L3800 to remove snow

[eyi]

Hi all,

I am having good time with my fairly still new l3800 and am now considering what I'll do for snow removal.

My property begins with a 1000 feet pasture, very windy so not a lot of snow there in this part of my road. Rarely more than 1foot.

Then it enters into a sugarbush for 500 feet and there the snow tends to accumulate. A good snow fall over a couple of days could bring easily between 1 and 2 feet of snow.

This is our week-end property so can't clean it up each day.

What do you think, a rear blade and the front end loader is enough or a snowblower?

If it's the snowblower I'd consider the 64 inches one the kubota dealer is proposing. Advices on it?

Thanks

 

[nybirdman]

Because you can't be there every day;a snow-blower is probably the way to go.I like and use a rear blade in tandem with my front blade but I plow as needed.Hard to push wind packed snow and FEL is not the best tool for snow removal.

 

[TerryR]

A rear blade works fine when the snow is under a foot and there is someplace to plow it into. A foot or more, not so much. As nybirdman says, a FEL is not a good tool for snow removal. That big bucket quickly seems very small when you have several hundred yards of two-foot accumulations to move. They work fine for getting into difficult small places, and are OK for longer runs if you only have to deal with that once every few years. I wouldn't want to have plow a road with one regularly.

Terry

 

[Tomtint]

A snow box or a front blade that allows you to angle and stack snow.

 

[compact]

I recently switched from a FEL / rear blade (1/4 mile drive for 18 years) to a 3 point blower last year. You can definitely do it with the loader blade combo but the bank pushback can get time consuming as the blade doesn't give the bank much depth like a pickup does, so the loader gets used frequently to push back the banks, a very slow process for a long drive. Not recommended if you have any kind of ditch. the blower is not as fast as a blade for small storms but for large storms it is superior, plus there are no snow banks to push back or to cause drifting into your drive if there is wind. If you use a blade get good studded ice chains and drive forewards, the backwards plowing is for the birds, IMO, and I spent 99% of my time going forewards, even in deep snow but it was a 54HP tractor with double diamond 9/16" Canadian studded ice chains on 16.9/30 loaded rears and a loader. A 4,000 lb CUT in 2' snow with a rear blade isn't the best tool, IMO, not enough iron to move the snow without spending all day, esp. of you have an icy base. With a blower a 30HP tractor does very well, 2' may be pushing it but you can leave the bottom 6 inches for a second pass.

 

[Will_C]

I was going to post a reply, but I'll save time-Compact's post is worth reading. I don't have a snow blower but will have on someday.

Will