After a relatively quiet winter, in which I didn’t pull out my very old, hand-me-down Ariens Sno-Tek snowblower even once, we got a quick 18″ in less than a day.  Guess what didn’t start and, in the middle of not starting, stopped turning over entirely?

After an all-day family effort to shovel us out, I ordered a new snowblower.

For the record, I don’t like small engines.  I find them to be dirty, loud, persnickety little things.  I dislike inhaling gasoline and exhaust or carrying the smell on my clothes afterwards.  I dislike the flammability factor.  I dislike the toxicity of petroleum.

So I replaced my gasoline-powered snowblower with a battery-powered electric: a Kobalt, described as “80-volt 24-in Two-stage Self-propelled Battery Snow Blower 5 Ah (Battery Included) (Charger Included)”.

I waited a week and a half on shipping, expecting more snow that never came.  As the day approached and as the forecast remained clear, I started to worry that I had cast a protective blanket over the region and no more snow would come this year.

However, I suspect that someone else put their snowblower away prematurely because snow came within days of taking delivery, so I can write this review while the snowblower is still under warranty!

The unit is nearly 250 pounds and is shipped in a box on a pallet.  The box (barely) fit in my neighbor’s Honda CRV, so we got it home without needing to rent a truck.  Shout-out to the folks at my local Lowes for being super helpful by helping us load it!

The Good

It works!

It Moves Snow

It’s advertised with “50-ft max discharge”.  I think it really can reach that, but I didn’t break out my 50′ tape measure to confirm.

With the chute angled upwards, I was making arcs of snow that exceeded our 2nd floor roof line until it was fouled by low hanging tree branches.  After angling the chute downwards a bit, snow was reaching at least 25 feet down the driveway.

Takes Snowdrifts and Piles

After tackling the new snow, I started working on the snow we didn’t clear after the last storm.

Since that storm, we’ve had a couple of weeks of deep freeze, followed by a few days of at-freezing temperatures and very cold nights.  The mix of snow drifts, shoveled snow, and plow wash had started to crystalize.  The highest were still up to 3′ but most were around 2′.

The firmest, most compressed piles make the motor sound a little different, a little bit of struggle sound, but the chute output didn’t change.

I found that it was easier to have the auger bite into the base of the piles, rather then levering the scoop over the top.  It’s not particularly hard to maneuver, I just got better results by staying low and “eating” the base so the higher stuff collapses.

Quiet

I used to wear cups-over-the-ear, noise cancelling headphones when I ran the old snowblower because it was so noisy-loud.

In comparison, I could feasibly talk with someone over the sound of this machine.  It’s a little bit of a “flying saucer” sound, not particularly offensive.  I didn’t feel the need to use any ear protection.

Controls

The controls are a mixed bag.  Here’s the good parts:

There are levers to control the auger speed, the self-propelling speed, and the chute angle.  All are well placed and make sense.  I really like having a chute angle control by my hands.

There’s also a handle to rotate the chute.  You pull it towards yourself, rotate clockwise or counter-clockwise to set the chute direction, and release.  It’s a quick movement.  It’s not my favorite, but it’s efficient.

There are buttons for power and headlights that are front and center.

The Meh

These are things that work as advertised, but didn’t “wow” me.

Decent Runtime (But Not More Than Advertised)

The box comes with two batteries but there are receptacles in the battery case for three.  (The product is advertised this way.)  I purchased a third battery up front because I wanted longer run time.  I like to help out my neighbors after I finish my driveway.

I think I ran around for about 90 minutes on the three batteries, which matches the stated specification of

as 50% more battery leads to 50% more runtime.  No bonus points for exceeding expectations.

It’s worth pointing out, though, that it ran the same when the batteries were nearly depleted as it did at fully-charged.  I didn’t notice a difference in performance, which is good.

Controls

As stated above, not all of the controls fall into the “Good” category.

The hand grips have levers on the top, to turn the auger and self-propelling on and off, and levers on the bottom, to control turning.

