Hello.......my first post. My name is Marc and I've been a snow freak since birth.....I spend lots of time in VT in the winter skiing........and get so much joy from watching my kids sled ride/play in the snow. So these non-snow winters in NJ are getting old. The temps are plenty cold......according to SAH weather tool I could have made snow 25 days in January alone last winter.....70 days total during last years winter. Now I know some of those would have resulted in crummy snow......but even if I could have made good snow for a month it would have been a huge win.

So here I am and very excited about getting started. I'm going to build a Sue 15 gun as they seem to be a nice gun. My 20 gal compressor (oil) puts out 8.2 CFM @90PSI.....and I have a big old Karcher Powerwasher that I used for a summer powerwashing business in college. She'll put out 2400 PSI and 4.4 GPM. This combo and a proper Sue 15 should produce plenty of snow for my small yard (1/4 acre)

I'm going to read a lot first but will have plenty of questions about fine tuning, nozzel sizes, etc as I get into this. So hello forum and I look forward to posting lots of pictures this winter.

Thanks.......I hope to be a regular, especially once the temps drop in Nov. When I was a kid my brother and I lived down the road for an old ski hill that had closed about 10 years before we moved there. Here it is on NELSAP: http://www.nelsap.org/nj/bethel.html Must have been a great place when open.......they even had snow making, pretty cool for such a small hill. The place was way cool back in the early 80's for us.....we made a rope toe using a lawnmower and had many a great day sled riding using this set up. Then it was made into house and we had to start over at home.


This summer I'm going to gather as much info as possible and build some guns. My Karcher PW is a beast......old but good. Wanted to start making snow last winter but found that mice had chewed the wires and built a nest in my Karcher........just last weekend I rebuilt the unit and it's good as new. Runs on a 7hp Honda engine. Now I need to fab a quiet exhaust.

Seems to me that from what I've read it makes the most sense to build a gun/nozzles, etc.....around your water/air limits. With that said I very well may go w/ a Sue 18 or 21....we'll see. I like the external mix as it seems that freezing air lines are less of an issue? Seems that lots also run a short air hose or wider hose (garden) for air to prevent freeze ups. I'd like to build a very efficient and easy to use gun set up. Might even throw an oscillator on it as I've seen on this site.

My goal is to have a white Christmas.......and enable the kids to get many, many days of sled riding in this winter. Above all I want to have fun and do something new and learn as much about snowmaking as I can. Look forward to chats on the forums and input from experienced members. Thanks and have a great 4th of July.

Its great to see new members that are as crazy as we are! It sounds like you've already got some awesome equipment for a job like this. 4.4gpm is nothing to laugh at, you will have PLENTY of snow, even if you only run 10-15 nights.

Unfortunately I dont know much about external guns, but I too am considering building one over the summer just to compare it to an internal.

Make sure you check the chat rooms whenever you get on too. Im always int he chat whenever im on the forum. Look forward to talking with you!

Good luck.

Welcome i live in sussex county NJ nice to see a fello snow buff in nj

Nice........fellow NJ snowmaker. I'm in Union county........so when it's really cold it doesn't snow........and when it does snow I'm too close to the coast so the ocean temp usually turns it to sleet/ice as soon as the sun comes up.........at least that's what happened every single time it snowed last winter. I'm excited about taking advantage of cold temps and building a base so if/when I do get some real stuff.......it will stick as soon as it falls. You up near the ski areas in Vernon?

its in my back yard 2 miles away from hiddenvalley and mountian creek