# Erskine Snowblower



## Pelican

I just bought an Erskine Model 2418 snowblower for my Cat 248 skid steer. It is 36" tall, 72" wide, has an 18" auger and 24" impeller. I opted for the truck loading chute with hydraulic controlled pitch and turn. There's a joystick included for these functions which are controlled through an electric manifold.

This blower hooks to my High Flow side which puts out 33gpm.

I do sidewalks in a local village with a friend and this setup is ideal. Previously we plowed the snow off the sidewalks into the street and loaded it into trucks with a front loader. This eliminates the plowing and loading and combines it into one operation. The truck rides along side of me and I load directly into the dump body.

The first time we did the walks this season it took 8 hours with the loader operation. Saturday morning we did the same walks in 2 hours! Granted we were only clearing 6" instead of 18", but the time savings is impressive.

This method is much more efficient, we block only the lane we're working in and only a truck's length at a time vs. both lanes plus maneuvering room for the loader. The trucks are loaded more completely, the drivers reported that their loads were much heavier than when loaded by front loader. The trucks are not constantly repositioning to be loaded, they just drive beside me as I blow. You corn-huskers know this routine.

Right now I've only got the one village, but I'll bet that will change when we demo our operation!


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## Pelican

*Front View*

36" tall, 72" wide, 18" auger, 24" impeller.


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## Pelican

*Rear View*

You can see the rotator motor and the manifold underneath. If you look closely you can see the impeller motor under the chute.


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## Pelican

Here's my driveway, the snow banks are right at the edge and about 3' high.


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## Pelican

Here it is again after making a pass, the snowbank edge is now 6' back from the drive. Took about 5 minutes including a cleanup pass.

The limiting factor here is traction, the machine spins and some work has to be nibbled at. I blew back snow piles that had been stacked with a front loader by working the blower up and down the pile.

It also took getting used to maneuvering the machine at full throttle, it's very touchy, but I'm getting better at it.


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## cat320

I was just woundering what does something like that cost? I always thought of getting a bobcat with the blower on it.Do they have a web site? Good luck with it Pelican.


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## Arc Burn

My first question was traction,but you answered that!will you get tracks or isn't it going to be an issue for your application?Second,how's your visibility?thats a pretty tall unit and your not sitting to high up in that skidsteer as it is,just wondering if it's an issue?nice setup,good luck with it!


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## paul soccodato

Pelican, 
that is one sweet setup, good luck with it.


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## Pelican

The blower itself was about $5800 and the truck chute added $1200 brining the total to about $7000. Erskine is now owned by Bobcat, they have a small section on their website about the blower, but I wasn't able to find a dedicated site.

I'll see how this works out, I have no experience with tracks and don't know if they'd be an improvement. I had thought about tire chains, but fear the damage they may cause. With all the noise and vibration, it would be tough to tell when you're spinning.

The visibility definitely is not as good as using the bucket, but I was able to get the job done without damaging anything. You have to pay attention and move around inside, the chute partially blocks your view and can hide obstacles.

I forgot to mention before the ease of transportation vs. a front loader. The loader must be driven to the job at slow speeds while I can transport this at highway speeds on my trailer. The tip of the chute is at 13' 6" loaded so I don't have trouble with wires and such.


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## speedracer241

Gee Pelican, you have all the toys 

Glad to see someone is getting to use their toys....
Mark K


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## ProSno

Pelican, Erskin is a great blower you will have good luck. I posted a pic of mine. Blower is an animal. Looks great. Get an action shot if you can and post it.


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## Qualey

Very nice setup. I have an ASV 4810 that we run a Loegering 85" blower on. Requires 30 GPM, but I have noticed that do to its impeller design I can't run very fast on parking lots (it can only stuff so much in the chute). Can you do high speed with the Erskine design? Mine does great on bank removal and low snowfall residentials, but I purchased it more so for the commercials so it can return a higher income. I would like to try out an Erskine and see the difference. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Matt Qualey


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## Pelican

Whew!!! What a 3 days this has been. I got to really give my blower a workout this storm, it did a great job! 

First when visibility got so poor that I couldn't see out of the truck, I switched to the skid steer and blew out some of the problem driveways that I service so they'd be accessible. We had about 18 inches of snow at this point, so I had to progress slowly not to clog the chute. Threw the snow about 30' so when I did the cleanup with the truck, there were no windrows to roll back into the drive. The traction problem is still there, I need to overcome this.

I later went to do the sidewalks that we service, they had a 4' high windrow piled on them. I had 3 tri-axle dumps working with me, the dump point was 1/2 mile away and they couldn't keep up with me. I was filling a truck about every 50', took just over a minute or two. I'm very pleased with its performance.

I have to figure out how to get more heat from my skid steer though, it's real cold inside. The heater is small and can't keep up, your feet freeze. I have to seal out some openings to keep[ out the drafts, maybe this will help.


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## cat320

I was thinking of you this past storm with the new snow blower .Now that you got it how do you charge for it? by the hour ,job is the cat one price and the snowblower another?


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## Pelican

Qualey, Welcome to Plowsite! 

My rates depend on the application. I'm starting to get calls to move snow banks from residential customers. On these jobs, they usually want to know their cost up front, so I give a quote.

If I'm going to sub out to a contractor, I'll have an hourly fee. The municipal sidewalks are also by the hour. When I rent the machine, I have a rate for the machine plus one standard attachment, bucket or forks. If a specialized attachment, (backhoe or snowblower) goes, there's an additional fee for the attachment.


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## nben

Pelican,
Have the same heating problem with our bobcat. The heater is on the left side about shoulder height and on the bobcat, the bottom of the machine has holes under the foot pedals so debris doesn't build up. I tried rubber flaps under the pedals and made a partial cover over the heater out of sheet metal with some ducting running to the foot area. It made it a little better but not great. I am going to be spending quite a bit of time in the machine moving snow the next few days and I am dreading the "cold feet" syndrome. I have been thinking about trying some electric boot heaters. They are available from most snowmobile accessory suppliers and run on 12 volts. I used to ski with a friend that had battery powered socks, but haven't seen them around in a while. I think the biggest problem is the fact that your feet don't move much when you are in a skidsteer. Our Kubota has a similar sized heater but my feet don't get cold when I am in that. Let me know if you come up with a successful solution.


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