Well I've used blowers a lot. The trouble is, I used the same ones for years. I can only tell you about them. For 5 years, I used blowers for a lot of blowing the toughest kind of snow. What's the toughest kind of snow? The snow that is on the street sidewalk, 18" from the curb, that the road plows pushed up. Everyone agree? Heavy and wet, or frozen solid. A 3" storm means 12" min. of wet cement on the walks. IF you have a long frontage, you have a long time blowing ahead. Even fluffy snow when scooped off the road with all the salt and slush in it is heavy. I did approximately 300 yards of frontage every time it snowed. <br>What did I use? A Sear Craftsman 8 Hp, 26" & 28" 2 stage blowers. The 28" model had the driftbreaker on top. This worked in deep snow, believe me. We had to tunnel sometimes. By that I mean the show was deeper than the auger housing was tall. So we tunnels a foot or two in, then backed out the machine, and a shoveler would cave it in. Then we'd keep tunneling, until the walks were clear. Sometimes took 2 hours alone if it was frozen. That driftbreaker on top helped when tunneling, but was worthless otherwise. The only problems were carb troubles from letting gas sit in them year round, and belts stretched out. I got new carbs and belts my first year there, and stored the machines properly in the off season. They started up no problem. Both were 8 HP Tecumseh motors. Before I worked there they had an old Gilson 2 stage that they said was the best.<br>My blower I use, is a 5 HP 22" Craftsman 2 stage, 10" impeller. It moves slush well, and far. It's a light machine I can lift on and off my truck myself, (I use ramps), it's easy to manuever, and does a good fast job.<br>My brother has a 8 HP 24" Ariens. No offense, but what a hunk of junk. I tried to fix it last year, and it can't be fixed correctly. I can weld it together, but it will present problems. We keep it as a back up blower. It plain sucks. It starts right up with the electric starter. It was the first year Ariens came out with attachments for it.<br>You could remove the auger / impeller housing, and put on a powerbroom attachment. Only 2 bolts. It had 2 hooks on the top, and two tabs for bolts on the bottom. The hooks on top got worn fast. That makes the front and rear of the machine able to move seperately. You can feel it "articulating as you use it. It feels like it's falling apart. I tightened every bolt on that machine, and it's still sloppy, including the handlebars. Some moron welded on a half ass cutting edge, so I had to cut it off and weld on a new one. The friction drive disc wears out too easily. I like the old machines with gear boxes and drive chains. They last.<br>I have a feeling the Ariens would do better with a broom up front. Oh, it blows snow good, just feels like it's ready to explode in the process. Very poor design. <br>As far as large walk behind blowers, the best design I've seen, is the old Toro 12 HP 32". It has a spring loaded cutting edge, a headlight, plenty of power to eat a sunday paper, and electric start. It belonged to a friend, and it saved me when we had a 30" Blizzard.<p>~Chuck<p>----------<br>Chuck's Chevy Truck Pages - Snowplowing Central<br>http://members.aol.com/csmith669/plowcentral.html
