Craftsman's Popular Two-Stage Gas Snow Blower: What To Know Before Buying

If you live in an area where you receive a lot of snow, or if you just hate shoveling the white stuff with a passion, buying a snow blower is a way to make clearing the driveway and sidewalk a far easier, faster process. Learning how to use your snow blower on your driveway more efficiently becomes easier when you have a machine from a trusted, well-known brand that provides reliable performance, even in tough weather conditions.

For many people, Craftsman is a trusted brand. It's been around for almost 100 years and typically offers excellent durability and performance. However, the brand has undergone some changes in the past decade, including having Stanley Black & Decker purchase it from Sears Holdings. Are Craftsman power tools any good anymore, and can you trust its snow blowers?

Reviewers and customers appear to trust the Craftsman 24-Inch 208cc Two-Stage Gas Snow Blower ($999). It is a popular model that has generally favorable reviews. Customer reviewers at Lowe's give it 4.3 stars out of 5. It has a "CR Recommended" designation from Consumer Reports' reviewers, receiving a perfect score in the categories of snow removal speed and deep pile removal.

One aspect of the Craftsman 24-inch blower that some people will appreciate is its two-stage design. What is a two-stage snowblower? With two stages in the design, the Craftsman model uses an auger to pick up the snow and an impeller to throw it away from the space being cleared. This allows the blower to handle deep, heavy snow with ease. A single-stage machine struggles with anything but lightweight snow. "It started on one pull and blazed through my snow drifts of 3 inches to 12 inches in places," one customer reviewer on Lowe's website says of this Craftsman two-stage model. "Seems like a well-built machine for a reasonable cost."

When you're moving large amounts of snow in windy conditions, you'll appreciate having a 200-degree chute rotation that lets you aim the snow exactly where you want. The Craftsman machine has a chute made of steel, and it can throw snow up to 40 feet, which is ideal when you have a wide driveway. Smaller machines may struggle to throw it far enough, meaning it may land back on the driveway. You'll then have to move it more than once and make more passes.

The Craftsman model is easier to use because it has a self-propelled design that offers six different forward speeds and two reverse speeds. It "made snow removal so simple," another customer reviewer at Lowe's says. "One pull to start, and the self-propelled wheels make it move with such ease."

Compared to other two-stage snow blowers, the Craftsman model costs less, but its 24-inch clearing width is at the low end in terms of size. Competitors frequently offer 26-, 28-, and 30-inch clearing widths. For a 20-foot wide driveway, you'd need at least 10 passes with the Craftsman 24-inch blower, while a 30-inch blower could complete the job in eight passes. People who need heavy-duty snow blower performance will want at least a 30-inch clearing width.

Although the Consumer Reports reviewer gave the Craftsman model above-average scores in nearly all performance categories, it did receive a below-average score in terms of the noise it generates. Consumer Reports would recommend wearing ear protection while using this machine.

Among customer reviewers on the Lowe's website, 9% gave the machine the lowest possible 1-star rating. Among reviewers who gave it 1 star, difficulties in starting the machine were mentioned most frequently. One customer reviewer says it repeatedly sputtered and failed to throw wet snow more than a few feet. "It died whenever I tried to take care of wet snow, [and] every year it got worse. We are at the beginning of the cold season now and, after one snow, I am seriously thinking of buying a new one, which no longer would be Craftsman."