I finally caved in and picked up a snow blower during the harsh 2010 MN winter. I’m happy to say it handled the snow like a champ, my back couldn’t be happier.

A couple of tips for potential buyers:

1) Make sure to go out and use the blower BEFORE you get 8-10 inches of snow. We got pummeled with over a foot of snow, and I waited until it was all over before going out. The snow was deeper than the blower, making it difficult to clear the driveway.

2) Trust me that the power cord is not that big of a deal. I was worried about it getting in the way and being a hassle. The first couple times you use the blower you’ll probably need to be extra aware of the cord, but after that you’ll get your routine down.

3) Try your best to clean out the “gears” where the blower rotates after you’re finished using the blower. I’ve had snow freeze in the mechanism several times making it hard to rotate the blower.

Again, it is an excellent machine, don’t hesitate to pick it up!

I purchased this machine after my gas powered blowe finally died. Tired of fighting to get the gas versions started I decided to give the electric a try.

This is a great little machine with a lot more power than expected. I live in New England where we’ve had 6+ feet of snow and it handles up to a foot a ta time very well.

Starts right up everytime and the lever power button work great, I had a power shovel and it was impossible to hold the button and use it at the same time. It was fairly easy to put together, be sure to look carefully through the packing for all for all of the small parts.

A few tips from previous reviewers, and now that I’ve used the machine. I tried coating the inside and blade with WD40, by far the best tip I’ve ever gotten, works beautifully.

Also someone said the nut on the long screw to shoot gets lost, they are correct and I was glad I picked up a few extra when the machine came.

So I ordered this model even though it had no reviews at the time. I was looking at the comparable Toro and Snowjoe models, but couldn’t bring myself to buy either since there were so many negative reviews in addition to the positive ones.

I went with the Greenworks for two reasons:
1) The 4-year Warranty
2) The 20″ width

Well, let me say that so far I feel I absolutely made the right choice.

The unit looks great, and seems to be built with very high quality parts.

How it was packaged was also excellent. There’s no way this baby’s going to get damaged in delivery like I heard about with the competitors.

The only negative was that Greenworks actually went overboard with their packing… They actually put the unit together by screwing directly through the plastic covers that go on the parts so I couldn’t get all the plastic off the pieces without taking some pieces apart.

I see this as no big deal as again it is their effort to make sure everything is protected for delivery but just letting everyone know about it.

Once built (very easy to do I might add), the machine is very easy to maneuver since it has quite large rubber wheels. I know there have been negative reviews about the Toro due to the cheap tiny wheels. No issue here!

The handle is adjustable to 3 levels (I’m 6’2″) and I was able to make it comfortable for my height.

Well I had to wait a week until the snow came, but come it sure did! I live in northeast Ohio, so the last few days have been a down-pouring of the white stuff.

I had purchased 2 50-foot outdoor cords rated at 13 amp (this unit is 12 so we’re fine).

I also purchased some Snow Jet non-stick coating spray and used it per the directions prior to the first use. I had read about it as a way to avoid the snow clogging in the thrower or chute while working.

The first time I used this thrower, I noticed how easily it moved the snow. The chute is very easy to adjust in direction, and it easily shoots at least 6-10 feet so you’re able to make sure you don’t shoot snow over an area you’ve already worked on.
Once I got used to it, I was able to do the whole driveway and walk in 15 minutes the second time. Piece of cake!

The snow was soft the first time but a mixture of wet snow and ice the second time. This made no difference it worked just as well. It also worked perfectly on the slush at the bottom of the driveway where the street plows make that big mess all the time.

The blades are steel covered with rubber, and it really hugs the ground and pulls the snow off.

I’m not going to say it will get you to bare ground in all spots, but it sure tries and it’s more than good enough to get your vehicles in and out which is the main purpose right?

I mean if you want to get the bottom layer of ice completely off you’ll need rock salt and a shovel anyway.

This thing did get some of the ice off, but I didn’t want to push too hard to get it to do that and possibly damage the blades.

Bottom line is that I got this for $200 on Amazon and I already feel it’s my top purchase of the year. I had a Snowjoe 12″ snowbroom last year and it broke, then I had to do the old shovel routine. It would take me at least 2 hours to do my driveway and walk last year.

