OH, I don't have the money to hire anyone and I'm in the middle of nowhere and we have DAILY blizzards, PLUS I love plowing so hiring someone is out of the question. All I want to know is whats the best equipment for the job.

 

Mike,

I know what you are talking about i live just north of you about an hour.we go to tug hill on the sleds alot.Ithink your best bet is to got a v plow it will slice right though the snow in the v posession. what make and size truck do you have. A v should only be mounted on a 3/4 ton or larger

 

A 1 ton with a v plow will be able to handle these type of conditions??I'm just making sure you understand what the conditions are like)
The drifts can get up to 25 feet alongside the road during the harshest winters. You'd have to knock all that snow down. A 1 ton wouldn't move an inch in a 25 foot drift.
Am I wrong?
This is some serious stuff here.
Plus, you have to be able to move the snow on top of each other so its possible to have drifts 50 feet high during the 'harshest of the harsh' winter. Also, snow on the tug tends to fall at HUGE AMOUNTS at one time, which makes plowing 6 feet of freshly fallen possibly wet snow for 1 and 1/2 miles hard.
This is what a guy said who lived there. He couldn't cover 800 feet(just his driveway) with a 3/4 ton with chains, forget 1 and 1/2 miles(HE DIDN'T HAVE A V PLOW THOUGH). I was thinking of some kind of heavy machinery like a agricultural tractor with a huge plow or something else???
If a 1 or 3/4 ton can do it, FANTASTIC!
Thanks ahead.

Also, obviously since this is a private road, I can take any type of equipment on it.

 

I feel like I just stepped through the looking glass....

Where am I, Alice ??

Sounds like an Oshkosh 6 wheel drive truck might be the ticket. You can pick them up at municipal auctions for chump change in the spring as most people don't know what it is and what it will do. Oshkosh has parts for anything they ever built too.

I know a fellow south of Chicago that has a major league snowblower for sale that mounts on a truck (if he still has it). It's huge, although I don't know particulars. He might just deliver it to you too. Good guy. Honest person and won't sell you junk. If you're interested, email me off forum and I'll give you his name and phone number.

600 inches..... my God, why would you intentionally move to such an area ??

 

Thanks for the info.
Why would I move there?, I'm a SNOW NUT!
I wish it was 2000 inches.
Anyway, I was just finding out what I needed because I'm deciding whether or not to buy land that has a 1 mile private drive. I wouldn't be ready to buy that snow blower right now, I'm buying the land this spring, building a home, then next spring buying a farm about 20 miles away from there and then moving in to my home I had built last spring and then I will need the equipment to plow the road.

I don't want to buy the land and then find out I need a $50,000 truck to clear my road!

Just for info, how much does that truck usually run?

 

OH, tru cut, if your sledding the tug, check out my site at:
http://www.geocities.com/tughillweather

 

Farm tractor with rear snow blower would work fine for this, that is what they use here in Iowa for long drives.

 

I think you are going to have to plow every 6-8" with a pickup or 1 ton truck,and hire out a blower or big truck to blow back the banks twice a month or so.Maybe a big 2-3 yd loader would do a good job,and allow you to let it build up if you had to and still be able to handle it.To blow back banks a 3ph snowblower would work well,and they arent to expensive,but driving in reverse for 3 miles wouldnt be fun or good on the neck.As for anything being cheap,even if you get an old cheap truck,when it breaks,it will be $$$$ or youll have to get rid of it and buy another.If you go that way,you need to know how to do your own work on most stuff.

 

It is gravel right?

A cat D6 dozer, with inclosed cab. Will hadle the job no problem, once the ground is frozen, the cat will out scrape cleaner than any truck plow on the market.

Geoff

 

I go sledding in a town called turin on the hill and most of the guys up there use their farm tractors with a rear snowblower to clear their driveways.

 

Just put a plow on that Kenworth daily driver of yours... http://www.lawnsite.com/showthread.php?threadid=4229

 

Or lease a backhoe from heartz. Case 580 4X4, 300 a week, i bet you could rent one for the whole winter for a good rate.

Then just buy a blade for it, a used highway plow would work, and your set. You got a good dependable backhoe, if it breaks they bring you another one. You don't have to worry about pushing back banks because the case will do it.

Geoff

 

oh yea, forgot this was the guy with the kenworth. That kenworth should work great for this application, but a frink plow on it and you will be ready to rock.

Does this place really exist?

Geoff

 

Like I said...

Alice in Wonderland.....

 

Actually the place really exists and boasts 200" - 300" of snow per year with a record breaking 466" in '77. I would go with the D-6.

 

Definately a BAD smell to this thread, kinda reminds me of the perch I left in the boat for a week.

 

This guy comes here once a month just to yank our chains. We are much to friendly to such person who really doesnt deserve it.

 

Mike hows it going we've missed you,how the fuel prices affecting that daily commute?

 

Mike,

My brother rides his sled there all the time. Here's a pic of a truck mounted blower. It's at a lodge there (in Booneville). He has no trouble keeping up with the snow with this blower.

http://www.snowplowing-contractors.com/blower.html

~Chuck

 

"Actually the place really exists and boasts 200" - 300" of snow per year with a record breaking 466" in '77. I would go with the D-6."

Its very confusing about that record. The record was taken in a town called copenhagen
That record 466 was measured in a place thats NOT on the tug. I have the tug hill climate on my site at geocities.com/tughillweather/climate.html.
They've only been talking co-op observations for montague(town that is acutally on the tug in direct line of the lake effect compared to boonville which only averages 225) for a couple of years, they recently measured 414. The first year they had a co-op weather station, they almost broke a world record 24 hour snowfall with 77 inches in 24 hours and a newe york state record of 95 inches in one storm!. Montague averages about 330 inches and therefore record snowfall in a 50 year climatic period would easily hit 600 inches.

Thanks for the pic chuck.
For the idiots mocking me:
This is a serious thread, check out tughillregion.com.
As for the kentworth, I sold it.
I got a brand new Freightliner century class sst, its gorgeus and much safer, it has air bags and everything. I deliver newspapers with it and use it as a daily driver, why get a second vehicle to pick up grocerys?

[Edited by Mike_Smith on 12-01-2000 at 04:39 AM]

 

I will not be reading this thread anymore. My head gets to spinning, my knees get weak, and the thoughts of all that snow gives me a headache.

 

Me too. Because anybody that would consider the guys posting on this thread "idiots" might be in need of some self reflection. After reading posts by, meeting in person, corresponding via E-mail, & talking by phone with these guys, the last descriptive word that comes to mind for any of them is idiot.

 

Running a good snowplowing buisness doesn't neccesarily mean their good people or smart at anything besides running their buisness. They can have no common sense, yet be smart when it comes to buisness. They can also be jerks when someone asks a simple question. If you don't like the question, don't answer. The longer time you spend in usenet and message boards, the quicker you'll learn this.

 

Well....

I guess WE'VE all been told !

 

Consider yourself "Told"!

Mike, from all indications you have nothing better to do than waste time and bandwidth online. From the very first you have brought up subjects that literally scream "BOZO!" While you may think you are making serious posts the rest of us see you as either just being a nuisance or being dumb as a box of rocks. By the way, do those 50' drifts melt or do they just glaciate and slip slowly into the nearest watershed?