# Toro Snowmaster 824 QXE versus Power Clear 821 QXE



## Herve (Nov 4, 2020)

My wife and I have a 23-year-old Craftsman 32", 12HP two-stage blower that we originally bought to deal with big snowfalls in Alberta's mountains, but now we live in Edmonton which usually does not have snowfalls above say 8 to 10" and even those are infrequent. Edmonton's weather from December to March can be very dark and dreary, with near constant, very very light snow falling. If it's very cold, I have a 10 year old Echo backpack blower which can blast very light snow off the driveway and sidewalk in just a couple of minutes. Deeper than say 2", the backpack takes far longer, if it can still do the job. Beyond that it's either a shovel or the beast. 

The Craftsman still works great on our concrete driveway and sidewalks, but you know the drill -- the beast is very heavy and difficult to move around easily, etc. In short, it is way overkill for small stuff, particularly wet snow with a bit of a layer of bead-like granular snow near the ground. 

To deal with small falls (90% of the time in Edmonton) as well as really "paddling" the concrete to get right down to the surface as much as possible, we're considering the two models in this thread's title. The sidewalks in particular are important to clear very well because our City Council Overlords require that homeowners maintain sidewalks to be snow and ice free -- a condition that our street's 10 pedestrians per day cannot slip on -- or they will issue fines that must be paid or the city will hire somebody to do that on the homeowner's behalf and then bill the latter. (If the homeowner doesn't pay, then the city puts a lien on the property and, if this continues, pretty soon the homeowner is no longer the homeowner.) 

I notice that the Snowmaster has rather, how to put it, short/narrow rubber paddles that appear to be a fraction of the 24" cut-width, versus the full-21"-cut-width paddles on the Power Clear. How do these models compare when it comes to removing whatever form of frozen water (except hockey-rink-like ice, of course) right down to the pavement surface? 
Another issue. The Snowmaster seems to have a nice propulsion system, while the Power Clear relies on the paddles to pull the blower and operator forward. Our driveway has a slope of around 2.5 feet in the 22 feet up from the sidewalk level to the beginning of the garage floor. I would imagine that the Snowmaster would pull up this mild slope relatively easily compared to the Power Clear. Am I correct on this? I suppose I could blow the driveway from side to side rather than up and down the driveway. 

The handle of the Power Clear has the advantage of being able to be folded forward so that the thing would take up very little space in our garage. I'd put it right in front of the monster and we'd hardly notice it. The Snowmaster is going to consume much more space. 

Thanks for any thoughts or advice on any of the above.


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## Hanky (Nov 14, 2014)

Welcome from western Canada I grew up in Edmonton and just sold my Mom's house on south side. My self I would sell the big monster and get a 2 stage Toro 8/26 or 8/28 the model of your choice. PS.. I had to deal with a large corner lot with a bus stop on 82 Ave.


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## Herve (Nov 4, 2020)

Decision made for the 821QZE.

The unit fits easily into our Outlander SUV. I was able to unload it myself with a bit of effort without damaging anything. Now if our grand son requires something to help him clear his parents' driveway, he or his parents can come over and easily load it into their van. (Can you imagine if they had wanted to borrow the monster?)

After I fired up the unit, I rolled it down the rain-soaked driveway to the sidewalk (no significant snowfall that has not quickly, naturally melted this year in Edmonton; knock on wood). FIrst I lifted trhe front end and pushed/rolled the unit up the driveway to the garage floor. No problem. My wife can do it easily, too. Then I agian rolled the unit down to the sidewalk and, this time, allowed the paddles to engage with the wet driveway and, sure enough, the paddles pulled the unit up the driveway to the garage. I actually had to lift the front of the unit a bit in order to keep it from running away on me. The only possilble problem I can see is restraining the unit while blowing DOWN the slope. Could be a very fast trip. Maybe I can "dog sled" it! I figure that after fuelling and warming up the unit, I'll be able to clear the driveway of 6" of snow in about five minutes, and the sidewalk in less. Nice. 

Perhaps you can see from the photo below why I'd like to have a smaller unit for anything up to, say, 8" of snow. Our backpack blower will still remove the dustings. Our Craftsman monster will be reserved for the rare monster snowfalls. Now we've got all possible snow conditions covered. 

BTW, I can start the unit easily using the recoil. My wife will use the electric start. 

So far, so good.


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## Zavie (Sep 23, 2014)

Nice choice!


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## Herve (Nov 4, 2020)

So much for "knock on wood". It looks like I'm going to "have the opportunity" (be forced) to check out the perfomance of our new unit in real snow much sooner than I thought. Note the red "snowfall warning".





