Cabs are for wimps

[LoneCowboy]

I mean, i've been on and off tractors since I was 16 years old (20+ years ago), never had a cab, never needed a cab. Just put on a hat and be a man.

But, this winter, while removing snow from the big blizzards, it got a wee cold after being on the tractor for 8+ hours. So, when I ordered my new TN75, I figured we could have at least one tractor with a cab, since this one is big enough to do commercial snow removal.

So, ordered it with a cab and it finally came in about 2 weeks ago. Since then, we've been mowing fields like crazy both with it and the smaller platform tractor

Well, what a difference. I can sit in the cab for 10/11 hours in 90 degree heat and just be slightly tired. 5 to 6 hours of the platform and I'm toast.
Make a huge and dramatic difference in comfort. i was wrong. We're seriously considering getting a compact with a cab (see skid steer vs compact thread below) because it's such a huge difference.

it does make it so you can't get real close to trees (which you shouldn't be doing anyway) and it's definately feels tippier on slopes but overall, dramatic difference.

I was wrong, I like my cab, it's worth the extra money.

 

[VABlue]

I bet you do like it. I don't have anywhere near your experience on tractors, but have renovated a couple of fields back in the day. Even then, much younger, I felt it in the heat. Can you get a cab for your other machine without buying new?

 

[N80]

I'm a wimp then! Spent Saturday afternoon in 97 degree heat plowing a dusty little food plot on an open station CUT. AC and iTunes would have been real nice.

But, not only could I not afford a cab, and there isn't one for my model anyway, I do a lot of work in and around woods so a cab really isn't an option.

My farmer neighbor, about 50 now, has no cabs on any of his machines. In fact his larger tractor, which he bails and pulls a spreader with, doesn't even have a canopy...or ROPS for that matter. It would be so much easier on him if he would get something newer with a cab. The older he gets, the harder it gets on him. Cold isn't a big deal. It's mostly the heat and the dust.

 

[redlevel]

I can sit in the cab for 10/11 hours in 90 degree heat and just be slightly tired. 5 to 6 hours of the platform and I'm toast.

Every one I know who has farmed down here probably has thousands of hours at 95 degrees plus, mostly sitting astride a hot transmission without even a canopy.

Two out of the last three years I had to stop the tractor and get in what shade the baler offered after baling hay for several hours in 100 degree plus temps. I had a canopy and plenty of water, but in both instances, I suddenly got dizzy and didn't think I could make it to the barn.

Ninety to ninety-five degrees is just good peanut plowing weather. When it gets much above 95, it starts getting serious. I admit, however, if I was going to farm for a living now, I would have cab tractors.

I guess I'm just not the man I used to be. To tell the truth, I never was.

 

[EastTexFrank]

I must be getting wimpier as I get older. I've reached the time in life where I don't do things the hard way anymore just because I can. Unfortunately, around the house, there are just way too many trees to have a cab, but it sure would be nice. Where we need a cab tractor is at the farm but that's not going to happen any time soon. My M-I-L and S-I-L don't want a cab tractor for some reason. They like to see me covered in dust and chaff, sweating like a pig and picking bugs out of my teeth. For years I used a MF275 with a cab but no functiong A/C until it got to the stage where I got too old and refused to use it. They had no idea what it was like spending 6 or 8 hours in a mobile greenhouse and they wouldn't let me take a cutting torch to it or remove all the glass. I took a thermometer in it with me one day and it went offscale at 120 degrees. Eventually they did replace it with a new Kubota and they did put a canopy on it for me. I argued long and hard for that cab but lost out in the end. Ah well, maybe soon I'll join the rest of you "gentlemen farmers", sitting in a cab with COOL air and the radio blaring. It gives me something to dream about when it's a 100 degrees outside.

 

[Jay4200]

I was wrong, I like my cab, it's worth the extra money.

Wimp.

JayC

 

[riptides]

Heat is a major factor for me, Bugs are the secondary cab desire.

-Mike Z. (wimp wanna-be)

 

[mikeyd]

Then call me a wimp....I love my cab, especially when it's below zero and the wind is howling. Nothing like plowing snow in a tee shirt.

 

[VABlue]

I gotta say, growing up in Michigan and visiting my grandparents in the Thumb region, I never saw a tractor without a cab. Well, not anything you would take into a field, anyway. I know why, too... Many a Friday night I spent listening to tractors harvesting beats and combines picking corn while freezing my butt off at football games. No way would anyone want an open platform on a cold October night in Michigan!

 

[Z-Michigan]

I'm in Michigan. I didn't shop cabs at all due to price and being my first tractor. Got it in February and I can deal with the cold while moving snow off my 1000' driveway. Working now and I can usually work around the heat. But if I choose to work at 11am on a sunny day I get fried. Much worse, when I'm mowing it seems no combination of allergy meds keeps me from having a sneezing fit that lasts hours. My next tractor will definitely have a cab.

I have four "real farmer" neighbors within a mile. All have an assortment of cab and non-cab tractors. Seems the non-cabs are being used for planting and utility work, and the cab models, which are mostly bigger 150+ hp, are being used for the tilling, spraying and other tasks.

 

[Builder]

I wouldn't buy anything bigger than 35HP without a cab. It's not about being a wimp, it's about being SMART. Say goodbye to skin cancer, West Nile virus, lyme disease, lung ailments, cold in winter, extreme heat in summer, having to quit because of rain and feeling like you're dead at the end of the day.

Yep, it's worth every penny to have a cab for this WIMP. You increase production, increase resale value and preserve your health over the life of the tractor.

