[LazyPup]

Some years ago I worked maintenance for a school system in Western Massachusetts that had dozens of snow throwers of many different makes and models, all of which had the conventional manual starting systems.

I personally had a Toro 16HP 40inch cut two stage with the electric starter system. Although i didnt really notice at the time I bought it, the electric starter system also had a built in 120v trickle charger to maintain the battery level and an electric engine block preheater.

One only has to spend a few minutes priming and pulling the starter cord on a cold engine to really appreciate the added convenience of the electric start. I could walk out to the garage on the coldest day of the winter, disconnect the extension cord, hit the switch and i was off and running in seconds.

With the 40 inch cut I could completely clear my driveway in two rounds and i could clear the sidewalks on a single pass.

My machine had a 4 speed transmission to set ground speed. I found that in 1st gear I could easly blow heavy wet snow a foot deep, while lighter snow i could move it up to a higher gear and make better time. In 4th gear it would clear snow as fast as i could walk behind it.

While it was capable of blowing the snow up to 30 feet, the discharge chute is completely adjustable, so if working in a tight area between buildings you can set the discharge to barely throw it 3 or 4 feet, while running at full throttle. And speaking of full throttle, the Toro had a fuel tank large enough to run 2.5 hours on one tank of fuel.

Another nice feature is the electric start models have a headlight, so if you get home from work late in the evening, you have a light to see what your doing.

Although that Toro was a very heavy machine, It was extremely easy to handle, in fact, I hardly got to play with it because my 14 yr old daughter usually had all the snow off before i got home. ( I later found out she was also making a fairly good income clearing walks and driveways all over the neighborhood.)

considering that snow plows are typically charging $30 to $50 to do a driveway and they dont touch the walkways, with a little ambition one could make the machine pay for itself in a short time.