Saturday, January 18, 2020

Snow Joe: Not Ready For Prime Time

As I've written before, I have a Snow Joe Pro Model snow blower.

They were rather over-optimistic (or outright lying) calling it a pro model, or even a snow blower for that matter.

Today with 2-3 inches of packing snow down, it would immediately clog every single push and shut itself off moving less than even a foot before clogging up, becoming a snow pusher rather than a snowblower.

While it works for dry powdery snow, any packing snow makes it absolutely useless.

In short, cannot recommend, at all.

An electric snowblower should have power and torque to spare to get through packing snow. This one doesn't - at all.

That they call it a pro model is a joke.

In short, I need to go buy an actual snowblower that can clear 2-3 inches of snow off a driveway. An electric snowblower is a great concept and should work well given the power an electric motor can and should provide - but this one clearly isn't ready for prime snow time.

2 comments:

B said...

To be fair, what with the wet snow you and I got (and the amount of moisture in it) most snowblowers wouldn't go far without clogging up.

Wet, sticky snow at or very near the freezing level is a terrible load. It packs and clogs nearly any device, underpowered electric or even gas.

Having said that, I have never seen a battery powered (or a plug in electric) snowblower that will do what even a small Toro or Honda single stage will do.

jon spencer said...

If you get a real gas powered snowblower, be it high quality or low priced, make sure it has electric start and reverse.