 

[LoneCowboy]

I wouldn't buy anything bigger than 35HP without a cab. It's not about being a wimp, it's about being SMART. Say goodbye to skin cancer, West Nile virus, lyme disease, lung ailments, cold in winter, extreme heat in summer, having to quit because of rain and feeling like you're dead at the end of the day.
.

yep
that's what I've learned.
so has the wife though, so we might have to get another tractor with a cab so I get one.

 

[lawn_king]

I love my kubota factory cab. I wouldnt buy a tractor without a cab. I ran open station machines for 2 decades, purchased a curtis cab in 2002, then jumped up to the factory cab in 2005. I boom sprayed 110 acres of national cemetery with another kubota last week. Two 12 hour days (seat time), the AC & stereo made it enjoyable work!

 

[wolc123]

Those of you who want a cab maybe should try a canopy first, especially on a CUT where hp and the ability to run an effective AC is limited. A little shade goes a long way towards making work more pleasant on a tractor under the hot sun. A canopy does not obstruct your vision and allows unobstructed air flow so you get full advantage of the cool breeze. My previous brush hog tractor had one while the new one did not and after a few times cutting under the hot sun there was no doubt I needed a top. I made one in about an hour with a wooden frame, metal supports and a canvas cover, total cost about $10. I sized it just right for my tractor and can remove it or put it back on with four bolts in under five minutes to enable folding down the roll bar (One of my barns has low doors that I must enter on occasion). Many of the factory and aftermarket canopies I have seen are too small and poorly fitted to provide adequate shade. Mine is approximately 5.5 ft wide, 8 ft long, and 20 in deep and it does a heck of a job at blocking the sun even when at a low angle. Certainly there is a a place for a cab, and in my opinion that would be on tractors over 60 hp that are operated long hours. Of course the canopy does not help with bugs, cold or music, but to me that stuff is nothing compared to that hot sun.

 

[JoeinTX]

Spent much time on both and I'm a wimp too. For me, smaller tractors (anything under 60hp or so) are preferred without a cab due to close work around trees and other structures where visibility and easier on/off is needed. Tractors these size are generally utility in nature rather than for extended periods of field time. For truly long field stints bigger tractors are in order and they need a cab.

Here, a simple canopy top is preferrable to a non A/C cab on a tractor.......the amount of heat and lack of airflow in a metal and glass box without any air is worse than the dust and bugs and so on.

 

[mjncad]

Call me a proud wimp; but I want a cab! If Deere offered a cab in the States back in 2001 when I bought my 4200, I would have ordered one no questions asked. Deere did offer a cab for the 4200 in Europe.

I bought a Curtis Cab for my Deere; but it arrived damaged as Curtis doesn't package things well, so it went back to Massachusetts. When I found the Femco canopy I have now, the design was such that I said I can build a cab for it if I get better at metal working and buy more tools... . The FEMCO canopy makes a big difference in keeping the hot sun off of me and it is a good investment.

Adding heat to a CUT equipped with a cab is doable; but the cooling part is a bigger problem due to limited HP and under hood space.

I've looked at Deere's new cab tractors and I want one, though financially it's not doable at the moment.

I do know I am tired of eating dust and dirt and having the wind blow in my face. Freezing my butt off this past winter just reinforces my desire to be a wimp in a cab. Heck, I don't drive my car and truck with the windows down as that is what A/C is for.

 

[Turbys_1700]

Those of you who want a cab maybe should try a canopy first, especially on a CUT where hp and the ability to run an effective AC is limited. A little shade goes a long way towards making work more pleasant on a tractor under the hot sun. A canopy does not obstruct your vision and allows unobstructed air flow so you get full advantage of the cool breeze. My previous brush hog tractor had one while the new one did not and after a few times cutting under the hot sun there was no doubt I needed a top. I made one in about an hour with a wooden frame, metal supports and a canvas cover, total cost about $10. I sized it just right for my tractor and can remove it or put it back on with four bolts in under five minutes to enable folding down the roll bar (One of my barns has low doors that I must enter on occasion). Many of the factory and aftermarket canopies I have seen are too small and poorly fitted to provide adequate shade. Mine is approximately 5.5 ft wide, 8 ft long, and 20 in deep and it does a heck of a job at blocking the sun even when at a low angle. Certainly there is a a place for a cab, and in my opinion that would be on tractors over 60 hp that are operated long hours. Of course the canopy does not help with bugs, cold or music, but to me that stuff is nothing compared to that hot sun.

That's exactly what I did, except I blew the budget and purchased a real nice Firebird fiberglass canopy colored in white. Tremendous difference in temps here in hot NC in the summer. With my Tilley hat and little breeze 90 degree days are now bearable.

 

[Offy]

Hot rods, Harleys and "roadster" tractors are some of the better things that life has to offer, but I don't ride 'em for a livin' or in real cold weather either. If you ride a tractor for 50+ a week to put groceries on the table then a cab may be in order. I only ride when I want to and a cab wouldn't work for me.

 

[TrippleT]

I posted this picture once before. But, with the heat and humidity here, if I ever bought another tractor I would want a cab. I built the canopy, put a rear view mirror, and a fan on the canopy I think the next thing is going to be a radio. It does make a huge difference especially at my age.
The canopy top was made from a flexible plastic that I bought at Larry Shaw race car factory. And even if it gets bent you can pretty much straighten it out with your hands. It isn't as rough as this picture seems to depict because the color doesn't show on the top from the angle I took the picture from. The second picture shows it better.
When I built the canopy I built a light frame of channel then put two pieces of insulation inside the frame. It is a life saver for me.
I guess at this stage you can call me a wimp because I would love to have a cab and air. However, I figure this is my last tractor, so will have to make do with what I have.

 

[riptides]

TrippleT That's a great idea.

semi-wimpy

-Mike Z.