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I bought this snow thrower based on positive reviews from other purchasers here at Amazon. I could have bought it locally for $318 including sales tax, but through Amazon it cost $270 total. I'm tired of finicky gas engines which do not want to start in the winter, so I thought I'd face the sneers of my peers and went electric. Turns out one of them has a peewee electric smaller than this one. It takes some practice (as other users mentioned) to use this thrower. You have to treat it like you would a vacuum cleaner in your forward and back movements, minding the cord. I use a 3 conductor 12 gauge cord which is stiff and heavy, but causes no voltage drop to the motor. Most of my blowing is within the range of a 50' cord (driveway, front walk and part of sidewalk). Finishing the walk requires adding another 50' cord, but again with no observable reduction in machine performance.
It blows 6" of snow with ease and will blow up to a foot but you have to go slow then. The tough stuff is the windrow the city plow pushes up in front of the mail box and drive way. It is very dense, heavy and contains gravel. I found I could blow that too, although I had to take small passes and not push the Toro too hard. No small blower on the block can handle that stuff any better, it takes a big high horsepower self-propelled 2-stage blower to cut through that well, but mine worked OK. I just hope I didn't harm it too much.
The cord does tend to come unplugged, but I loop it around the handle to help reduce that problem. I used the blower for 9 full plow jobs this past winter so I'm averaging $30 per use so far. The blowing goes faster when your spouse helps manage the cord. My snow removal area is: driveway 20'x27' (540 sq. ft.), front door walk 7'x22' (154 sq. ft.) and sidewalk 4'x85' (340 sq. ft.) for a total of 1,034 sq. ft. Blow time is 15 minutes for a 1-2" snow, up to a half hour for a 4-6" snow and up to a full hour for any city plow windrow. Sorry for all the detail, can't help it, I'm an engineer.
I like my Toro 1800 and am very satisfied with my purchase. I hope it will last for several winters now. I'm 63 and hand shoveled my driveway for 34 years before deciding maybe I ought to take it a little easier.Get more detail about Toro 1800 18-Inch 12 Amp Electric Curve Snow Thrower #38025.
