Let's see those plow trucks

[Billy Goat]

Hire it out.


If I got home from traveling and had 14" of snow the last thing I would want to do is park the truck and walk my driveway back to the house.

Also the tractor will need to be plugged in for a period if you go that route, assuming it's cold. So you are looking at coming home, driveway is plowed shut, park vehicle, walk thru snow, plug tractor in.....

Wait 2 hours, then start tractor to go move snow.

And walking in 10"+ of snow generally isn't too much fun without being dressed for it, and knee high plus really sucks, dressed or not.

 

[Dust Rider]

a compact tractor is a good investment. They can run mowers, mini backhoe, landscape and it’s just nice to have a bucket to move snow piles, wood, dirt or throw forks on it to lift heavy stuff around house. A 200’ drive will take a little time. A blower on front of tractor running off PTO is a great option. A good pair of winter pack boots and Gore Tex snow gear will be your most important snow investment going from Texas to Wyoming.

 

[Wmmichael20]

400 feet of driveway to clear,got rid of walk behind in favor of this.

 

[KineKilla]

Plowed parking lots for over 12 years. Always drove either a ram2500 or an F250.

These days I use this at home and no longer plow lots.

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[jKsled]

I see consistent snow where I live, maybe 60" a year, and have 1/2 mi driveway up a steep hill to the house - i plow it with a four wheeler now. I use chains on the rears and 4 bags of sand on the racks. It works fine, I never lack for power, only traction.

The shape of your driveways matter a lot. Since mine is long I can keep speed up. The area by the house (50ft) takes me as long to plow as the long length (1/2 mi) because of all the backing up and going back and forth.

My next purchase will be a sxs for plowing. A little more weight helps push better, wider plow, and no wear and tear on my truck. I used to use the skidsteer with a normal bucket but it was terrible on the long stretch. For $6.5k for a full plow atv setup I would go this route again because you can use it all summer too.

For driveways under 100ft I would just get a nice 2 stage snowblower.

 

[North Woods]

Man, I miss moving snow! Occasionally, I get to shovel a few inches of snow out of my driveway now. I grew up plowing 500 feet of driveway on a Craftsman garden tractor with a 4 foot blade and a couple of sandbags on a rack off the back. Always wanted a plow truck or real tractor! Nice toys everyone!

 

[wytx]

Ok...so since you guys live with this white powdery stuff i got a question. Moving to wyoming....from Texas. Will be travelling 50% of time so high likelihood of driving up and having 2 weeks of accumulation. What do I need to be able to effectively clear out this this stuff if it packs down. Figure 200ft pea gravel road to the house. Running f150 as my normal driver. Trying to start figuring out what I need.

Snow fence is your friend and you'll want a tractor with a bucket and a blade for the back end. Do some brush and tall grass management along your driveway also.
A bigger utv with a plow blade might work as well, get some tracks for it.
Your drive will either drift in or blow clear, hope for the latter.

 

[rayporter]

there can be a huge learning curve when it comes to moving snow.
most of the tricks have already been mentioned, but putting them together is the key.

this last week my nice new 45 hp tractor was helpless when the old farmall i used to have would have walked right through it. weight matters!

i put the tiller on the back and found an ad for 3 pair of chains for sale and bought all three pair for 300 bucks. looks like i will have trouble selling the ones i dont need but thats life. but i could push snow after that. if i still lived up north i would make many changes.

good luck

 

[gbflyer]

Starting to go down the plow rabbit hole now. Anyone have a plow on their daily driver? How much trouble to take it on and off?

Don’t put a plow on any light truck (read pickup) that you like. It will destroy it. The pro guys that use them all day work on them all night.

 

[ThisIsMyHandle]

Starting to go down the plow rabbit hole now. Anyone have a plow on their daily driver? How much trouble to take it on and off?

No clue what you plan to use it for or your scenario but I wouldn’t put a plow on any daily driver regardless of the truck unless you have a mechanical background. Carrying a plow and plowing with it puts a lot of abuse on your truck. Even if you’re a careful driver. I’m 42, I’ve plowed every winter since I was 18. Used pick ups, mason dumps, CDL dumps and all sizes of front loaders. Broken all sorts of shit over the years. Plowing with your daily driver isn’t worth it. Save the daily driver for driving daily and get a second truck to plow with.


