Like most suburban homes, our driveway has an angled lip at the end where it meets the street.
When the city snowplow plows our street it leaves a pile of snow at the end of our driveway that covers this lip and the resulting snow pile extends about 18” into the street. So, I created a work area at the end of the driveway that encompasses the lip and about two feet into the street.
Even when there is only two inches of snow, and before the city snowplow has come by, in that work area the Yarbo has a lot of trouble manuevering on and off and up and down that angled lip, spending a great deal of time and battery juice moving a lot but blowing little snow in a relatively small work area.
I am new to the Yarbo, so I don’t know yet: I am questioning whether it is practical and realistic for the Yarbo to accomplish much in that work area once the city plow comes by.
I’m asking for advice/guidance from more experienced Yarbo users about what I should expect and what I can do for this situation.
Best to map that as its own area and try slope mode. It should do “dead ends” as in straight lines. Or depending on the topography, you could try a zig zag pattern. Experiment with it and don’t be afraid to do dry runs. You can turn the auger off in the working preferences and set the module height up high to do some dry runs.
Thank you. A few followup questions: I can’t figure out in the app how to set a zig zag pattern. The only “Route Pattern” options for the work area that I see in the app are “Parallel”, “Circle”, and “Slope (Beta)”.
Also - Sorry, but I’m not familiar with all the Yarbo lingo. What is meant by “dead ends”? And, how would I make it do that, if that would be helpful?
Finally - Any comments on my second question? Today the snowplow came by, it left a mountain range of snow about three feet high. I didn’t even try to have the Yarbo attempt to tackle that. But, have people been successful using the Yarbo on such a load of snow?
It’s a lot of the mower lingo but there is overlap with the other modules. Parallel would be the equivalent of the zig zag. I find circle to be the most efficient on my long run of the driveway. Slope does a straight line in the direction you tell it the driveway is sloped towards. Drives straight down blowing snowing, zero turns, drives back up the way it came and then moves over and does it all again.
Mower dead ends operate similarly, but they are like a one way path where it goes down and then backs out.
For the snow plow issue, if you exceed the intake height or it’s solid, you may need to do this manually. Set the module height all the way up and kinda work your way down. Driving up the “hill” knocking it down a bit at a time. For automation, it works best if you send it early and can keep ahead of it and clean it up as they come through. You need to be careful of ice and rocks or you may break a shear pin. Sending early is also true for any of the areas. Send it at about 1-2 inches.
Hope that helps some, If not feel free to ask more questions. The community has a lot of experience and is very helpful.
Yarbo will eat dry snow all day long, even 3 feet high. But you’re going to be driving it manually to do that, and picking at it. On the good side, you can do it from inside, lol.
But like any snowblower, slush will choke it. If your local plow is throwing salt as it goes by, the bank will be hit-or-miss if there’s a slush layer at the bottom. You also need to consider if there will be any solid bricks of ice that’ll shear the auger pins. Such things would shear the pins on a full sized blower just as fast, but it’s a thing to consider.
