How common is snow plowing?

[Uncle Gump]

The Fishers are overbuilt and really heavy. Doesn't make much sense to put that heavy sob on a homeowner rig or on anything less then a 1 ton. It also didn’t make sense to spend the money difference to upgrade to 1 tons and have a plow that was built for 50 years when the trucks were lucky to make it 5 years. We used Westerns on 3/4 ton GM trucks. They were quick and pretty agile for a plow truck. The 1 ton salt trucks we had got Westerns too... that way we only had to keep a small inventory of parts.

 

[snoranger]

We have over 200 Western plows in our fleet. We’ve had other brands, but it’s just not cost effective. I don’t care who makes the plow, road dept will destroy it. Westerns are cheap and parts are readily available.
I don’t care how much stronger or better a plow is, when you put it on an F550 and run into things at 35+ MPH… it will break.
Anything bigger then an F550 get a Gledhill or ARM plow. I’ll get you guys a pic of one of them when I get to work.

 

[Uncle Gump]

I would like to find a 6 foot Sno-Way plow... I would probably put that on the G-Unit for driveway detail on a northern Michigan property.

And have a tractor for the heavier work when it falls.

 

[ericbphoto]

I'll hang out in South Carolina and just drive over the snow for a few hours or a day or two until it melts.

 

[superj]

me too. south texas where i read about the woes of dealing with snow and plows and stuff.

 

[Chapap]

Related question. What the heck is heating oil? I know heat pumps don’t really work if it’s colder than chilly, but there’s natural gas. I’ve seen plenty of folks with ng heaters in FL. I even rented a house with one… really nice. So what’s this heating oil all about? I’m picturing a giant lamp.

 

[ericbphoto]

Heating oil is closely related to diesel in the petroleum products spectrum. Generally, an oil furnace has a burner consisting of a blower motor and fuel being pumped into the airstream through a metering system and orifices. It really works almost the same as a natural gas furnace or propane furnace. Just a different fuel. The combustion airstream normally goes through a heat exchanger to transfer its heat to a clean airstream that is ducted throughout the house. That way, you don't have to worry about carbon monoxide unless there is a leak in the heat exchanger. Oil burners can also be used in boilers to heat water that is subsequently circulated through radiators in each room of the house.

 

[Chapap]

Heating oil is closely related to diesel in the petroleum products spectrum. Generally, an oil furnace has a burner consisting of a blower motor and fuel being pumped into the airstream through a metering system and orifices. It really works almost the same as a natural gas furnace or propane furnace. Just a different fuel. The combustion airstream normally goes through a heat exchanger to transfer its heat to a clean airstream that is ducted throughout the house. That way, you don't have to worry about carbon monoxide unless there is a leak in the heat exchanger. Oil burners can also be used in boilers to heat water that is subsequently circulated through radiators in each room of the house.

Is there a service line coming to the house, or do you need deliveries? Any idea why I’ve never seen it in FL? Better for more extreme cold than ng?

 

[ericbphoto]

It's usually delivered by truck.

Not sure why it isn't used much in Florida. My understanding is that heat pumps generally work well in Florida and just use the supplemental electric heat strips during those rare times when it's too cold for normal heat pump operation. I've been told that natural gas "gets lazy" or doesn't flow well in extreme low temperatures. Propane may be the same way. So heating oil seems to be more widely used as you go farther and farther north.

During my years in Pennsylvania, we first lived in a house with an oil furnace and no central A/C system. Then we moved to a house with a heat pump. In the second house, we also had a wood stove as a heat source. My grandparent's house had a boiler that was originally coal fired and later converted to an oil burning boiler.

 

[Blmpkn]

This makes my butt itch.

The house I live in has oil for fuel and the forced hot water baseboards to heat the house. Heat pumps are super common up here, both to cool your house in the summer and the opposite in the winter. It's probably a 50/50 split between propane and oil up here from what I've noticed. Propane is cheaper but for whatever reason oil wins out for a lot of people.. more energy per dollar? Not sure.

 

[bilbo]

When I lived in ND, people seemed to want to move away from oil. The tanks were usually outside, so maybe there were issues with gelling in the winter? Some houses actually had the tank in the basement with the fill line outside. We were fortunate enough to have natty gas in the town I lived in and that was great. The house originally had a 24kW electric forced air furnace that made the electric company very happy in the winter. After we switched to gas our bills went from $300-400 to $80-$150. Had propane growing up and remember Dad getting frustrated because the price always seemed to go down shortly after he had the tank filled.

I think there's a temperature cutoff where heat pumps don't really work any more. Not much heat to pump into the house when it's -20F outside. On a similar note, hardly anyone used the tankless water heaters because the tap water temp in winter sometimes would get too low for the water heater to bring it up to temp.

 

[Chapap]

I (in FL mind you) used to have a heat pump. It was just the ac unit with a valve to switch the flow from cold to hot. The valve went out one year and we used the “emergency” heat. Just an electric heater in the evaporator unit. I just had the tech remove the valve and use the electric heater if I need it. I wouldn’t say it heats the house, but can take the bite out of the cold when there’s a long cold snap (30s). Generally the house holds so much solar heat that it makes it through the night till the sun warms it up again. I have brick veneer so not sure how well a lighter exterior like stucco would do.

 

[Roert42]

Oil has the most BTU of the liquid fuels. I think it’s probably cheaper to install too. Nothing is pressurized tank is cheap and doesn’t need to be tested every few years.

 

[19Walt93]

I use propane for heat, hot water, and cooking. It's delivered and pumped into my 500 gallon tank. I think some parts of Southern NH have natural gas but we don't. It would be tough to run underground piping in an area with a lot of granite ledge and ground that freezes. We dig down at least 4 feet for footings when building to get below the frost line, my house is on an 8 foot deep concrete foundation. When the ground water freezes our roads develop frost heaves and the pavement buckles so the gas piping would need t be at least 4 feet underground.
Every place I worked(all 3) had oil heat, as did a few of my apartments, and every one of them had problems. Oil burns so dirty that a technician has to disassemble the furnace at least once a year and clean all the soot out of it. Being liquid, it also requires a pump. And a chimney. I've heard many complaints from people whose oil suppliers delivered oil with water in it and killed their furnace. Oil has more BTUs per gallon than gas but the oil burner technicians cost offsets some of the savings and the stuff stinks. Oil tanks can't be outside in our winter so they live in basements.
I have a Lennox enclosed combustion furnace that is so efficient it uses a 2" plastic pipe for exhaust- all the heat stays in the house. With propane I have to replace the air filter 2-3 times a year, make sure the condensate pump works, and turn up the thermostat.

 

[ericbphoto]

You could also get what is commonly called a “gas pack”. It’s a single unit with electric A/C and gas heat.