A small 4 wheel drive tractor with either a plow or snow blower is probably needed for that long of a drive. You should also have a paid snow removal service lined up for when you get hammered and you cannot handle it yourself.

Average of 50" is not big snow country like farther up north where they get 100" and more annually. One year you may only have to plow 1 to 3 times a year. Other years you might be removing snow 6 or more times. Talk to the locals and learn what they do. The Patriot will handle quite a bit without plowing at all.

 

With time not an issue I'd opt for a blower, whether garden tractor or compact tractor mounted.

 

I use a walk-behind blower. Our snowfall is only a little more than in your area, but averages can be deceptive. Some years we get 10' (like 2 years ago), other years only a couple feet (like last year). Averages also don't tell how it comes -- it can come in several blizzards a week apart, or 3" every week from November till April. Ya just never know.

Now you said you have a gravel driveway . . . So do I, but mine is only about 100' not 1000'. For as much as you've got you probably need a good lawn tractor with a snowblower.

For my needs I got a walk-behind with a belt drive that's not going to shear the pin every time it finds a pebble, and it will find them, and plenty. There are few experiences as miserable as changing a shear-pin in an ice-cold freezing garage, for the second time, and you've only got 1/2 hour left before Wifey comes home. I also set my skids fairly high to avoid catching the gravel. After the first storm with an inch or two left behind, it will pack down into a layer of white ice that approximates asphalt. Well sanded, it will provide traction while keeping the gravel out of circulation until spring.

For the little stuff (+/-4") I just drive over it and add to that hard-packed layer.

In the spring I will go out with a broom (yes, a broom) and sweep the gravel off the lawn before the grass grows. I know I look like a mental patient sweeping my lawn, but the alternative is getting down on my knees and tossing ten thousand pebbles back into the driveway. Trust me, I've been laughed at for lesser things; I can handle it.

 

In the spring I will go out with a broom (yes, a broom) and sweep the gravel off the lawn before the grass grows. I know I look like a mental patient sweeping my lawn, but the alternative is getting down on my knees and tossing ten thousand pebbles back into the driveway. Trust me, I've been laughed at for lesser things; I can handle it.

Heh, when we lived in the country I used a shop vac. As for clearing, my old landlord had a guy with a tractor do ours. I cannot imagine doing it with a regular snow blower, and for 1000ft I would definitely be looking at a small tractor / ride-on!

 

Only one way!!! Gravely with snow plow!

Sent from my LG-H900 using Tapatalk

 

I've lived in the same home, with a 1/10th mile driveway, since 1996. When we moved there, my dad used his '95 F250 with a straight plow to clear the snow. When that was lost to fire in December 1999, he got a '00 Dodge Ram 2500 with a V-plow, and has used that ever since. I've asked him once or twice why he doesn't switch to a half-ton(doesn't exactly haul alot, and has considered trading a few times), and he told me a half-ton wouldn't hold up to the stress of plowing for very long, and a 3/4 ton will.

 

ATV with a plow?

 

Judging by your latitude and the length of your driveway my first choice would be a good-sized lawn tractor with a snowblower. Don't worry about overworking it, just take it slow and steady. A plow attachment will work the first time, but in Wisconsin your snow is not going to melt away after every storm like it might in along the coast or further south. If you don't push it way back you will find your driveway narrowing by midwinter and its real work to push it back -- something a lawn tractor isn't going to handle.

Around here, the day after a significant storm the DOT goes out and pushes the snow back so there's room for the next storm. They also have trucks that weigh 50,000 lbs, not 500 lb lawnmowers with a gizmo attached. With a 1000' driveway you're approaching street-size.

Plan B is get a local contractor to do it. If you buy a truck big enough to handle it, it will never pay for itself. Around here there's lots of guys with plows on pick-up that make a living in winter just doing driveways. In the long run its cheaper to do it yourself with the lawn tractor, but its a real hassle. For a driveway your size, I'd say, if you can afford it, you part with a couple dead presidents each time it snows: the job is done and you're warm and dry.

 

When I lived in Utah, a leaf blower was sufficient enough to blow the powdery snow away without issue. When I moved back to the Eastern side of the Mississippi, and gained full custody of my kids, I put a shovel in my son's hands and told him that he had a new job to do. Shoveling the long drive we had when I was a kid didn't kill me, and it won't kill him.

However, when my son decides to fly the coup, so to speak, I'll pick up a snowblower, and re-attach the plow to the truck. Just because it didn't kill me when I was younger doesn't mean I want to temp fate...

 

I was hoping everyone would say with a Patriot I would not need to remove the snow. That I can just drive through it.
Right now I have a 100' black top driveway. I just have an 18" electric snowblower and a big sliding snow shovel. I only use the blower a few times a year. For the numerous small snow falls I just use the sliding snow shovel when I go to check the mail. If I got a good gas snowblower would it be like walking 1000' out to the mailbox? I do not have any experience with gas snowblowers and did not pay any attention to the neighbors that use them.

 

For a smaller driveway where you don't typically get 1ft+ storms you can't beat the Toro Power Clear throwers.

 

To be fair, I've driven through a foot or so of powder in mine and it did ok, but I had to keep up speed. If it's not powder, and you can't have chains, you'll want it to be no more than a few inches.

 

Basically agree. Our Patriots are FWD and we have a pretty good grade and a curve up to our garage. I've gotten through 7" easily enough, but if its heavy wet snow probably 4" or 5" would do it. I've gotten through a foot of powder with no difficulty, but it was only 1000' of a bad stretch of road, not a 5 mile journey up and down hills. A foot of slush stopped my AWD Bravada in my driveway.