Edmonton, AB - 7 Day Forecast - Environment Canada


Current conditions and forecasts including 7 day outlook, daily high/low temperature, warnings, chance of precipitation, pressure, humidity/wind chill (when applicable) historical data, normals, record values and sunrise/sunset times




weather.gc.ca


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## Zavie (Sep 23, 2014)

Cool!


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## Herve (Nov 4, 2020)

The forecast of a snow storm was accurate. The 821 fired up on the second pull and warmed up quickly. 

It chewed through about 7" of fairly heavy snow that fell while the temperature was around -5C (24F). 

I was able to control the 821 on the down-slope of the driveway pretty easily and the paddles dragged the unit and me up the driveway admirably. I blasted a round-trip down our sidewalk in record time. The paddles scoured the surface of both the driveway and sidewalk very nicely. 

Because the unit is so narrow, light and maneuverable, I was able to blow the narrow walkway on the side of our house, climb two steps, drop one step and blow off our concrete deck at the rear of our house. I was never able to do that with the monster. Today's amount of snow would have been impossible to blow off the deck with the backpack blower, so removing the snow there would have taken good old blood, sweat and tears caveman shovelling. 

The wind was at times pretty strong and many times I got blowback right in the face, so that put a bit of a cold damper on the first-time experience with the 821. 

Unfortunately, the storm continues as I type at 22:38 and the accumulation since I last blew off everything appears to be about 6", so the 821 and I are going to have to do a repeat performance tomorrow. 

Had I not had the 821, I would have waited out the storm to its final flake and used the beast to clear the entire accumulation in one go, which would not have been a bad outcome, but it would not have removed the snow right down to the pavement as well as the paddle-king would have, so I would have had to do some additional shovelling and scraping and sanding on the sidewalk to satisfy the City-Hall Overlords. 

Again, the 821 did a fantastic job on the sidewalk. I can see why this type of blower is very popular with people who do snow removal for a living. 

(My neighbor across the street also bought an 821 yesterday. He weighs about 140lbs and was able to blow off his driveway and sidewalk as fast as I did. His one and only complaint was that his unit did not blow the snow as far as advertised. His problem is that he's seen our 12hp beast in action, with me "behind the wheel", on his driveway and he expected the same performance from his 8hp 821. I think he'll be much happier with lighter snow.)


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## Herve (Nov 4, 2020)

FWIW, because our new unit had close to 2 hours of operation, as the operator's manual recommends, yesterday I changed the oil for the first time. In short, the original oil was pretty bad, worse that I thought it would be, with lots of little flecks of something. 

After draining the old oil, I refilled exactly according to the procedure in the manual and, unfortunately, doing so took quite awhile. The manual says to add 75% of a nominal capacity of 700 mls, which equals 525 mls, so that's what I did. In reality, in our machine anyway, the actual capacity is well over 700 mls. By following Toro's procedure, I must have made at least 7 small additions, with 3 minutes of waiting time between each, which is ridiculous. With all the careful measuring, adding, checking level, etc., the whole thing took almost an hour and a half. I've changed the oil and filter in our Outlander in a fraction of that time. 

From what I've learned, in the future I will employ a completely different procedure that I believe will be far quicker and every bit as thorough as Toro's. It all boils down to determining the volume of the old oil for our particular engine and then filling with the exact same volume of new oil.

1. Check the oil level and note whether it is a bit high or low. 
2. Run engine for a few minutes to warm oil.
3. Drain the old oil into a low container and screw the drain bolt back in.
4. Pour ALL the old oil into a clear 1-litre pop bottle, or old 1-litre oil bottle with clear side strip that allows the oil level to be seen, and make a mark on the side of the bottle where the level is. 
5. Pour out the old oil as much as possible, then add new oil to that mark, or slightly above. (If you're concerned about the old oil that clings to the inside of the bottle mixing with the new oil, just flush it out with a bit of brake cleaner. Once the mark is on the bottle, there is no longer a need to pour old oil into it.) 
6. Pour the new oil into the engine.
7. Lower the unit into normal operating position, wait three minutes for oil to settle, then check oil level. Mostly likely it will be perfect and, voila, you should be good to go.
8. Use the same bottle to measure new oil for future oil changes.


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## Mountain Man (Oct 14, 2018)

Wont be using my 821 anytime soon. 6 days 70 or above, and likly 7th day tomorrow. Shattering records every day.


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## Herve (Nov 4, 2020)

Mountain Man said:


> Wont be using my 821 anytime soon. 6 days 70 or above, and likly 7th day tomorrow. Shattering records every day.


Where do you live? (Our airline needs to know the "destination" for our one-way ticket.)


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## Mountain Man (Oct 14, 2018)

Herve said:


> Where do you live? (Our airline needs to know the "destination" for our one-way ticket.)


Central Connecticut.


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