Agree with Steve !

Thanks.

I have multiple batteries for other stuff and just swap as needed. My mower is about a 30-40 minute run time depending on how thick the grass is so I just swap batteries, grab a swig of water or beer and stretch a bit when a battery runs out. Works quite well.

This is the last gas thing in our garage and I'm looking forward to getting rid of it. Electric is quieter, smoother, more reliable, easier to deal with, less pollution or gas smell, no trips to get gas, no mixing gas+oil, no winterizing, etc.

But yeah, my concern is how well either can deal with deep or wet & heavy snow. Drive is 18'x50' but then we also have about 140' of 6' wide sidewalk that has to be cleared. I ended up doing it all last year by hand as I never got around to fixing the blower engine. Electric should be able to perform much better than gas but manufacturers are dragging their feet on building heavier duty electrics for some reason.

Since you're in St Paul (I'm about an hour east of there) and with the kind of snow we get here, I'd stick with a gas snowblower.

Agree with yt125 !

You might have "multiple batteries for other stuff" but you better make sure that the batteries will fit the snowblower. Batteries are expensive $180 each. The impeller can't be more than 10 inch in diameter. Won't throw it that far. 13 inch in cutting height. What about drifting? Not much run time for me.

Personally , I would stick with a gas snowblower. I live in Michigan and we get the same snow as you do plus some lake effect thrown in also.

Give the electrics another 3-5 years.

Very impressive. I've been outta snow country for some time now. Spent a lot of time in a Toro dealership. Little electrics came and went. Toro had an electric straight paddle type and one with a plastic impeller which neither did a lot. This is decades ago. The little EGO is much like the Toro CCR type machines which never plugged. They would throw slush. Did a typical snowfall and then some real well. Not real fun where the plow left the goods though. The ones of these that worked good had 4.5 HP minimum. Better w/ more. I like the EGO mowers, but does this have the power?

Thanks all. I've no interest in investing any more money in gas engines. Those days are quickly coming to an end for everything from mowers to boats to cars and for me that day is now (unless I get a sudden unexpected gob of gumption and time to fix my old Ariens).

I ordered the SnowJoe from Amazon so we'll see how it does. If I don't keep it I'll just continue to shovel by hand until a more appropriate battery electric becomes available.

FWIW, neighbors have largely been shoveling by hand the past day as all of their gas snowblowers were useless or clogging with the super wet gook we've currently got.

The first question I would have is that when SnowJoe says the unit will run for 30 minutes, is under what load? Obviously 10 inches of snow takes a lot more energy to move than 4 inches of snow.

After that, it’s question of having enough battery “life” between whatever comes with the unit and those you have on hand to get you through whatever snowfall you anticipate.

As others have said, I don’t think big electric throwers are quite ready to be a total replacement for gasoline powered throwers.

These battery electric blowers might do a small section of side walk however do not have the battery life or torque for any serious snow or extended run time and spare batterys are pricy . I have both a 8 hp 28" Toro and a 1 hp 1 5 " Toro . They both are used for area side walks and my 40' rear deck off the hot tub and sauna area . For the serious lake superior northern ontario snow I leave that to my Dodge Ram with a 8' Western plow . I did initially trial a small Snow Joe plug in electric unit for the back deck , which surprised me , it did a great job . I really hate corded units thus the purchase of the small Toro Power curve . Opaone , let us know how the Snow Joe performs , Good luck !

As far as maintenance, reliability, gas, etc... my Honda blower has been going strong for 11 years now. I buy quality non-oxy gas once in the fall for the season. I’ve changed the oil twice, and checked the spark plugs twice and has not needed any adjustment yet. It starts on the first pull every time. Dont know how much lower maintenance you can get than that.

I do have a single stage (5hp, 20”), and can wipe the floor with any 2 stage blower on the block until of course I got to the plow pile at the end of the driveway. Even then, I can normally start blowing after others start, and finish before they do, and have a cleaner driveway.

That said, it sounds like you’ve already made up your mind as you’re all in on electric vs gas. When you buy it, let us know how it goes.

opaone, when you do get it and use it, please come back here and give us your review. I agree with you that electric power equipment will be the future. I will admit that I just bought my first cordless drill/impact driver and a reciprocating saw. I am still old (late 60's years old) school on outdoor equipment. It doesn't take long to clean a carb, put it back on, and have the snowblower run like new again.

But I still want to see your review, so please post one.

" FWIW, neighbors have largely been shoveling by hand the past day as all of their gas snowblowers were useless or clogging with the super wet gook we've currently got. "

@opane The blower\thrower u mention will have the same problem unless yours is aligned perfectly and with no gap. Single stage throwers can throw wet snow better- still not so thick though.

My main concern would be taxing the motor and burning it out in the heavy wet snow we usually get around here in the MN/WI border area, or the battery not lasting long in the extreme cold we get here sometimes. All the electric blowers I've seen are small single stage which won't cut it after 8+ inches. Even my tractor mounted single stage in my other thread struggled with this last snow fall.

The motor SHOULDN'T be a problem unless they have some exceptionally incompetent engineers. Motor technology is quite advanced and stable.

Same for the batteries. Though that said, ECHO had or has an exceptionally bad battery mgmt system that eats batteries up. Given todays knowledge of batteries and BMS systems I struggle to understand how they messed up so badly.

Well I read the Amazon reviews - it appears it's not good in heavy snow. I'm in Minneapolis, and have a 6 hp Honda - two stage with tractor treads. It had a difficult time with the wake of the plow on Saturday. I don't think it's going to do well.

Looking forward to hearing how this $900.00 electric performs , on paper it appears to have merit .

This will be exciting! I know that pics and a couple reviews on performance will be coming. Hats off to you and your Visa card :)

Initial impression:

SnowJoe = Cheap Junk.

First issue was a bent skid. Not a huge problem and somewhat easily fixable.

Next though was that I discovered that the scraper blade and blower housing were bent quite convex. With the middle of the scraper on the floor there's about a 1/2-3/4" gap on each end. I thought the housing seemed kind of flimsy but this confirmed it. I'm guessing that it was dropped once or a few times and that landing on the skids that were low (why they'd ship it with the skids low so they and the housing can get bent doesn't make sense) eventually caused the bend in the scraper & housing.

None of this has to do with it being electric. Just poor design & manufacturing.

It's also surprisingly loud for an electric. I'll get db measurements tomorrow.

It may still be good for really light duty. We're supposed to get 6" tonight so we'll see tomorrow.

Did you buy locally or interweb it? Anywhere local where you can see and touch it before buying?

I ordered from 'zon. You'd have to ask them who their dealers are.

Took it out for a bit this morning. About 3-4" of snow. Did better than I expected in some ways and worse in others. Perhaps the biggest issue is that the chute is VERY POORLY DESIGNED. A gob of snow blows back out of it back down on to the ground and on to the snowblower. You can see here how it piled up on top of the blower.

Video:

Or:

http://bamasotan.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/IMG_2074.m4v

(may take a few seconds to load).

You need to raise the chute deflector, it'll throw further and maybe try going a bit faster to keep the auger and housing full. Not a poor chute design, almost every blower will have snow coming out the gap with the deflector aimed low like you have it. My 1965 Bolens and 1986 Simplicity do it too.

Agree with yt25 on operational set up and usage , unfortunate on the structural damage ?