Have you ever went out to shovel or snow blow your driveway and not be able to start your snow blower? Most likely your snow blower would not start because the motor was to cold. Put a portable heater by the crank case and warm up the oil and it should start. That takes about an hour depending on how cold it is.It works the same as a block heater in a car. If you do not have a portable heater use a hair dryer.
If you have a garage or a shed keep your blower in out of the weather and make sure that you remove most of the snow and ice before storage. Otherwise wet snow will cause it to freeze up. Also make sure your auger is free of snow or ice. If the auger is frozen it could cause you to break a shear pin or a belt.
If you have a heated garage make sure you have a gas line antifreeze not the regular one but there is a special one that you can use. Check with your dealer. There is one that you can use in snow blowers and snowmobiles. Condensation might build up in your gas lines or tank in a heated garage causing the snow blower to back fire and maybe freeze up in the cold. The gas line antifreeze should take care of that problem. You should change oil regularly. That will help starting and your snow blower will warm up faster, It is easy to change the oil on most. Use a light weight oil 5W30. If you don’t want to change oil (I highly recommend this anyway) use synthetic oil 0W30 OR 5W30. Your dealer should have synthetic oil. I believe that using synthetic oil and changing oil regularly is the life of a machine.
When you start your machine don’t start on full throttle. You could blow your motor as it takes a few seconds for the oil to circulate especially if you use regular 5W30 oil or if it needs an oil change. When it is real cold the motor is stiff and the oil could be thick. I have two snow blowers. I had 5W30 regular in one and synthetic 5W30 in the other. Last week it was minus 34 and a windchill in the minus 40’s The one with the regular oil would not start. The one with the synthetic did.I changed the oil in the other one, used synthetic and it started.
Keep your throttle on a little over half when starting and let you machine warm up. Test your auger before snow blowing. Also when you shut down your machine turn the throttle of slowly. Don’t blow snow at full speed. Use first gear for heavy snow and second or third gear for light snow, I recommend only first and second but a lot of people use third. The higher gears should be used only for travel ling your snow blower from one point to another. For instance I have two driveways on both corners of my house 40 ft apart so I use high speed to travel the blower to the second driveway. You should see you a dealer and have you machine checked over Make sure your belts are not worn. I always try and keep spare belts on hand.
Life could be a little miserable if you don’t look after your snow blower especially in Northern Canada where we get a lot of snow, wind and cold. A couple days ago it went from minus 30 to 0 degrees in 36 hours and we had rain. We also had a foot of snow. The next time I went to start my snow blower It would not move. The wheels were frozen I hit the wheels with a rubber maul a couple of times before the blower moved. I hope you find this information helpful.