What’s the first thing you do upon delivery of your sparkly new toy, well in this case electric snow blower, rip the box apart, take it outside, push the very handy start button, whizz it around in the snow and then wonder why it’s not quite as good as you thought it would be.
Tip 1 – Read the instructions!
I’ve read and heard so many stories of disappointed folk because the new shiny electric snow blower doesn’t pick up as much snow as thought or it doesn’t throw the snow as far as they had hoped, well nine times out of 10 it’s because they hadn’t read the instructions. It’s not like you’ve just purchased a $10 remote control car, there are checks to be done and handles to fix on correctly before ‘playing’ with the new machine.
Tip 2 – Don’t insist on scraping down to entirely bare pavement unless you want to spend money replacing scrapers and augers!
Listen, electric snow blowers are super machines and great fun too but if you try to scrape every last ounce of snow off your pavement, driveway, walkway or whatever it may be the blades will I’m sure come into contact with the hard surfaces and the parts will wear very quickly.
Tip 3 – Avoid vertical movements!
In conjunction with the first two tips proper use of your electric snow machine will help it survive many snowy winter months and cause less replacement expenses. As well as reading the instructions and keeping away from hard surfaces, aka the pavement, these awesome machines should not be used in vertical positions if you want them to last, try to avoid it altogether. You can usually tell when there’s a problem by the grinding noise the machine is screaming out
Tip 4 – Cord Management!
When using an electric snow blower cord management is essential, there are various scenarios that you want to avoid and some you want to deploy to get the most out of you shiny machine. Any run of cord longer than 200 feet is going to reduce power and using small-gauge cord will do the same, using at least a 14-gauge power cord will negate this issue. The cord will sometimes ‘drop off’, by attaching the cord according to directions and using the cord tether supplied with the machine, the cord will not drop off. Running over the cord will often jam the auger, when you can see that this may happen turn the machine off and safely relocate the cord. Of course it’s no problem as you know that your shiny electric snow blower will always start the first time, every time.
Look out for my next electric snow blower top tips, coming soon.