Loadall for Snow??

[steveair]

Hello,

Well, we all sat down the other day at work and are coming up with a equipment checklist for future purchases/replacement scheduling of snow fleet equipment.

One of the things that came up is the thought of using our JCB loadall (fork lift, all wheel steer/drive) for snow removal.

Was wondering if anyone out there has any experiences with this.

Most of the guys think it is a good idea, however I kind of question its productivity. We can get a large capacity 1.5 yd light materials bucket for it, so it can move a signifigant amount of snow.

Was wondering how snow removal would treat the machine. Too me, the machine does not seem set up for that kind of abuse. I could see a lot of things going wrong/breaking.
Also, it does not cycle all that fast, so it would be a little slow with the bucket movement. Also, not sure if it is really geared towards 'pushing' large amounts of material.

I know a lot of people use them for light materials, and think the idea of being able to stack snow 22 feet in the air is interesting, but I really don't know if it really a good idea.

By the way, I will say that it is going to be more of a emergency type piece of equipment, so we would only really use it when we had too or if something came up where it might be useful.

Steveair

[Alan]

For waht it's worth, a guy here used to use a Drott wheeled excavtor for plowing. Had a terrible amount of transmission problems with it. I always thought it was because the transmission was not intended for the constant load that pushing a plow created.

[Mark Oomkes]

Steve, there is one contractor in our area who is using the CAT version. He loves it. He put a 12' ProTech on it though. I'm not sure what size he has, but that was the recommendation for size from CAT. If you want I can try to get some more info for you, just let me know.

[mdb landscaping]

a local guradrail company uses theirs to plow a large lot. i bet it would work good.

[OBRYANMAINT]

would be the best for tight stacking...cycle time may not matter if pushing straight most of the time

[diggerman]

Big,big diffrence between a wheeled excavator and a loadall.The excavator ought to be able to handle the job but the speed and agility is some thing to be desired as well as visability.Wheeled excavators are not designed to be looked out of backwared but rathe the house spins around to see the other dirction which would be a pain while plowing snow.Also the controls are not set up for long term driving.

I have tried a loadall 520 or some number like that and I think if you had a use for it it would work, based on the fact that you had off season work for it.If you are just purchasing it for snow I think there are better options for the money.