Snow Removal/Snow Blower

As everyone knows already, most of the Midwest was hit with a monster of a snow storm. We got about six inches Tuesday morning. I woke up early and got the snowblower running. Everything was going well untill the engine started smoking and shut off. In my early morning state (not fully awake and certainly hung over), I didn't think much of it. Maybe something got caught in the augers or something. I put the snow blower away and finished up with a shovel.

When I got home I changed clothes and went out to the garage to take a look at it. I didn't find anything that was obviously wrong with it. But then I went to start it. I couldn't get the engine to budge. No matter how hard I pulled I couldn't get it to rotate. Then I checked the oil. Over the summer I noticed there was a wet mark under it but I figured it was just leaking gas. Stupid me didn't consider that gasoline would have evaporated. Sure enough, when I checked the dip stick there was little evidence that there was any oil in the tank. My engine was shot, just in time for the biggest snow storm in a decade.

I knew I had off on Wednesday so I stayed home Tuesday night and pounded beers. It was snowing but nothing too serious. I figured I'd just wait till the morning and take my time shoveling snce I didn't have anything else going on.

I woke up Wednesday morning and went to take the dog out. I opened the inside door and pushed on the outside door. To my surprise, just like the snow blower engine, it didn't budge. There was two feet of snow blocking my way. I went to the back door and as able to wedge my way out. Puppy went about five.feet and peed on my snow covered deck. One minute later she was pooping by the garage, quite possibly the fastest I've ever seen her poop. She didn't want anything to do with all the snow.

Around 11:00 I went outside to shovel. It was plenty cold out so the snow was fairly light and fluffy but there was a lot of it. There were drifts by the Renter's car but I figured they were just drifts; all my sidewalks couldn't possibly have the same amount of snow, right?

As I worked my way down the driveway I found out I was wrong. My sidewalks were covered knee deep I snow. The Renter had a girlfriend sleep over so there were three of us shoveling but still, it was a daunting task. I vaulted one drift that went all the way up to my balls. After an hour and a half everything was cleared and I bought the ladies lunch.

My snow blower was only two years old and set me back $800. Since its practically brand new, sans working engine (it still has those little nubbies on the tires), I went online to find out how much new engines cost. Without the exact model number handy I did a basic search for Tecumseh 6 hp models. I found a couple models for $250-$300. That was far, far less than I had expected. A hell of a lot better than $800. I called a friend of mine and he sad it shouldn't be too hard to swap out the old one and install the new one. It's not like we'd be taking everything apart (pistons and such), just replacing the engine. I'm almost certain I could do it myself but my friend is much more handy than I ever will be. I figure it will take us about two hours since everything is still fairly new and clean.

Two hours this summer.

I'm punishing myself by not getting it fixed till this summer. I will be shoveling snow for the rest of the winter. Maybe next year I'll actually make sure there's oil in the tank.