 years, have planted thousands of native
| perennials and trees over the years, and seeded acres of
| native prairie.....
|
| I agree with you, mostly, but life is nuanced.
| vundercind wrote:
| We have and love a battery electric trimmer and push mower.
| They're great. Way better than gas, and better than
| wrangling a cord.
|
| We were gifted a battery snowblower. It basically doesn't
| work. Maybe there are better ones that do, but this thing
| was not fit for purpose at all.
| wffurr wrote:
| Mine works great for my Boston sidewalk.
|
| Give battery tech a few more years on its growth curve and
| it'll handle your 300ft driveway no problem.
| brk wrote:
| Other than very small engines most snowblowers and mowers are
| 4 stroke engines.
|
| My last snowblower was 11.5HP, and it could take 90 minutes
| to clear everything after a decent snow. A battery approach
| wouldn't be feasible at this point.
| vundercind wrote:
| When one considers the difference in human effort between
| mowing a lawn with an old-school cylinder-of-blades push
| mower with no power at all, and of shoveling a driveway of
| snow as far as a snowblower throws it... it becomes obvious
| one task requires way, _way_ more energy than the other.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| In the winter I have a driveway and 300 feet of sidewalk I
| have to clear, sometimes twice a day. Assuming any products
| on the market can even handle the job, I wouldn't want to
| have to manage the charging situation for my use case.
| Pouring in more gas is so much easier than realizing you
| forgot to charge the backup battery. And I don't even want to
| know what that would cost.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Snowblowers are 4 stroke engines today, I'm not even sure
| anyone makes a 2-stroke machine. And they certainly aren't
| obsolete. An electric one is fine if you have a bit of light
| powder but no good if you're moving a lot of deep, heavy snow
| off a decent amount of square footage. And don't buy a gas
| blower than isn't at least 2 stages.
|
| I don't doubt the future will make them comparable and lower
| in cost but I wouldn't buy one today.
| dboreham wrote:
| Hmm. I have three snowblowers. The smallest is electric, and
| it's the largest electric snowblower I could find. I use it
| to move snow off our wooden decks and to be honest it works
| extremely well for that purpose. It's light (when batteries
| removed) so can be lifted easily between deck sections, and
| it's sufficiently powerful to throw snow 10ft or so off the
| deck.
|
| The larger ones don't yet have an electric option available.
| czbond wrote:
| I use a corded snowblower and lawnmower. While not the best
| user experience over batteries, I know they always work and
| require little maintenance.
| cpwright wrote:
| My snowblower is 283lbs with a 10hp engine. It takes about
| 30-45 minutes to do my 3000sf driveway for a normal snow.
| Adding the weight and expense of batteries is something I'm
| not at all interested in.
|
| Not all manufacturers have big batteries for power tools, but
| the ones that do like the MX fuel that is used to run
| concrete tools have prices that are >$500.
|
| You can't just recharge the battery overnight like you can in
| your car if it run out; you need to have the machine running
| to get out of the house - and filling it up with gas is just
| a couple minutes charging is going to take much longer.
|
| Even the smaller machine that I had before was 8hp (but had
| wheels instead of tracks) and weighed 150lbs.
| apercu wrote:
| I have a pretty robust electric chainsaw, but it's not great
| for hardwoods at all. Of course, I have 5 chainsaws so maybe
| I'm not the one to take advice from, I might have a problem
| ;)
|
| For leaf blowers and weed trimmers I agree.
| KarlKode wrote:
| Same for leaf blowers. I worked on a farm in the Swiss
| mountains where we used large Stihl leaf blowers to get the
| hay down the mountain [1] so we could pick it up by machine
| and electric leaf blowers were only used for cleanup jobs
| in the barn. Nowadays I live in the city but I still get
| sweaty flashbacks whenever I hear a gas leaf blower during
| the summer months.
|
| [1]: Similar to https://youtu.be/Rni8F0GFjW4?t=145 but just
| imagine the mountains/rolls of hay to be 2m high and the
| slope be >45degs
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| The battery situation isn't as odious when you realize you
| can get third-party batteries compatible with ryobi,
| milwaukee, etc on Amazon for about 25% of the list price of
| the first party brand battery.
| Loudergood wrote:
| I bought the Ego 2 stage one 2 years ago and it has really
| surpassed my expectations. I get about an hour of run time
| with 2 7.5Ah batteries with 6" of wet snow if I'm not going
| full ham with the chute speed(who really needs to throw the
| snow 50ft anyway.)
