This Best-Rated Toro Snow Blower Will Make Clearing Snow Easy (2023)

If you live deep in snow country or you have a lot of driveway to clear, you might consider upgrading to a three-stage snow blower — so-called because of the accelerator that helps discharge more snow at a faster pace. Cub Cadet came up with the innovation several years back, and it continues to impress our engineers with its performance, with the caveat that it’s overkill in all but the most extreme conditions.

This beast of a gas blower’s 30-inch clearing path is as wide as they come, and the self-propelled engine and track design provide superb traction and stability on hills. (Cub Cadet also has a version of its three-stage snow blower with tires, good for getting around on flat ground.) Its feature set includes an electric start, LED headlights and heated hand grips, which you’ll appreciate during frigid weather.

With just one auger moving the snow, single-stage snow blowers aren’t built for blizzards, but they can make short work of lighter snowfalls.

This Ryobi would be perfect in urban neighborhoods with shorter driveways and front walks. It has a respectable 21-inch-wide clearing path and runs on a pair of 40-volt rechargeable batteries. Ryobi says the machine can throw 13 inches of snow up to 35 feet, which is probably true with light, dry snow, but you should expect it to drop a bit with heavier wet snow.

It's also part of Ryobi's Whisper Series of products, which our tests have confirmed deliver quieter operation than comparable equipment — especially gas-powered models. Our experts also like the bevy of user-friendly features on the machine, including the push-button start, LED lightbar and 180-degree chute for directional snow throwing. Shop this blower while it's still on sale and save money (and time) this winter.

A corded electric snow blower means never having to fuel up (or charge a battery) and very little engine maintenance. The downside is the nuisance of the power cord, plus the fact that they don’t generate a lot of power. But if you just need to clear light snowfall from a deck, patio or small driveway, they can be a sensible solution.

Snow Joe’s single-stage corded snow blower isn’t as powerful as its battery-powered brand mate, but it should be able to handle light dustings. It has a 22-inch clearing path and a claimed throwing distance of 25 feet. Our experts also like the dual LED headlamps and 180-degree chute. Plus, it's already affordable price becomes more appealing thanks to winter sales.

Our experts at the Good Housekeeping Institute start by assessing the current marketplace to identify the snow blowers you’re most likely to find at home centers and online. We also attend trade shows like Equip Expo to stay on top of the latest innovations. From there, we focus on brands that have performed the best and proven the most reliable through years of outdoor power equipment tests. Hands-on testing starts with a thorough review of technical and performance data points, covering factors such as power source, clearing width and throwing distance.

To measure all-important blowing performance, we teamed up with our partners at Popular Mechanics who test snow blowers by using them to move piles of wet sawdust, which is even tougher than the heaviest snow. In one test, they set up an area 8 feet by 6 feet by 5.5 inches, which converts to 462 pounds of “snow” and recorded the time it took to clear the test area with each machine. For another test, they created a dense, wet sawdust snowbank and used each snowblower to break through it. Our experts also did extensive home testing throughout the winter to see how snow blowers performed in real-world conditions. These evaluations focused on usability, including factors like ease of start-up, handle comfort and maneuverability.

If your region only gets the occasional winter storm, you might be better off hiring a local plowing service to clear your drive or digging out with a shovel. But if you see more snowfall than that, your best bet is to find a snow blower that matches the volume of snow and how much effort you want to expend on its removal.

Before you pull the trigger on your snow blower purchase, consider these factors:

✔️ Power source: Snow blowers are usually grouped by power source: Gas, electric and battery.

• Gas snow blowers, which run on regular unleaded gasoline from the gas station, are the most common.
• Electric snow blowers have a cord that you plug into an extension cord. Keep in mind that 100 feet is the maximum length the cord can be to still send enough power to the snow blower.
• Battery-powered snow blowers run on rechargeable batteries with average run times between 30 and 60 minutes.

