John Whitney’s decision to get an electric snowblower after attending the Cornell Cooperative Extension Decarbonizing Energy Expo on November 20!
From Shovels to Snowblower: Our Battery-Powered Snow Clearing Transition
by John Whitney, A&LS Class of 1982
After 39 years of shoveling snow in the lake effect snow belt of Erie County, New York, my wife and I decided the time was right to add a snowblower to our snow-clearing arsenal. Part of our reluctance was due to a brief experience with an old gasoline-powered snowblower that neighbors gave us in the late 1980s. Hard to start. Hard to keep running. Loud. Smokey. Smelly. Heavy but still underpowered for our snow conditions. Nowhere near as good at clearing as our shovels. While we appreciated the neighbors’ intentions, it wasn’t worth the time and effort. So we passed it on and stuck with shovels.
But we’re not as young as we used to be and, importantly, battery-powered equipment technology and availability have advanced rapidly. We’d begun replacing corded electric tools for rechargeable battery-powered tools. While I don’t love string trimmers, when our last gas-powered trimmer died, we replaced it with a battery-powered unit. What a difference! Plus, after years of using various gas-powered hedge trimmers, I now use my drive head with a rented, long-pole hedge trimmer unit. I’d had experience renting the full battery-operated unit which was cleaner, quieter, and just as good or better than the gasoline-powered units I had historically rented after giving up on trying to keep my own sharp and running. I’ll probably stick with renting the hedge trimmer attachment since it is nice to have it sharp and ready to go and the rental store is close by.
Back to the snowblower, though. I never really minded the physical activity associated with shoveling but it did take a lot of time and some of the Buffalo-area snowstorms have been challenging to keep up with. I had been looking at some of the battery-powered options in local hardware stores and reading about them online. Central New York Farm Supply out of Cortland brought a Kress unit to the Energy Expo in Cornell’s Ag Quad on November 20th. Kress, a German brand, is new to the North American market. It seemed well-made and had better power ratings than similarly sized equipment. I was intrigued! Especially with the “$500 pre-season discount.”
The winter of 2024/2025 started with a couple of big dumps of snow. We shoveled and shoveled. In one of the shovelings, my wife said with a gasp, “You know, there’s blood dripping down your face.” I said I thought it was just a runny nose. While it was just a minor nosebleed, after cleaning up, I said I thought it might be time to consider getting a battery-powered snow blower. I confessed to having been looking around and I showed her pictures of the one I had seen in Ithaca. We talked about it some more and explored the Kress company web page and Facebook page. She had been a frequent shoveler over the years, too. With her CPA office in our home, she would “take breaks,” to clear the driveway during the day while I was at work away from the house. She wasn’t opposed to the snowblower idea.
So… after checking to see if the Kress unit was available locally (it wasn’t), and being pleasantly surprised that the pre-season discount was still in place and a unit was still available in Cortland, we put a deposit on it and made arrangements to pick it up. Arrangements included renting a hybrid SUV since it wouldn’t fit in our Toyota Prius without leaving the hatch up. The long trip between Cortland and East Aurora with the hatch open with uncertain weather conditions didn’t seem like a good idea.
We got it home with the hope that, like carrying an umbrella when rain is in the forecast, it might hold off further big snowstorms for much of the winter. The Lake Effect snow machine hasn’t yet shut down, though. And it might not, even with Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes starting to develop some ice cover. Shovels still have their place but we’ve learned it’s worth getting the snowblower out even if the accumulation is only an inch or two. It’s faster and physically easier than shoveling. Batteries hold their charge well and recharge quickly when that is needed. With deeper snow and the nighttime running lights on, starting with a full charge, I can still finish the entire driveway and walkway in a single charge cycle. That amount of shoveling used to take a couple of hours. It’s down to 30-45 minutes including dropping the batteries into the charging unit, following the operating manual recommendation to brush the snow off the unit after use, and clearing the front steps – which still requires use of shovels.
We’ve only had it for a month. In my personal experience, battery-powered is the way to go. Next on the wish list is battery-powered lawn mowing equipment, along with a reduction in how much of the yard needs to be mowed. That’s something else my spouse and I are discussing.
John was a natural resources major who split his time between the Natural Resources and Agronomy Departments during his time at Cornell. He was (is!) a member of Alpha Gamma Rho Fraternity, Zeta Chapter. He started a 40-year career with the USDA Soil Conservation Service, which later became the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), while a student at Cornell working summers in Allegany, Columbia and Schoharie Counties. After graduating in 1982, he continued his career in Livingston, Ontario, and Erie & Wyoming Counties. He retired from NRCS in January 2019 and worked part-time for Cornell Cooperative Extension of Erie County from August 2019 until again retiring in December of 2024. John & his wife, Laura (Binghamton University, 1980), have lived in East Aurora since 1986. jrw44@cornell.edu or whitneyjohnr@gmail.com. https://www.facebook.com/johnrwhitney
