Szeifried wrote:
Okay after last nights dumping of 12" of snow, I figure I 'll open the
wallet and get a snowblower.

What I need is the scoop on the good , bad and ugly of what's out there.

I need at least a 10 hp

Thanks ,
Dave

The decision as of whether you want a 10hp or less has to do with how
deep the expected snow fall is and how far you want to throw the snow.
I live in Northern New Jersey where annual snow fall is not that much;
therefore, in theory, I could do well with the 5hp 2-stages snow
thrower that I am currently using. But the configuration of my
driveway cause me to want a larger horsepower snow thrower. Half of my
driveway is quite wide (3 cars wide and 2 cars long), and half of my
driveway is narrow (one car wide). And the wide-part of the driveway
has garage and house in two sides; this means I must throw the snow to
the other two sides; this also means that I have a hard time throwing
the snow from the sides close to the garage and the house because I
will have to throw the snow quite a distance away, and my 5hp snow
thrower cannot throw that far. I will have to use the machine to throw
the same piece of snow multiple times (let say 3 times) to get the snow
to the other side of the driveway. If I had a larger snow thrower, I
probably only need to throw the same piece of snow at most twice. If
the configuration of your driveway is similar to mine, you may want to
read the Consumer Report to see the rating on how far the snow thrower
can throw the snow before buying it.

On the other hand, if your drive way is narrow (one car wide) and you
can throw the snow in both sides of the driveway, you may find that a
5hp snow thrower is more than enough. It should do OK even in deep
snow fall -- but just a bit slow-going and some back and fro.

Good luck finding a snow thrower after a snow fall though.

Jay Chan