✔️ Stage: This is another way that snow blowers are categorized which makes the decision process a little more complicated. Here’s the basic breakdown:

• Single-stage snow blowers: Whether gas, electric or battery-powered, these blowers have a single paddle that picks up snow from the ground and ejects it through the chute. There are limits to how much snow can be pulled through the machine and how far it can be thrown. Plus they're typically not self-propelled, so you do the heavy pushing.
• Two-stage snow blowers: Also known as dual-stage, these blowers start with a similar augur design but add in an impeller, a fan-like mechanism that helps discharge snow out the chute. The added push allows two-stage machines to move more snow at a faster pace and throw it farther. They're usually self-propelled for easier clearing.
• Three-stage snow blowers: As you might guess, these snow blowers have a third element called an accelerator which helps move snow from the auger to the impeller. Three-stage snow blowers are the fastest machines with the farthest throwing power. The commercial-grade machines are always self-propelled and they only run on gas.

When choosing which snow blower is best for you, think about how much snowfall your home gets in a single dumping and how far you need to throw it (basically how wide is your driveway). If you get pummeled by multiple blizzards a year and you have a two-car driveway or bigger, you’ll want the maximum power and self-propelled operation of a gas-powered snow blower with two or three stages. These rugged machines can even blast through the icy pile that municipal snow-plowing trucks leave at the foot of driveways. If a typical season consists of a couple of snowfalls of 6 to 12 inches, a two-stage blower — whether gas, electric or battery-powered — should be up to the job. For anything less than that, go for a single-stage snow blower of any power source.

✔️ Features that count: You can zero in on the right machine by weighing these factors:

• Noise: The big tradeoff of powerful gas snow blowers is that they’re noisy. They're hard on your ears (so we strongly recommend wearing ear protection when operating these machines) and your neighbors won’t love it either, especially early in the morning. If you don’t have to deal with a ton of wet, heavy snow, consider a quiet electric or battery-powered snow blower. “You won't need ear protection, and you won't finish up the job with your ears ringing,” says Ford.
• Wheels vs. tracks: Most snow blowers have wheels, which make for easy maneuvering, especially if they’re powered by the engine, as is the case with two-stage snow blowers. Tracks, on the other hand, provide greater grip and stability, giving them the advantage on slopes or over loose surfaces, but they’re harder to turn.
• Electric start: In the dead of winter, this is much easier than yanking a pull cord. With gas models, the electric start has a power cord that needs to be plugged into an exterior outlet.
• Headlight: This feature is found on most two and three-stage snow blowers. “It's a requirement in my book, especially if you have to clear out to the road and you have to work in low-light situations,” says Ford.
• Heated hand grips: Freezing fingers make snow blowing hard, if not impossible. “I have a lot of area to cover, and if we get 18 inches, I could be dealing with snow removal for 5 hours, so heated handgrips are a nice feature that I appreciate,” says Ford.
• Joystick chute control: This handheld operation makes it easy to change the vertical and horizontal direction of the discharge chute, nice if the neighbors (and their cars) are close by.

Yes, when used properly!

First things first, never put your hands inside the chute. If you need to clear a clog, turn the snow blower off and use the manufacturer-provided clean-out tool to remove the blockage. It’s also important to make sure no one is standing in front of the snow blower when it’s in use due to flying rocks and other projectiles. Always keep kids and pets indoors when using the equipment. Finally, when operating an electric snow blower, only use a surge protector that’s rated for outdoor use and be careful not to run over the cord.

Periodically check the shear pins, which protect the engine by breaking if the auger jams. You'll also want to inspect the belts for wear and tear, maintain proper tire pressure, and of course, before any storm comes, clear the area you'll be blowing of sticks, toys, tools and the like so you don't run over them and damage the machine.

✔️ For gas snow blowers, check the oil level before each use. If the machine will be sitting idle for a while, either run the tank dry or add fuel stabilizer so that gasoline doesn’t break down, clogging the fuel lines and carburetor.

✔️ For battery-powered blowers, store and charge the snowblower batteries inside your home since cold temperatures can cause them to degrade.

Dan DiClerico, Director of the Home Improvement & Outdoor Lab, has tested and written about outdoor power equipment, including snow blowers, for more than 20 years. Prior to joining Good Housekeeping, his expertise appeared in Consumer Reports and This Old House. He has personally tested snow blowers from more than a dozen leading brands and he is a regular at trade shows where he stays up to date with the latest innovations.

Bradley Ford is the test editor at Popular Mechanics and has spent most of his life using tools to fix, build or make things. Growing up he worked on a farm, where he learned to weld, repair and paint equipment. Today, when he's not testing tools or writing for Popular Mechanics, he's busy keeping up with the projects at his old farmhouse in eastern Pennsylvania.