Reduced my cylinder count by one....again

About 4 years ago I got tired of dealing with a gas-powered lawn mower and decided to reduce my cylinder count by one and picked up a very nice, new reel mower. Well, after farting around with used snow blowers for far too long, and having my latest used acquisition jump the drive chain. 

I looked into a new 2-stage 'blower to replace the 2-stage I have now, but the entry into that game is about $800!!  So, forget that noise. I picked up an electric snow blower.  This is what is called a hybrid, meaning I can run it on battery power, or a cord. The beauty is, the kids can use it because it's light. There's no issue with my being the only one in the house that can start it. Being quiet (about as loud as a shop vac) I can 'fire it up' early in the morning and not wake the neighbors. Unlike one of my neighbors that fires up his LOUD 2-stroke at 6 am on Saturday or Sunday before he heads out to.....nope. He isn't going anywhere. Just wakes us up for no reason.  

Anyway, The foot of show that got dumped last week is almost all melted. I'll update when there's some snow.

Interested.  I've got a Toro that starts, runs and works pretty well, but it needs to run stupid rich, so I usually end up smelling like your friendly local refinery by the time I'm done with the driveway.  No fumes would be the best part for me.

I wish I could get away with light duty stuff like that. When I need a snow blower, I'm dealing with 4-5' tall drifts. Same with the yard (2 acres) and trimming/mowing.

Bobcougarzillameister said:

I wish I could get away with light duty stuff like that. When I need a snow blower, I'm dealing with 4-5' tall drifts. Same with the yard (2 acres) and trimming/mowing.

They make a two-stage, but I suspect the batteries wouldn't last long enough. 

I'm looking forward to using it. I have 4 months to try it, no questions asked.  

kazoospec said:

Interested.  I've got a Toro that starts, runs and works pretty well, but it needs to run stupid rich, so I usually end up smelling like your friendly local refinery by the time I'm done with the driveway.  No fumes would be the best part for me.

Oh my goodness, I have the same problem.

I've already comitted (in my mind) to switching to a battery powered mower in the spring, maybe this will be something for me next winter.

Looks nice. I wonder if they make one that uses the same batteries as my lawn mower... That would be cool!

Robbie said:

Looks nice. I wonder if they make one that uses the same batteries as my lawn mower... That would be cool!

Oooooh, they do, they do...

Thank you for reinforcing that I could NEVER live in a place with a real winter.

Robbie said:

Robbie said:

Looks nice. I wonder if they make one that uses the same batteries as my lawn mower... That would be cool!

Oooooh, they do, they do...

I have never used one of these, but simple physics tells me that the battery is not going to last long, at all.

ProDarwin said:

Robbie said:

Robbie said:

Looks nice. I wonder if they make one that uses the same batteries as my lawn mower... That would be cool!

Oooooh, they do, they do...

I have never used one of these, but simple physics tells me that the battery is not going to last long, at all.

I've had a battery powered mower for years.  One that does not have a removable battery.  Still works great.

For this- I wish I had more confidence that a battery/electric would be enough- as I have to move my snow twice at some points in my digging.  My driveway is exactly between two houses (we share)- so that section needs to be blown either up or down the driveway, and then sideways into either yard.  So it's hard to see that a electric would be both strong enough and have enough battery to do that for my entire battery.  For a few years, I tried hard with an electric shovel, but it just didn't work.  A nice drop of snow prompted me to invest in a real snow thrower.

As a side note- the size of snow throwing I do is actually quite a bit larger than the mowing I do.  

Maybe when my snow blower dies, the technology will be good enough to do what I need.  That's what happened with the mower, at least.

ooooh! I love simple physics!

Battery: I have two 5AH 40V batteries for my lawn mower. So, 10AH at 40V = 400WH. Say the electric motor is 90% efficient and the gas motor 30% efficient, and with rough numbers the gas motor would need 1.2 KWH of gas to match the output of the electric motor. .0328 gallons of gas, or about 4 oz. WOW!!! Not looking good for the battery.

REALITY CHECK:

The Tesla x uses a 75 or 100KWH battery pack to drive up to 250-300 miles. 100KWH = 2.7 gallons of gas. Regular car would need 10 gallons to do the same (25-30mpg). So if you use the Tesla comparison (rather than my efficiency guesses above), you get a real work output of 100KWH being about equal to 10 gallons of gas. So .4KWH of battery is about equal to .04 gallons of gas, very similar to the number we achieved above.

Now I'm thoroughly amazed that my lawn mower gets through the whole lawn on 1.5 batteries. It's about an hour and a half of me mowing.