Now, with twice having at least 6 inches of snow on the driveway, I was done in 15 minutes and back in the warm house.
As long as the wind was in my favor, I didn’t get too much snow on me and certainly saved my back.

You absolutely cannot go wrong with this one. I only hope its longevity matches its performance so far, but with a 4-year warranty, I can afford to take that chance.

It didn’t hurt that Amazon gave me free shipping and it showed up the NEXT DAY!

I did not pay for overnight and I got this the next day after I ordered it. I still don’t know how that was possible but I’m not complaining!

I will start by saying I am a female and the primary user of this snow blower. I had an OLD Toro that I always fought with to start because either my arm isn’t long enough or I just don’t have the upper body strength to start the thing.

I wanted something easy for me to start and that would help me through a Cleveland (Ohio) winter. After looking at several models – the price, size of the deck and warranty sold me on this machine.

When the machine arrived, I was able to carry it into my house to assemble it (so the machine is pretty light). I think it took me longer to unpack the machine than it did to put it together.

After assembling, I was able to lift the machine back up and move it to it’s spot in the garage.

When we got our first snow, I thought to put this machine into action. It took some getting used to on not to trip/unplug the cord, but I think I finally got that part down (I knew it had a cord when I ordered it, so I’m not rating this snow thrower any less because my clumsy behavior).

As promised, it chewed through the snow easily! It’s about as loud as a shop vac, so I don’t feel TOO terrible using it at 6:00am because I doubt it’ll wake my neighbors.

It’s easy to push and maneuver. I am overall very happy with the machine!!

I was really mad I didn’t get the snow thrower for the Dec 2010 end snowstorm which dumped 28″ snow in my area in New Jersey.

About 6 hours later and with help from my wife, I had finished shoveling all that I could of the driveway, sidewalk, deck and areas near house.

So, I looked for a good snow blower/thrower on Amazon – my favorite resource. A trip to Home Depot had gas ones with good ones starting at around $700 min. Add in fuel costs, maintenance, pull to start etc. and it was not my thing. I think we need to think about protecting our planet and reducing carbon emissions. Hence I preferred the electric one.

Looking on Amazon, this product had like 7 reviews at the time and all were 5 stars. Needless to say, I immediately ordered it Dec 30. It arrived with free shipping on Jan 04. Not bad at all. Since I had no snow till last night, I held off on the review. Meanwhile, this product continued to get 5 star reviews (with a strange 1 star and 2 star in the past 2-3 days ).

With about 6″-7″ to clear off now, I was ready to unit test this baby and put out my review. so here goes –

1. Cost
Given that good gas ones start at about $700, this one blows it out of the water. $200 for almost equivalent performance means this is a no brainer. Even if this lasts you 4 years (warranty period), for cost of 1 good gas blower, you can go through 3.5 cycles of this ( which means 13.5 years ) to get equal value from this unit as compared to the gas one. This means, this is a phenomenal value.

2. Packaging and assembly
This unit arrived packed very well. It really surprised me how well it was packed. The carton was sturdy with thick thermal protecting the unit inside. Almost all the handles/rest were packed in plastic. Actually, it looks like they assembled the unit with the plastic going right through the unit bolts. I couldn’t get all the plastic out, but it didn’t bother me. Its not really a big deal.

Assembly instructions were good and it took me about 10-12mins to assemble this unit. Being environmentally conscious, I wouldn’t want lots of plastic (which will likely end up in the Great Pacific or Great Atlantic garbage) to be involved.

This unit looks nice and green enforcing its eco friendly concepts.

3. Shipping/Delivery
Amazon as usual is fantastic offering free shipping and fast delivery. Previously, with free shipping they were shipping it in under 2 days. Nowadays, though, they’ve become wiser and don’t even start shipping for about 3-4 days. No problems because really you’re getting free shipping.

4. Manual/accessories
I liked that the manual was printed on recycled paper and looks very thorough. (except a typo about the chute rotation angle – listed as 810 degrees instead of 180 degrees ).