This is not the easiest scheme to use.  I found that turning off the self-propelling and just doing the rotation myself was much easier than using the bottom levers.

There are LEDs to show you the status of the batteries and headlights.  The panel is nearly horizontal and it quickly got covered by the snow that was still falling.

The headlight indicators are rather dim and hard to see, even when not covered by snow.  It turns out that I had them lit for most of the session, because I didn’t know.

Self-Propelling

Speed

There are four settings for self-propelling speed, three forward and one reverse.

I think that the forward speeds should be a simple rheostat so that you can pick any speed from zero to max, rather than having three presets that maybe don’t match anything I want.

Reverse and Turning

Self-propel is useful for going forward.

I found reverse to be superfluous, but I may be in the minority on this.  This snow blower is fairly easy to maneuver so I just disengaged self-propel and pulled it backwards when I needed to back up.

Unlike gas-powered snowblowers there isn’t much resistance to turning the wheels when the motor isn’t engaged.  Forwards, backwards, twist left or right, it’s all pretty easy to reposition without powered assistance.

Headlights

I haven’t cleared any snow at night so far, so I cannot attest to the utility of the headlights.

As mentioned in “Controls”, the headlights were lit in the middle of the day and I didn’t know.  They’re cycled on-and-off via a single button so it’s a little hard to know which state they’re in since, as mentioned above, the indicator is hard to see in daylight.

Charger

The charger is advertised as a “75 minute” charger and that seems to be accurate.

It’s dead simple: plug in one or two batteries and plug it in.  It takes care of the rest.  Lights will indicate the charging and battery states.

However, it’s very, very loud.  It has built-in fans to cool the batteries.  This makes sense.  Batteries generate heat when you charge them, and the faster you charge them the hotter they’ll get.

I suspect that most people will do their charging in a garage or basement and this won’t be a consideration.

That said, I don’t always need to charge my batteries as fast as possible.  It would be nice if they had an “overnight mode” which would charge the batteries low and slow.  It would be quieter and may lead to longer battery life.

The Bad

Things I would change if I could.

Constantly Hitting Power Button

I mentioned above that the power button is front and center.  I suspect that there is a practical reason for this.

Every time you release both hand grip levers, the unit shuts off.  You need to hit the power button again before the levers will start the auger or self-propel again.

This obviously works as a dead man’s switch, but it’s kind of annoying.  Stopping the auger and self-propelling, without killing power, seems like it would be safe enough.

At first, I found myself hitting the power button constantly and getting irritated.  After a little while, I just kept the auger going even when I was repositioning, which is wasteful of the battery but less irritating.

Expensive Batteries

This is an expensive machine, and it seems that the batteries represent a significant portion of the cost.  Just one battery is $250, nearly 10% of the cost of the entire unit.

While I’m glad I have third battery for longer runtime, I am not inclined to buy two (or three) more to swap during long sessions.

I can see the business case for Kobalt, though: buy some of our other 80v products for the summer and you’ll have all the batteries you need!

However, I bought a Kobalt electric lawn mower last year, but it uses a different battery.  🙁  I don’t have much need for their other heavy equipment.

Poor Instructions

I was able to unbox and assemble the unit using the instructions, but the instructions and drawings are not clear.  I had some assembly-disassembly-reassembly moments, mostly around the auger handle.

You’ll need an M6-size Allen (hex) wrench.  The instructions don’t mention that you’ll be using one, or that one comes packed in the box.  I didn’t find it until after I was done with assembly.  It was tucked into the battery compartment and hard to see.

Overall assembly time was about 1 (very cold) hour, and would have been faster had the instructions been clearer.

The Ugly

So far, nothing ugly to report!

Conclusion

I’m happy with it.

Time will tell how this snow blower stands up to years of use, but the first snowfall was a successful trial.

I think electric is the way to go.  I’m glad I won’t have to worry about draining gasoline this spring.  It should be cheaper to run over it’s lifetime, despite the upfront purchase premium.

I may fix up the Ariens and sell it, or just put it out on the curb and let someone else manage the trouble, but I’m not going back to gas powered.