Our Snowblower Purchase Adventure!

Everything is an adventure. And I often find that what works for other people doesn't always work for me. Websites, phone apps, and buying things are all things that give me issues. On January 23, two days before one of the biggest snow events in this region in many years, we finally bought a Toro snowblower. Well, it was defective! Here's the story.

(Photo: After getting a working snowblower it made clearing the driveway much easier) 

On Friday, we drove up to Lowe’s in Rochester, NH which is about a 25 minute drive and bought a Toro Snowblower. We took it home we filled it with gas we filled it with oil and Tom get it started and turned it over to me so that I could try and clear some snow on the front of the house for our generator if we need it. It worked for 60 to 90 seconds then it shut off. When we tried to restart it, the ripcord that starts the snow blower,  jammed tight and would not budge. We had no idea what happened.

(Photo: Cody says, "You still have to shovel out a run for me on the grass.")

Tom spent a good half hour online looking at YouTube videos to find out how to fix it and there was no solution. So, I quickly called Lowe’s told them what happened. Customer Service said,
"Well, you have 48 hours to bring it back for an exchange." They also told me that there were no more snow blowers currently in the store, but they expected a shipment coming in the next day on Saturday. So, on Saturday, I called the store, confirmed the time of the shipment (4pm) and we loaded the snowblower onto our pickup truck. 

We drove to Lowes with the dead snow blower. It took two employees to confirm that it was indeed, ded. 

Fortunately, the new snowblowers arrived earlier and an employee had put a couple together, so we got our new snowblower in exchange. 

When we got it home, we immediately tried it out and let it run. We stopped it, tried it again, and all was well. The next day, the snow began on Sunday afternoon around 2 p.m. and didn't end until Monday morning around 2 a.m., so it was a 36 hour non-stop snowfall. 

We received 20" inches of snow. Fortunately, it was bitter cold (Only a high of 17 degrees Fahrenheit) so the snow was light and fluffy and there was no ice, sleet or freezing rain (like the U.S. Southeast experienced).  Snowblowers don't work so well in heavy, wet snow. I look at it this way. In the Spring, Summer and Fall, you mow the lawn with equipment. In the winter, you just swap it for a snowblower for "mowing/clearing" the driveway of snow.