Due to climate change we haven’t had winters like we had in the past. In fact the last two winters had such little snow that I shoveled the driveway by hand. And my son’s cross-country ski team had to deal with cancelled and delayed meets. Even this year practices early in the season were mostly running and training in the gym or skiing on a dusting of snow on the artificial turf of the football field.
But now in mid-February we got a string of snow storms that dumped a couple of feet of snow on us. I’ve been keeping the deck, driveway and front walk clear of snow using a good old fashioned shovel – which is great exercise and a nice and quiet way to enjoy the silence of a snowy day but also with an electric snow shovel and an electric snow blower.
My electric shovel is probably 12 years old now. I got it originally for vacation house in the North Conway area. My electric snowblower is more recent. After dealing with a gas powered, noisy, hard to start and frequently breaking down snow blower for years, I sold it at a yard sale and got this electric one.
We had a long driveway in Maine so the gas powered blower was required but here in New Hampshire the entire driveway is reachable by a long electric cord. The gas blower was two stage and more powerful then the electric blower but so far I haven’t run into any storm that it can’t handle, as long as you go slow. The gas blower will chop through anything with its metal blades while the electric blower is made of hard plastic and is designed for smaller jobs. But still its been fine and best of all its quiet and starts immediately. Plus there is no gas to mix and spill.
If you have a smaller area to blow and don’t have killer storms, I highly recommend an electric snow blower and shovel.