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I initially didn't take the "drain the fuel" advice when I got
| my snowblower, because I never did it for my lawnmower and it
| was fine year after year.
|
| And in its second season, it utterly failed to start. My friend
| gave me a tip to drain the fuel and put some fresh gas with a
| little jet fuel in it, and it started immediately.
| nemo44x wrote:
| You can always stabilize your fuel too and it will last into
| the next season. However, depending on your climate it may be
| worth it to just buy cans of fuel at the hardware store. It's
| much higher quality than what you'll get at a gas station and
| doesn't contain additives, which are very problematic for
| carburetors when left in the tank until the next season. It
| cost more but if you're not blowing snow too often you
| probably won't even notice the cost. They also come in
| smaller cans so you can store nicely if needed.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I only use the high quality hardware store stuff now. I
| simply don't run my snowblower enough for the price
| difference to be meaningful.
| nemo44x wrote:
| It's noticeably better. The engine timing is so good with
| it compared to the gas station stuff meant for fuel
| injected automobile engines. Higher octane and
| compression I believe and the snowblower engine just hums
| and burns clean.
| dalyons wrote:
| Huh. I had the opposite experience, bought some canned
| hardware store fuel for my snowblower out of laziness,
| and it wouldn't even run. Seemed to be too high octane or
| something, kept stalling out. Had to drain it completely,
| put regular gas in and it's fine.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Yeah, back when I lived in Wisconsin I would put fuel
| stabilizer in and I didn't have issues. I would highly
| recommend that over draining the fuel, which just sounds
| like a pain in the ass.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Easiest way is to just let the machine run until it's out
| of fuel. I put a vice grips on the throttle.
| dmckeon wrote:
| One problematic additive is ethanol, often found as 10% of
| gas pump fuel volume. Ethanol absorbs water vapor from the
| air, then settles to the bottom of the gas tank or carb
| bowl, and corrosion or deposits may ensue. Drain tank & run
| engine until carb is dry, or use canned fuel, or add
| stabilizer like SeaFoam and fill tank to the very top.
| Ethanol-free fuel is available, but may be hard to find,
| see: https://www.pure-gas.org/
| mauvehaus wrote:
| I'm torn. I bought a used pressure washer that had been
| drained before storage. The carb bowl gasket and foot valve
| packing were all dried up and the carb was full of schmutz
| from the remaining gas and corrosion from water that had made
| its way in.
|
| I'm recently leaning towards fuel stabilizer and leaving the
| tank full to ensure as little air space as possible for water
| to get in. At least for seasonal storage. Not sure about
| long-term storage since even stabilized fuel is supposedly
| only good for two years.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Yes, I made the mistake of failing to winterize and now I've
| got a tune up job on my hands. Got any good advice there?
| analog31 wrote:
| The thing I have had to do every winter is drop the
| carburetor bowl and spray carb cleaner up through the Jets.
| This means draining the gas into something, which I pre empt
| by draining it in the spring. Also this year I left the carb
| bowl off of it. And use the gas in the mower so you can start
| with fresh gas come winter.
| dugmartin wrote:
| Good tip about blocking the intake/exhaust (I'll do that this
| year). I normally just hand pump out the gas until there is
| just a little left and then start it up and let it run dry. I
| then do an oil change and tape a note over the oil plug that I
| did the oil change as otherwise I'll not remember the next
| Winter.
| itsanaccount wrote:
| Moved to Western Michigan a few years back. I got the tractor for
| the quarter mile drive in case things get real bad but I'll tell
| you my strategy of "don't buy a complicated snow blower, wait for
| it to melt" has so far worked out well.
|
| If you're close to any body that averages out temperatures (Lake
| Michigan, swamps), it melts. People have no idea how fast global
| warming is happening.
| pragma_x wrote:
| It never even occurred to me that the "lake effect" would work
| in the opposite direction. Water's ability to retain heat is
| really amazing.
|
| > People have no idea how fast global warming is happening.
|
| For people that live near the Great Lakes, you may have
| stumbled onto a very compelling bit of evidence. For many,
| "rising ocean temperatures" is a whole world away. Whereas this
| kind of phenomenon is much easier to grasp.
| apercu wrote:
| SW Wisconsin. 7% grade, 300 foot driveway that is exposed to
| North winds. We had a (walking) snowblower and I used that for
| the first winter. It sucked.
|
| With the hill, waiting for a melt isn't possible - there's no
| way to keep control of a car going down that hill, and at the
| base of the drive across the narrow road is a line of mature
| pines. We got very little snow last winter, but what snow we
| did mostly came in a two week window and it was multiple feet
| of heavy snow.
|
| Subcompact diesel tractor with a snowpusher (not a plow).
| Driveway takes no time, and I use the bucket and forklift forks
| all the time. I have a mower deck but I use a little cub cadet
| instead as the tractor (especially with liquid in the back
| tires) is kinda heavy for a "lawn". (I have very little lawn,
| converted the front 3/4 acre to mostly prairie), but I still
| have to mow some.
|
| Every situation is different.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Welcome! I've been here my entire life. That strategy has
| worked for the past several years, but it wouldn't have worked
| when I was a kid.
|
| The average number of days with snow on the ground has been
| decreasing by about 5 days per decade since I was a kid:
|
| https://glisa.umich.edu/resources-tools/climate-impacts/prec...
