Well it usually isn't more than momentary draw, but because it has downpressure it can be a constant draw. If I scrape a long driveway in downpressure mode, the pump is running constantly to force the hydraulics down. So that could be several minutes of constant operation. I didn't have any issues last winter on the single battery, but I'm just thinking 170 amps could cause problems if drawing from two batteries at once if the connection between the two batteries is weak. For example, I'm wondering now if 4 gauge wire is sufficient. Maybe 2 gauge is a better choice...