I guess it's a seller's market now.

[johnridley]

I tried to sell our snowblower a few months ago, but just got hagglers that wanted me to give it away. Today I posted it for sale again (on the discussion board at work) and it got bought in a few minutes.

Then I went out and shoveled the driveway.

I know for a fact that I cleared it way faster with a shovel than I could have with a blower, and it's probably something like 1/10th the work I do every day to ride my bike to work. Our driveway is about 80 feet long. It took I think about 20 minutes to clear.

Comments

[mrs-sweetpeach.livejournal.com]

"I know for a fact that I cleared it way faster with a shovel than I could have with a blower"

This morning I happened to notice that my next door neighbor began blowing snow off his driveway and sidewalks at the same time I began shoveling my way out to the car. He seemed to be struggling to keep the machine from stalling and I saw him futzing with the part the snow comes out of several times. I used jebra's long-handled grain scoop and cleared off our driveway, walkway, and the sidewalks in the time it took him to do his driveway, a path the width of his snow blower up his walkway, and 3/4 of his sidewalk. I took pity on him and shoveled the remaining quarter. I was in my car and driving to work before he was.

The other thing I like is that shovels are a lot less noisy.

Not to mention my neighbor looked cold as he struggled with his machine. What with the physical labor of shoveling, I didn't get as cold as he looked.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

If there's < 8 inches of snow or so (almost always around here) I love "dozer" type shovels. These are the kind that start at a very shallow angle then swoop up to past vertical. They're made of slippery plastic. If you push them forward relatively fast, they actually throw the snow in front of them. I shovel a single path the length of the driveway first, then turn around and start back; with each step I start with the shovel to the right, handle in my right hand, and push to the left, swiveling around my left foot, ending with my right hand and shovel extended fully to the left. I do about a 16" width every 3 seconds or so; it only takes maybe 5 minutes to work back down the driveway. Usually I put my starter track on the windward side so most of the piled snow is on the leeward side, to reduce drifting. Today it was a bit deep so I went back over it again, and trimmed up a little on the other side.

My blower actually starts easily and runs fine, but just the act of getting it out of the garage, putting gas in it, getting it started, turning it around, backing it up at the end of runs, and putting it away when done takes half as much time as it took me to do the whole driveway, and it doesn't clear snow much faster than my shovel does even when it's actually moving forward and blowing.