I'm also thinking of what happens to the OPs driveway if he doesn't plow it all winter. There's a limit to what you can pack down. Oh yeah, the road-rind at the end of the driveway. Fortunately I live on the left side of my road. The town truck comes up from town and plows in the houses on the other side of the road -- then gets me on the way back, but the lion's share of the snow is already on the other side. I had the opposite problem where I lived before.

Photo is what happened at our house in Maine from two different angles, summer and winter. No Patriot is going to get through that. (Winter photos taken from front seat of my Patriot on the far side of the road, so no, I wasn't crouching behind the snowbank. A 6' road rind was typical).

 

And what happens when it partially melts, then refreezes? No way we can make it through more than a couple inches of that.

 

Sometimes you just have to get a couple runs at it
Not too many problems up here:

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We just have an ariens 28" snowblower. My dad used to have a full sized John Deere in Northern WI but recently blacktopped the driveway and bought a similar snowblower for his 1/4 mile driveway.

 

I tried going through 6" of refrozen snow once, my dad had to pull me out. Suffice it to say, he wasn't happy I'd gotten the front end of my Patriot stuck in the yard when the driveway was all plowed.

 

Refrozen stuff sucks....you could get a HMMV stuck in that. At that point you need chains or studded tires.

 

Yoopers and cheeseheads take their snow removal seriously:

Forgive me moderators. Please remove last one if inappropriate.

 

Yes we do! Plows don't usually cut it up here. Usually road graders, front end loader etc for the main roads. But there isn't any amount of snow that you can't eventually get through with a good snow blower and a shovel to knock it down.

MegaPlow

And we've officially unofficially dubbed this the snowbank eater(usually accompanied by trains of dump trucks)

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They've upgraded some of the front end loaders with snowblowers even bigger but this one's neat because it's really old!

 

Anybody seen one of these? Little big for OP's driveway. This memo is 5 years old, I've been through Franconia notch in snow, but haven't seen this rig yet.
https://www.nh.gov/dot/media/nr2012/20120118-tow-plow.htm

 

I was hoping everyone would say with a Patriot I would not need to remove the snow. That I can just drive through it.

I use 4 chains and 4wd, I don't plow or blow my drive, almost a mile, up hill. Although the older I get the more I think about a snow blower, but just to keep things around 6 inches, not dry. I've gotten high-centered in the Patriot before, the FDII is really flat underneath, snow was a foot to a foot and a half deep. Sometimes I have to blow into the snow till it stops moving, then stop, don't dig holes or ruts, then back up 30-50 feet and hit it again. I have no where on the sides of my road to plow snow, so a blower would be the only way for me, but would have to attach to an ATV with 4wd I think.

This was my drive a couple years ago, in my red 08.

 

Another video

 

Hey dixie! Have you ever messed with tire pressure? It would be interesting to see if you lowered to something like 4-8PSI if you could just mosey on up. Chains are still probably easier than deflating and reinflating without an automated system like truckers/military vehicles can have. Plus you don't have to worry about loosing a bead...lol

 

Sometimes I have 6 inches of ice, under a foot of snow, chains is the way to go. my wife can throw 4 chains on in 5 minutes.

 

Found a great video on a YouTUbe tangent off dixie's videos!

 

Wow I just realized most of my videos are winter videos...lol

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpMIRzKqCkduJmfcRUah2YBVyk07tqXMs

 

It's because you're a Yooper.

 

1,000 feet is nearly a quarter mile. Can't imagine clearing that with a walk behind blower. Why not park at the end of the driveway before a storm.

 

This cat's got the right idea...

 

hai



Snow removal has turned out to be a very serious problem during winter. There are so many ways by which it can be sort out. I had read an article titled commercial snow removal. In this article you could see snow removal services and precautions that has to be taken care of during snow clearing. So I hope you will find it useful.

 

Snow removal has turned out to be a very serious problem during winter. There are so many ways by which it can be sort out. I had read an article titled commercial snow removal. In this article you could see snow removal services and precautions that has to be taken care of during snow clearing. So I hope you will find it useful.

By "commercial" I thought you meant professional snow removal by companies that plow driveways or rake off roofs. Where my Wife works they've had some 'professionals' problems. A couple years ago one of the company vans got hit -- judging by the damage it was a plow but no one ever admitted it. Last year they fired the plow driver after he took out an employee's car, as in totaled it, while backing up. Then this year the new snowplow driver backed into the building hard enough to bust the bricks and topple stuff inside the building. Stuff happens.

IMHO, and with all due respect to the good ones, plow drivers and school bus drivers have the worst reputation in my mind. Just because you've got a plow on the front or kids in back does not give anyone the right to drive over other vehicles. In a neighboring town I met a humbled plow driver who'd lost control on a curve (30 mile zone if the road was clear), crossed the oncoming lane (fortunately at 4AM there was no oncoming traffic) and went off the road into a ditch. Ice is ice, even if you've got a dozen tons of dirt on board. Throwing the salt/dirt behind him isn't doing a thing for the road he's on. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts if he'd hit somebody the motorist would have gotten blamed and the reporter on the scene would lecture the viewers about being careful around snow plows. As it was another plow was trying to yank him out with a chain, but this was a 10-wheeler and I doubt got out of there without a hook. I didn't stay to watch.

I saw a video recently about a plow that did the same thing over an embankment. Out west somewhere. Utah maybe? Memory fails. Probably some aggressive driver in a Honda Civic ran him off the road -- or at least that's what he told his supervisor.

 

Yeah, that was the video. 300' is a pretty steep drop! Hope the guys recovers. The semi was trying to pass on the right -- never a good plan.

Wonder how a dash cam happened to be there. Maybe a police cruiser?

Well now, we've strayed a long way from clearing a long driveway . . .

 

It was another truck driver running a dash cam as he's had close encounters before.