Winter is coming

[Hombre]

It's mid September and Winter is on the way so it's time to start getting ready for snow removal for those of us who live in the less temperate zones. I'm going to be using a 7ft rear mount snow blower and a 7ft hydraulic snow plow for the front. The road to my house is right at a mile from the county road and is gravel. Not a smoothly groomed road by any means as it's private and maintained by me, but it is in "decent" shape, but I have to be very careful when plowing or using the blower to not remove the gravel. I know about the "let the first inch freeze" stuff, that don't work well here as we get to many freeze/thaw times. I should mention a foot or more snow at a time is not at all unusual for us and the ground may not freeze at all. Just trying to give you all an idea of the situation. I've been doing quite a bit of reading/searching about placing a pipe on the cutting edges of (both) a snow blower and a snow plow blade for plowing gravel roads and the results are mixed. One I read about for the plow blade looks promising and that's a pipe on the cutting edge with a piece of heavy rubber (stall mat, of which I have many) bolted on using the cutting edge holes and allowed to "curl" over the pipe, this would seem to keep the cutting edge of the blade from cutting into the rubber material and gravel as you plow. The pipe on the edge of the snow blower seems plausible but pipe size would seem to be important, to big maybe would "ride up" in snow, to small maybe still pick up grave. A long way around just to ask for experience(s) using these or other methods. What's worked for you. Appreciate any information/advice/ideas. Thanks.

 

[Thomas]

Mile long driveway dang,hope you setting in warm cab.

 

[LouNY]

Many times when my driveway is not froze I'll run my backblade backwards so the blade doesn't dig in.
I also have some stall mats available and have considered bolting strips in front of the cutting edge wide enough (10-12 inches) that it would fold under and keep the cutting edge from contacting the gravel. Haven't done so because of the time factor of installing and removing it for the different storms.
If I get to it I may put a strip on my front blade and not the rear blade and see how it all works out.

 

[Hombre]

I think what may be better will be to implement a couple of these ideas I've seen and report back to you guys on how they work for me. I'll do a 2 inch pipe on my plow blade, not sure if I'll leave the cutting edge on or not, AND the stall mat over that for about a 6 inch "overhang" and a piece of pipe over the cutting edge of my snowblower size to be determined but am thinking probably inch and a half. A little experimenting will be in order to try and find the "right" sizes and lengths for my situation.

Should mention that the snowblower weighs a bit over 900lbs, came with skids, they didn't work well in gravel. Welded larger "feet" on the existing skids, 10"x12", was better but just left "bigger" tracks in the road and still allowed the blower to sink into the gravel in soft areas or areas with deeper gravel. Just to let you all know the reason behind this.

 

[oosik]

My Kubota M6040 is open station. I have a full set of Eddie Bauer down - jacket, pants & gloves. I always reverse my rear blade if I have to plow my driveway and it's not rock hard yet. My driveway is a mile long and gravel.

 

[Cougsfan]

I know your challenges well, Hombre. It is REALLY difficult to plow if you have gotten a lot of rain before it snows and the ground is still mushy. Under certain conditions a thick layer of gravel will actually freeze to and stick to the snow while having no adhesion at all to the ground. I have tried modifying skids on my plow with pipes and such with limited success. What has worked best for me is to simply not lower the plow all the way to the ground if the ground is not frozen. It requires paying attention and stopping to re-adjust the plow as the road goes up or down. After a few passes you compact a base layer of snow and you can then usually plow normally. It helps if your skids match the tread width of your vehicle. The first year I plowed I probably shoved 5 truckloads of gravel off our roads. Now I seldom throw any off. I should mention I plow with a truck, which I much prefer over a tractor for plowing. (I go fast enough with the truck to throw the snow, while the tractor is too slow to throw it.)

I just ordered a Woodmaxx 3 point snow blower, and am anxious to see how well it works. I will use my plow primarily and just use the snow blower of the deep drifts that always form in the same places every year.

Also, this may seem obvious, but is easily underestimated: the better shape your road is in going into winter, the easier it is to plow.

Oosik, I usually just wear a lightweight jacket when using my tractor in the winter. Heated cabs are really nice. You could take Brownie with you if you had a cab!

 

[oosik]

Hi Cougsfan. You guys and your cabbed tractors!!! I'm sure Brownie would enjoy riding around with me plowing the driveway. What the heck - he already has control of everything else - including the Taco Wagon. On your new snow blower. Walk your driveway and clear all BIG foreign objects BEFORE the first snow fall. Snow will hide amazing things that will blow shear pins. When I had my first tractor - Ford 1700 - I used a rear mount blower to clear the berms. The Ford was not heavy enough when the berms closed in on the driving lane. I used a rear blade on the Ford also.

The Kubota weighs 10,100# with the FEL mounted grapple and Rhino rear blade. Driveway berms are now a thing of the past. This summer I cleared all the small pines down both sides of the driveway also. It was a real chilling experience, in my open station tractor, to have each and every small pine dump its snow load on me. They would get loaded up - lean into the driveway and just wait for me and the tractor. A mile of fun going each way.

Anyhow - I hope the Cougs can continue their winning streak against UCLA tomorrow. GO COUGS!!!!


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[Hombre]

Mile long driveway dang,hope you setting in warm cab.

No cab. Do have a top on it. I'm thinking about getting a "soft" cab for winter use so I can remove it in summer. I found out that snow blowers on an open station cab gets pretty wet regardless of the wind. Using a front plow/bucket or rear blade is not an issue. Dress warm. There are to many trees on my property that I work around for a hard cab.

 

[Hombre]

As you can see I started this thread back in Sept. looking for any experiences with the methods I had mentioned and had read about. The long story is that not long after posting I went down and had a two inch heavy steel pipe slotted and tack welded to the cutting edge of my front hydraulic snow plow. I then attached a piece of stall mat as mentioned. I said earlier the plow was a 7 footer but it is fact 94" (almost 8) which has no bearing on the issue at all except adding a 94 inch x two inch steel pipe to a 6 inch steel cutting edge becomes very heavy to reinstall by oneself. Got to try it out yesterday. We had a small snow fall of about 4 inches so figured I'd give it a go. Took me a little bit of time to figure out the best angle for the plow (curl part) to give me what I wanted and found that it is right at the same spot that I use on the level rod for a "flat" bucket to ground edge. Once down the driveway and back and the job was done, moved very little rock around and actually smoothed it out a bit in some "heavier" areas. Worked really well. I'm impressed. Hopefully it will work as well with heavier snow falls. If someone is going to give this a shot, I'd recommend using a new stall mat. My first was an old one I've had for years out in the open where the horses were shod. Coming back up the drive one corner started to tear where the mat curved around the pipe. It was just a bit thin and rotted in that area. Cutting one is easy, installing one (12" piece of mat on the blade over the pipe) is a pain in the behind for one guy. Took me two hours for the new one. I think I'm ready for winter..Merry Christmas to all.