glscholten,

I am in a similar situation. As you already know, the problem with pushing snow is that eventually one runs out of space. A blower will get the snow up and away. I want a tractor, even a smaller one, with a blower. I have a Toro 824 snowblower. It works fine for around the garage. But it takes all day to do the driveway. If I were you, I would not give up on the idea of a blower for the tractor. That Cub looks nice, it is about double the size of mine. Honda, etc. make sizes like that as well. If my drifting wasn't so much an issue, it might work.
Good luck on your search.

Here is a link that might be useful: honda

I would not even try a snowblower that big. My 60 year old back wouldn't take it. You might find a commercial attachment for your tractor, municipalities and airports use large ones, but would be pretty pricey and IMHO hard to justify for 500' of driveway.

Would not bother with the walk behind, especially with the gravel drive. Your bones will never forgive you. Don;t think for a minute it will drive it self and you just need to guide it.. NO NO. You do need to push and pull up on the handles to push the blade into the snow. Its a natural tendancy for the snoe blower to want to go 'over' the now and not slice through it. The gravel will make things MUCH worse. Best bet is to get an old F150 with a nice blade just for this purpose. You can probably get one for $1500. If you have a garden tractor, consider the blade attachement. But DON"T spend $5000 on a garden tractor to do this. 500 feet is 1/3 of a quarter mile. That's CRAZY!

Hi,

I am in a similar pickle ....

I am thinking of getting a Honda HS1132 snowblower for this winter season. I am in Westchester COunty New York. I have 300 feet of single lane driveway + maybe 1/2 a tennis court worth of car park. I have a plow guy at the moment but he is expensive. Am I crazy to try and do this myself?

Best, Mike.

If I had the money, I'd go tractor + snow blower. Our snow up here drifts and eventually gets so packed that I can drive over the stuff. The walk behind snow blowers just don't cut it. If my snow was not hard packed, I wouldn't mind a bigger walk behind at all. It would still be a lot of work. I get out with my small blade asap, but as I stated, eventually I run out of room.

Good luck. I know it is sad that we are talking snow in early August, but such is life!

Thanks for all the replies and opinions so far.

I am still undecided on what I will do but am considering one more option. I have a John Deere riding mower and I could buy a 43 inch wide front mount blower. The cutting height for the JD blower is only 19 inches vs. 22 inches for the walk behind. Cutting width is 43 inches.

Any opinions on how well a mower mount blower works with the amount of snow and drifting I have?

Here is another option. Any old dirt cheap 150K mile 4wd truck with a working plow. Don't ever drive it on the road and MAYBE you won't need to insure it. As long as you have a place to store it.

Snow plow is an option. I even used the neighbors last winter. Worked great until I ran out of space to push the snow due to quantity and drifting. Blowing snow far from the road is the preferred option.

Blowing on gravel really isn't all that bad, if you let a layer of packed snow form first. In my neck of the roads, that is not hard to do. If I do blow, I have the feet adjusted so that the blade of the blower is above the gravel.
As you suggested, the problem with pushing snow is running out of room.