|
| In the 70s, we had about 75 days each winter with more than an
| inch of snow left on the ground. Last winter, we had barely 20
| (El Nino made it extremely warm) but the average over the past
| decade is currently about 45. It snowed a few times, but always
| melted shortly thereafter. That's a new trend.
|
| I recently got a 36" HDPE blade shovel and will just walk my
| 400ft driveway for 4 or 5 passes in each direction, holding the
| shovel at an angle so the snow rolls off to the right like a
| snowplow - it's really slick (pun intended) and way easier than
| the old scoop-and-throw technique when there's less than an
| inch on the ground. Once a month, I have to start up the
| snowblower and clear a heavy storm and cut back the banks left
| by the shovel, but those are rare. If you just expose a bit of
| pavement, the whole thing is likely to melt in a couple days.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| This is your friendly reminder to never clear a jammed snow
| blower with your hands (or any other part of your body).
|
| Even with the engine stopped, there can be enough energy stored
| in the drivetrain to make a mess of your fingers when it's
| suddenly released.
|
| This reminder is brought to you by the guy I knew who had two
| deformed fingers from two different snow blower jam-clearing
| incidents.
| mikestew wrote:
| _Two_ separate incidents? Some people really _don't_ learn,
| huh?
| shwaj wrote:
| He didn't do it a third time.
| immibis wrote:
| No hands left.
| teslabox wrote:
| I picked up a Honda snowblower for my dad's house this past
| winter. He shares a non-maintained road with his neighbors, and
| for the past few years I've helped them with shoveling. Dad
| always tried to do his part with clearing the snow, but wasn't
| able to shovel this year, so he opened his wallet.
|
| In February I got a call from the snowblower shop that their
| first shipment of wheeled snowblowers had arrived. If I wanted to
| wait they were supposed to be getting a shipment with tracks. I
| measured the percent grade of our driveways and roads and decided
| we needed the tracked version.
|
| Our snowblower arrived two days before a pair of back-to-back
| storms that dumped almost 2 feet of wet, heavy snow. It's a game
| changer. I asked the one neighbor, who'd said previously "the
| only snowblower I'd buy is a Honda" [1], what he thought as he
| was plodding along behind the new snowblower : "You didn't cheap
| out, and it's the right tool for the job."
|
| The other neighbor was out shoveling around their car, to
| hopefully be able to get out for her daughter-in-law's surgery.
| We blasted through the steep part of her driveway. I got a text
| message that night: 'where did you get that thing?'
|
| The advantage of Honda's tracked snowblower over their wheeled
| version is that there's a lever-operated piston that adjusts the
| height, while the wheeled version has no adjustment.
|
| Over those two storms, we probably would have spent at least 12
| hours shoveling (breaks included). The snowblower cleared the
| road in an hour.
|
| As someone says below, it's important to drain the gasoline at
| the end of the winter, so it doesn't gum up over the summer. Even
| if there was a battery-powered two-stage snowblower, why would
| anyone get one? It'd be a waste of lithium.
|
| Edit: When my mom & her husband moved to Flagstaff, their first
| two-stage snowblower was whatever Costco had for sale that
| winter. It worked for a few years, then threw a rod through the
| block on a particularly heavy storm. He returned the unit to
| Costco, read up on snowblowers, bought himself a big Ariens, and
| was completely happy with it.
|
| _His_ Ariens used a motor from Tecumseh. Tecumseh went bankrupt
| around 2008 and got split up [2]. Somewhere I read that Tecumseh
| 's engine manufacturing was relocated to China, and that all the
| post-2009 Ariens use Chinese engines. Someone said the Chinese
| Tecumseh engines aren't so bad, because they got all the IP about
| how to make them properly. Or maybe Tecumseh's engine design was
| obsolete, needed to be redesigned to comply with emission
| regulations, and the new Chinese Tecumseh engines are better. ???
|
| Harbor Freight sells knock-off Honda engines, as their Predator
| engines. There are some youtube videos that compare genuine Honda
| engines to the knock-offs.
|
| Edit2: Found some forum posts that tells of how Honda's approach
| to manufacturing engines has changed over the years [3].
|
| [1] https://powerequipment.honda.com/snowblowers /
| https://www.reddit.com/r/HondaSnowblowers/
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tecumseh_Products#Gasoline_eng... /
| https://www.snowblowerforum.com/threads/made-in-the-usa-vers...
|
| [3] https://www.snowblowerforum.com/posts/1733694/ /
| https://www.snowblowerforum.com/posts/1733738/
| fatnoah wrote:
| > It's a game changer. I asked the one neighbor, who'd said
| previously "the only snowblower I'd buy is a Honda" [1]
|
| My brother in law's family business is small engine sales and
| maintenance. This is his position as well (and now mine, after
| having a Honda snowblower for a few years).
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