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[zion zig zag]

No clue what you plan to use it for or your scenario but I wouldn’t put a plow on any daily driver regardless of the truck unless you have a mechanical background. Carrying a plow and plowing with it puts a lot of abuse on your truck. Even if you’re a careful driver. I’m 42, I’ve plowed every winter since I was 18. Used pick ups, mason dumps, CDL dumps and all sizes of front loaders. Broken all sorts of shit over the years. Plowing with your daily driver isn’t worth it. Save the daily driver for driving daily and get a second truck to plow with.


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Even for just plowing my own driveway? 200 foot long with average of 100-120 inches a year. 3/4 ton truck. Right now I'm paying a guy $35 per push because I'm not there full time yet and I'll probably spend around $1000 for that. I was thinking I'd break even in a few years and then be ahead after that.

 

[ThisIsMyHandle]

Even for just plowing my own driveway? 200 foot long with average of 100-120 inches a year. 3/4 ton truck. Right now I'm paying a guy $35 per push because I'm not there full time yet and I'll probably spend around $1000 for that. I was thinking I'd break even in a few years and then be ahead after that.

10 feet is a shit ton of snow. That’s a lot of plowing. If you’re dead set on it, I’d look at Fisher plows. Now, I’m biased, they’re a New England company and I’m a New England guy. But they’re really the best out there. I’ve had nothing but trouble with the newer Boss plows. They were good back in the day but they went downhill after Toro bought them. IMO. I don’t have any experience with Western or Blizzard(they might be reliable) and those plastic ones are F’ing junk. If you got a really common 3/4 ton pick up (2500hd or f250) then you’ll be able to find a used plow on Craigslist pretty easily. Regardless of the manufacturer.


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[Broomd]

 

[rayporter]

lots of snow removal stuff on tractorbynet.

Snow Equipment Owning/Operating - Pictures of your snow weapons

Thanks to some advice on this thread, here is my upgraded Snow Removal Tool. For the past 6 years, I've had an open station and front mount plow, which was fine for about 80% of snow we can get in the snow belt of upstate NY. This year i added the Original Tractor Cab and the Woodmax...

www.tractorbynet.com

 

[gbflyer]

Even for just plowing my own driveway? 200 foot long with average of 100-120 inches a year. 3/4 ton truck. Right now I'm paying a guy $35 per push because I'm not there full time yet and I'll probably spend around $1000 for that. I was thinking I'd break even in a few years and then be ahead after that.

You’ll put $5K plus installation in a good plow with a quick attach setup. Then you’ll start buying front end parts for the truck. You’re not going to take it on and off every time you go to town even if it takes a couple of minutes. Up is harder on the chassis than down. 120” annually is a lot of snow. Sounds like a blower is in order. But by all means get yourself a pickup plow for your 200’ of driveway. You seem to want to argue with folks who do it.

 

[zion zig zag]

You’ll put $5K plus installation in a good plow with a quick attach setup. Then you’ll start buying front end parts for the truck. You’re not going to take it on and off every time you go to town even if it takes a couple of minutes. Up is harder on the chassis than down. 120” annually is a lot of snow. Sounds like a blower is in order. But by all means get yourself a pickup plow for your 200’ of driveway. You seem to want to argue with folks who do it.

Man, ask questions and it comes across as arguing? Wasn't my intent. I'm just genuinely trying to figure this out. So do you (and others who know) recommend just keep paying someone to do it? Sounds like the break even isn't nearly as soon as I thought.

 

[mtnbiker208]

I have had my daily driver with a plow for 20 years. There is always trade offs. But i have parking lot to plow in town that is 20 miles from my house. There are times when winter is going good i am living in my truck plowing my business out in the morning and my home out in the evening.

plows are hard on things, but i am hard on things and i seem to replace the truck every 6 years and the plow every 2 trucks. I start new and wreck them from there.

 

[eoperator]

In 2011 I bought a new gmc 2500 diesel with new 9' boss plow one of the best investments I've made. Before that I had beater plow trucks that I spent more time fixing than using. A couple weeks ago I ordered a new gmc duramax to replace my old truck that is getting a bit tired, but damn that new setup is spendy!