Extension cord sizes/gauges are listed explicitly. I bought a 50′ 16 gauge extension cord (Workforce from Home Depot for $10 ) and a 50′ 14 gauge ( Husky from Home Depot for $19 ) and they are to spec as per manual. It has one accessory – the little ladle/spoon like shovel. This is good for getting snow out from the corners but I think its really useless.

Also there’s no attachment to put this on the unit. I fashioned one myself using Velcro and it works well. But really, I’ll just store this shovel inside and forget about it. Better to use my proper 18″ shovel to finish up.

5. Performance
Now this is where the unit really shone. Even with like 2″-3″ snow, it would take me almost 1.5-2 hours to clear it in the cold with lots of strain on the back, shoulders and wrists.

With the ~7″ snow we got in New Jersey, I completed the task in about 15 mins which was AWESOME ! No more bending/scooping/lifting etc. Just plowed right through the thick snow.

In some places it was even more – since it nearly hit the top of the unit which is about 10″ high. One pass and it was done to almost the blacktop. However, due to doing it again and again, I managed to spray a thin layer back onto the driveway. If I was more careful and slower, I could’ve avoided it, but eh! I was having fun lifting and throwing snow almost 20′ to either side.

On the front – not so much. It looks like in the front it travels only about 6-8′ which is still not bad, but for some reason the design is such that it travels much farther to the sides. This isn’t a major drawback at all.

The unit chowed through the thick and thin powdery snow very easily. In a couple of places and especially at end of driveway where the village idiot (i.e. the town guy who snow plows the road and piles it up thick blocking my driveway every single snow), it needed multiple passes because the guy pack piles it to about 2-3 feet. With this unit, you need to break this down from the bottom, let the snow fall down to manageable level and then plow right through.

Its not optimally designed to go under the cars, so you can’t get to the areas around the cars easily. Side of cars are ok, front and back – not so much.

The wheels are pretty large and really help in pushing this unit through the snow. Its not self propelled which would’ve probably been even better. A couple of times I had to really push through the snow till the blades kinda sucked in the snow causing the unit to get inturn sucked into the snow like a spiral effect of sorts. But it can take some effort on hard snow.

Performance on powder snow and packed snow is not that much different. As expected, much easier on dry powdery snow than packed snow. With powdery snow, it can really expose the blacktop, with packed snow – not really. Slushy snow – still easy.

6. Misc. notes about the unit
As compared to Toro, this unit has metal blades which spin which IMO makes is better. There are lots of little touches like nice directional chute, foldable handle for storage by loosening the side bolts, little catch to loop and hold the extension cord make this unit even more attractive.

The unit is not that noisy – it makes as much noise as a fast motor like a vacuum cleaner. Not as much as gas ones or leaf blowers.

The unit has nice locked away start/stop mechanism which involves pulling out a level to start it and level retracts back into its caged slot when off. This prevents accidental starts and its not as bad as Toro where you’ve to hold some other button which can be painful.

The handle height can be adjusted and default one is very comfortable for most people. People very tall like over 6’2″ etc. will have to bend.

The unit doesn’t vibrate a lot so its easy on the arms.
Extension cords are a major pain and you need to constantly maneuver around it or do cord management. I’m thinking of buying some kind of cord management device.

The 20″ width is really excellent as it cuts down on number of passes. However, best way to do it is have about 16″ of new snow and 4″ of overlay on area already done instead of trying to attack new section of 20″ snow. This causes you to keep blacktop exposed instead of spraying thin snow back onto areas already done.

You also need to take time and plan the chute direction before hand and consider any wind blowing to ensure you don’t keep blowing snow back onto the areas already done. This can be a pain and take time.

I was using a $99 Toro power shovel before and this blows it out of the water in terms of ease of use, performance, price/performance ratio etc. That power shovel is only for mild snow (<2") now. This is my goto guy for everything else.

A gas one needs regular maintenance, proper oil/gas mixes, spark plugs check/replace, spews carbon based emissions which're harmful to the environment and all this for lot more than electric one. This is 21st century – we need to seriously start reducing our impact on the environment and this unit fits the bill perfectly.

7. Warranty
They say 4 year and this is double industry standard so its good.

Final Verdict = 5/5 stars.

Definitely a must buy. I even convinced my neighbor today to consider buying this unit 🙂