Small Tractor reco - Primarily for snowblowing long drive

[Cycledude]

Is the driveway gravel or is it paved ?

 

[John Joseph McVeigh]

Is the driveway gravel or is it paved ?

My driveway, which is approximately 500 metres long, is paved. In certain spots, it needs repaving. It also has three fairly steep slopes. The steepest slope is 14° (~ 24%), and contains an S-curve.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

A small SCUT for the driveway and ancillary tasks. You have two acres to maintain? Get a ZTR to mow. Seriously, mowing with a tractor in an area that small, around a home, buildings, trees, would be terribly inefficient. Our lawn alone is 2 acres, and the 72” ZTR does it in about an hour. The mower is light, so the ground isn’t as compacted, rutted… we have a 48Hp tractor for the other 6 acres of property.

 

[beenthere]

To each their own, and I find no real need for a ZTR and get along great with a 54" deck on my JD 455 AWS. Trees and rolling lawn and embankments yield to the lawn tractor, IMO. Some of the 6 acres of lawn would lend itself to a ZTR, but only about 2 at most. Add to that a lawn roller, sprayer combo, broom, blade, and towing then the lawn tractor again comes out ahead for me.
I've tried to justify getting a ZTR, but in the end it just doesn't pencil out.

 

[CalG]

Kubota B series.
Turf tires and cross link snow chains.

 

[Templecruiser]

I bought a
Kioti cx2510 cab with a Berco front snowblower with loaded tires for under $36k. I will also mainly use for snow.

 

[John Joseph McVeigh]

To each their own, and I find no real need for a ZTR and get along great with a 54" deck on my JD 455 AWS. Trees and rolling lawn and embankments yield to the lawn tractor, IMO. Some of the 6 acres of lawn would lend itself to a ZTR, but only about 2 at most. Add to that a lawn roller, sprayer combo, broom, blade, and towing then the lawn tractor again comes out ahead for me.
I've tried to justify getting a ZTR, but in the end it just doesn't pencil out.

A zero-turn near a stream or pond embankment can all too easily turn into a death sentence. A fellow who mows my neighbors' lawn lost one of his best friends in exactly that fashion.

My property has much to much in the way of slopes to ever allow me to use a zero-turn. However, the hinged chassis of the Ventrac does give me a pretty sharp turning radius.

 

[shooterdon]

You will hate taking the MMM on and off. My neighbor has a JD 2 series and hates having to switch over from mower to blower.

MMM's are not cheap. Get a ZT for $4k and have the right tool for the job.

Now look at what your tractor needs are.

Buying a tractor to handle 50 cm (nearly 20") of snow is silly unless that is a "regular thing". That might happen once every 3 years in most areas, and it will not be a surprise. Get out there after every 6-10" and clear it in stages.

I have used a pickup truck, back blade, front blade and inverted blower. All have their pluses and minuses. My buddy uses a snow pusher and he loves it, but he has space to push snow. BTW we get 120-140" per year.

If you have a flat road with no ditches, and space to push snow a pusher is not a bad choice. There are no moving parts, no PTO issues, and you do not need a third function like you do on a front blade for angle changes. And no turning around looking at the back end with a normal blower or rear blade. Add a backdrag to the pusher and you can clear within inches of a wall or door.

 

[90cummins]

Snow blowing can require a lot of hp, more than most tasks. Depending on the amount of snow you get per storm I would suggest no less than 30pto hp with a 60” snow blower. If it’s hydrostatic you can get away with less but it may be slow going.
That’s a long driveway & could take 3or4 passes to clear. That could make for a miserable job with an open cab & marginal hp or exceptionally long task.
Good luck

90cummins

 

[John Joseph McVeigh]

Snow blowing can require a lot of hp, more than most tasks. Depending on the amount of snow you get per storm I would suggest no less than 30pto hp with a 60” snow blower. If it’s hydrostatic you can get away with less but it may be slow going.
That’s a long driveway & could take 3or4 passes to clear. That could make for a miserable job with an open cab & marginal hp or exceptionally long task.
Good luck

90cummins

My Ventrac 4500Y generates 25 hp, and that seems adequate to the task. The front-mounting snow-blower attachment that is designed to work with the tractor is 52 inches wide and is a two-stage unit. It can throw snow anywhere between 25 and ~ 75 feet, depending upon the consistency of the snow and the direction of the wind. (It's always better to have the wind as your friend.) That's enough to get the driveway clear, even in the worst case. (Most of the driveway is 12 feet wide.)

Although we did not get much in the way of snow last year, I have learned that if we are going to receive a substantial amount of snow.... say, 12 inches or more, it actually takes less time, in the aggregate, if I go out half-way through the storm, make three passes (the first pass down to the road, traversing the middle of the driveway, and then back one side, and then back down on the other side) to get down to bare pavement, and then go out again when the storm has ended. The snow-blower attachment can handle as much as 20 or 22 inches of snow, especially if fitted with the auxiliary auger. However, the cross-sectional area of the chute is constant in size, and that is the limiting factor. All of the snow that the bucket scoops must pass through that chute. As the snow gets deeper, it is possible to overfeed the chute and cause the snow to spill out of the front of the bucket. In that situation, one must reduce the forward rate of travel so that the scoop does not deliver more snow to the impeller than the chute can handle. If moving 10 or 11 inches of snow, one can travel significantly more quickly than one can travel if one has to disperse twice the depth of snow. So, even though the complete job breaks down into two blowing sessions, those two sessions end up taking less time than only one session that would have to remove the total accumulation in one fell swoop.

It would be nice to have a cab, but then I would have to store it in the warmer months. I would not want to leave it on year-round because it raises the center of gravity of the tractor.

Yes, I have eaten some snow from time to time, especially when the wind is constantly changing direction. A transparent face shield such as that which comes on some hard hats can help one avoid eating snow, but such a shield usually fogs up, and therefore is of limited usefulness. An electrically heated face shield would be more useful. I'm not sure if anyone makes one. I've been tempted to try making my own using a suitably sized metal power resistor from my electronics-equipment spares bin, a length of two-conductor cable, some thermally conductive adhesive, and an electrical plug to tap into the tractor's on-board electrical system.

As things are, I use a Carhartt insulated ensemble... a hooded jacket, a pair of pants, and a pair of gloves. I've thought about trying electrically heated clothing, but we had so little snow last year and during the year before that I really wasn't out in the great outdoors that long. By contrast, the first Winter that I had the tractor (2014-2015), there was just one snowstorm after the other, including two two-foot blizzards spaced about a week apart. That's when I learned that it is better to conduct two sessions, the first one half-way through the storm, than to wait until the end of the storm and then have to deal with the total accumulation.

The only exception to the above-stated rule is if the snow is slated to turn into freezing rain. In that case, it is better to deal with a crust of ice on the top of the snow than to deal with a layer of ice on the pavement and possibly a layer of snow on top of the ice to add to the fun. Please don't ask me how I learned that particular lesson. ;-)