I would believe that lawn tools are incredibly inefficient compared to cars engines though, since the amount of fuel used is just so small that even a large percent gain in efficiency is not felt by the normal consumer and therefore not an engineering priority of the lawn tool manufacturer. Plus, I don't know if we have any pre-mix, 2 stroke, magneto-ingition, carb'ed, 4000lb luxury cars to compare the MPG to a Tesla.

I have never owned a snow blower.  It's hard to justify the cost or the garage space for the usual number of real snows we get.  However, my back doesn't like the shovel and this price point is looking more reasonable.  Added bonus for not having another cyclinder to try to maintain properly.  I am looking forward to your continued review.

ProDarwin said:

Robbie said:

Robbie said:

Looks nice. I wonder if they make one that uses the same batteries as my lawn mower... That would be cool!

Oooooh, they do, they do...

I have never used one of these, but simple physics tells me that the battery is not going to last long, at all.

Well, when we get more snow I'll update everyone with my thoughts. Then it'll ne more than calculator work, but real world. 

The reviews I watched had folks moving 4-6" of snow for more than an hour and showing 30% charge left.  

alfadriver said:

ProDarwin said:

Robbie said:

Robbie said:

Looks nice. I wonder if they make one that uses the same batteries as my lawn mower... That would be cool!

Oooooh, they do, they do...

I have never used one of these, but simple physics tells me that the battery is not going to last long, at all.

I've had a battery powered mower for years.  One that does not have a removable battery.  Still works great.

For this- I wish I had more confidence that a battery/electric would be enough- as I have to move my snow twice at some points in my digging.  My driveway is exactly between two houses (we share)- so that section needs to be blown either up or down the driveway, and then sideways into either yard.  So it's hard to see that a electric would be both strong enough and have enough battery to do that for my entire battery.  For a few years, I tried hard with an electric shovel, but it just didn't work.  A nice drop of snow prompted me to invest in a real snow thrower.

As a side note- the size of snow throwing I do is actually quite a bit larger than the mowing I do.  

Maybe when my snow blower dies, the technology will be good enough to do what I need.  That's what happened with the mower, at least.

Not that it's ideal, but you can always get a corded model. Mine can be used corded, or on the battery. 

I didn't want to rely on the battery, but I also wanted the kids not to worry about running over a cord either. 

I wanted to get the two-stage model, but didn't like the entry fee. 

In reply to DrBoost :

The cord would have to be pretty darned long to stretch down my driveway and into the sidewalks.  It's a tough situation I have.

Eventually, I expect the systems to work.  It will be interesting to see your results.

I just shovel and shovel and shovel. I chalk it up to good exercise but occasionally when we get a snowy 3 days in a row where you can finish the driveway and it looks like you haven't done anything.....yeah I could use an electric snowblower for that.

In reply to DrBoost : At age 69&1/2 I’m done with snow. Heart attack and wrenched back  are gone.  

I bought a 4 wheel drive and pack down the snow.  SWMBO decided she would hire a snow plow.  Last  year it cost her $120 for the whole winter this year it hasn’t cost anything. 

Yes I do live in Minnesota 

This just in....Ferrari has reduced their cyli count by 4 in the new exquisite GTC4LUSSOT .....might even see snow some where in the alps??? Oh and this is why i left NeOhio some 35+ years ago and don't miss is it a lick

Back from the ashes, this post. Fast forward 5 years and I live in sunny Florida so snow blowers are a distant memory. I'll update my experiences with it. 
I liked it. I could have loved it though. I liked it because it did the job. If the snow was light, I'd use the battery and it would do my driveway, driveway extension, sidewalk, walk to the front door, and usually me neighbors sidewalk on one battery. If the snow was wet and heavy I'd use the cord. I'd start a path down the middle of the driveway and the cord would follow me. Then I'd go up one side then down the other. The cord always stayed in the path I'd already cleared. 
I'd plug the cord into an outlet on the front of the house to do the walk and sidewalk. The auger direction is power actuated, that's nice. It has a headlight that didn't do much.  

My only gripe was the weight. It's light enough for the kids to use, that's great. but it was too light to get the scraper down to the pavement if anyone had walked or driven on the snow prior to clearing it. I kept meaning to bolt some weight onto it to see if that helped, but it wasn't a huge deal. 

I would absolutely buy one again if I lived in the frozen north again. Quiet, efficient, effective, and 100% trouble free. After 5 years the batteries were showing no signs of degradation.