In today's video,
we're going to put something to test
that a lot of you may have been curious about at some point.
Can a flamethrower be used to clear away snow?
[Music]
Guys, we've made flamethrowers.
A lot of flamethrowers.
Several different types of flamethrowers in the past,
and today, we've got three of them here.
We're going to test them all.
I've had to shovel
my driveway several times in the last few weeks,
and I hate it.
Every time I do it, i just wonder like,
would it be better to just try and melt it all away?
So we're up here the dome,
and there's snow all around this dome,
and we have flamethrowers.
We do.
So we're going to test them out.
We've got three,
we've got our fire extinguisher flamethrower,
which can use a powder or a liquid fuel.
We're going to be using liquid today.
We've got our arm-mounted flamethrower,
which uses canisters of propane as a fuel.
And then we've got Big Bertha,
the first flame thrower actually that Grant built,
and this uses gasoline and diesel as a fuel.
So while I think the biggest one is going to work the best,
I gotta say I'm not super confident
that any of them are going to clear much of the snow.
But we still have to know.
We really want to try.
Yeah.
And I think that no matter how poorly it performs,
it's going to be so much more fun than shoveling snow.
So true.
Shoveling snow isn't fun.
Here's the basic idea.
You have seen us use
or create several flamethrowers in the past.
Now, we're going to go ahead and take these flamethrowers,
and put it to the test against the snow.
Okay.
My first question though is,
how effective do you think this is going to be,
and which one do you think is going to work best?
I'll answer your questions in reverse order.
Which one is going to work best?
I think that the big one is going to work best,
because that actually sprays out fuel.
It sprays it out,
and sometimes, that fuel can even land on stuff
and keep burning.
As for how effective it's going to be though,
I'm really not sure.
Flamethrowers put out a lot of heat.
They do, but not for an extended amount of time.
It's true.
I think the longest running one is the big one,
and we only get maybe a minute out of that.
Maybe this one goes a little bit longer,
with it's propane tanks
because it's not pouring fuel as quickly.
Let's start with the little one.
Let's go.
[Music]
How to clear your driveway, test 1.
I think it just went out.
No, it was burning something.
Was it?
Yeah.
Well, my arms' on fire.
So there's that.
Yeah, I couldn't really see anything,
but you can see the marks.
So, first test didn't go according to plan.
We think there's probably just a little too much liquid
in the canister.
So we've added some boric acid.
That's going to make our flames green
so we can hopefully at least see the flame hitting the snow,
especially with how bright it is right now.
I'm also going to try
and pressurize it just a little bit more
so it's spraying out,
and like aerosolizing more than it did last time.
Okay.
There goes nothing.
Yeah.
Dang it.
It blew it out.
All right, we're gonna try one more time with
what we've got left.
But you can see the green flame.
You can see it's not done much to the snow.
It's pockmarked it a little bit, but that's about it.
It wasn't very visible.
So we've actually shovelled a couple
of snow inside the dome so we can make it darker,
and we're going to try this just one more time
before moving on to our next flamethrower.
So guys, we're testing this
because I wanted to not shovel snow,
and then here I am, shoveling snow.
Well, it didn't do anything to the snow,
but it made me very happy.
So amazingly,
that's like the exact same thing that was happening outside.
Yeah.
>> You just couldn't see it outside. >> You couldn't see it.
Methanol burns very light colored.
Like compared to color
that the lighter fluid burns, it's almost invisible.
Like you can--
There's a lot of it on the ground,
still right here.
This is all on fire, but it's almost all methanol.
And so it's just almost invisible,
even with the green in it.
[Music]
All right, here it goes.
We're going to do a test.
See if we can get it to ignite with the taser.
If that doesn't work,
we're going to go to our little fire sticks,
but here it goes.
Ready and...
Now, that was considerably more effective than the methanol.
Just slightly.
[Music]
That got rid of that lump of snow pretty quick.
I think we need to do it again,
but outside and see how much we can actually clear away.
That was about one shovel full of like--
With a normal snow shovel clearing my driveway,
that was about one shovelful.
So, it still take several hours, but you could do it.
But it got rid of it.
It did.
In this situation.
All right, let's refuel.
Try it outside.
[Music]
Well...
Wow.
You put a hole in the snow.
I think that was already there.
It worked a lot better inside
when it was just a pile of snow surrounded by dirt.
With the snow surrounded by more snow,
it was even less effective.
Yeah, it's true.
The surface is now slush.
Yeah.
That's about as far as we've got.
I think I've dropped down about an inch,
and that was it.
Whole double tanks of propane.
Oh, maybe it wasn't.
Oh, that was only one tank.
That's one.
Oh.
Let's relight.
All right.
That's one tank.
One more to go.
3, 2, 1.
[Music]
All right, that's a decent dent.
I mean, kind of.
It is a decent then given the fact
that it's 14 degrees,
and we have several feet of snow.
So that's now both tanks
worth of fuel emptied down onto it, and that's,
that's not much.
I think it's still more than we were expecting to do,
especially after the fire extinguisher flamethrower.
That's true.
The fire extinguisher really got pretty much nowhere.
This at least like visibly melted some snow.
It's also softer,
like this is very hard and frozen snow right now.
This is slushy now.
We've made a slush surface, and we made it dirty too.
It's nice and clean underneath, but more melted.
Yeah.
[Music]
So yeah, I don't think this this particular one
would be good for cleaning off your driveway,
but car windshield maybe.
If you really really don't care about your car's paint job.
All right, I think it's time for Big Bertha.
[Music]
Guys, I've never gotten to play with Big Bertha
before so I'm thrilled.
I'm also thrilled
that Nate is holding that fire extinguisher in his hand.
A real one.
All right.
Yes.
[Music]
Wooh!
I think it works.
I love this thing.
[Music]
I think that one is the most successful so far.
It might not be the most practical or effective way
of clearing snow off your driveway,
but I think we can all agree that it's the most fun.
That's just the look of pure glee on my face.
That pretty much sums up how I felt at the time.
Pretty much the result of using flamethrowers in my experience.
So of the three.
Yep.
Fire extinguisher with methanol.
Pretty much worthless.
Yeah.
I'm going to go and say that does nothing.
Slightly stained the snow,
and that was about the end of it.
Propane mounted flamethrower.
Decent.
Surprisingly good.
>> In small quantity. >> Especially in small quantities.
Yes.
Out in the snow on the driveway, not great.
But I think it actually melted
about the same amount of snow as the big one
that was using diesel and gasoline as a fuel.
The only advantage I am seeing
to our diesel and gasoline flamethrower, Big Bertha,
is that the fuel itself is being ejected
with the flame itself,
so it's landing and still burning,
so you have a little bit more burn time.
That's about it.
Overall, I'm gonna say this doesn't work.
It's very fun.
But it is not very effective.
This is why we use shovels.
It's just takes too much energy to melt snow.
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