Leaf Blowers

Rocker

OK, the guy who was the go to person on things building and garden maintenance appears not to be here much but I will post the question anyway.

Our lawns and drives are absolutely covered with leaves these days.  Perfectly natural as trees shed their leaves in late Autumn but leaving leaves on lawns is not a good idea and sweeping them away is a total waste of time.  In recent years I have used a lawnmower to 'hoover' up leaves.  Works fine for the places the lawnmower can get to so I decided to look at getting a leaf blower to help with this task.  The word on the street is that electric blowers are useless so it must be a petrol engined machine, preferably one that is worn backpack style.

Anyone any knowledge of these machines and can recommend a model. Thanks.

Jalapeno

Stihl. I've a hand held, but wish I'd got the backpack version.

Get ear defenders while you're at it.

robgilmo

They do tend to blow the leaves right where you dont want them to go, I use the lawn mower myself, a lawn mover mulches them too so they go straight into the compost.

ICBM

What’s the point? I genuinely do not get it. You use a lot of fuel to make a lot of noise and blow the leaves about a bit, which means they’re still in the garden...

Whereas a rake and a bin actually gets rid of them.

A few weeks ago I watched a pair of workmen spend about an hour blowing leaves all over the car park where I work, and when they finished there were still exactly the same number of leaves in the car park.

I’m sure they got paid for burning a couple of gallons of 2-stroke fuel, so from their point of view it was presumably worthwhile... but not from anyone else’s.

grungebob

I have a large garden surrounded on all sides by trees. I use a Bosch electric one (£60 I think from B&Q). It mulches as it collects. Yes you need a few extension cords to reach all places but it’s been a great buy and saved me lots of time. 
Itll suck or blow and is quite light weight. 

viz

If these blowers had a suck setting they’d be more useful surely

fields5069

I have a blower/vacuum, it was fairly cheap I seem to recall. No problem whatsoever with it being electric, though I do have to stop from time to time to clear out the rotor area with a stick if the leaves are wet.

The suck/blow conversion is done manually - i.e. to go from suck to blow, remove the sucker tube from the in side, replace it with a debris cover, then remove the bag from the out side, replace with a blower tube. So I blow the leaves into a reduced area, then suck away.

Snags

Depends how much you've got to spend. I'm another with a Bosch electric.one, switchable between blow and suck. Makes a huge difference as it mashed the leaves as it sucks, so they fit in a much smaller space (compost bin, sacks for the tip, wherever).

Only issue with mine is I find extended use can destroy the grip in my hand for a while, because of the vibrations.

NPP

I think they're just not very useful. I have a Bosch which sucks and blows but while this is useful in theory in practice the drawbacks more or less outweigh the benefits:

- it doesn't deal very well with wet leaves
- it is noisy and heavy (after a time)
- it has difficulties getting leaves out from between plants
- it sucks up a lot of dirt and risks sucking up or blowing away small plants if you really go for it
- as a result, the machine also slowly fills with soil and needs a time-consuming clean after use
- you need to faff about with extension leads and make sure these don't decapitate any plants
- you need somewhere to store the machine and its attachments

I have come to the conclusion that in a mid-size garden it is easier to use a rake and compress leaves by jumping about in the green bin - gathering up leaves is a little slower but work is less destructive and there's no time wasted setting up, cleaning and storing away machinery

ToneControl

depends on how big your garden is, and how OCD you are about it

A good electric one can hoover up dry leaves, say from a small garden patio and side path

Now we have a large garden, I use my pressure washer instead, which also works on wet leaves:
this will clear 95% of leaves, etc into a corner/pile, then you shovel them into a bin

If you already have a pressure washer, try it, we have 3 electric leaf blowers, and only one works well, and the pressure washer is 5 times faster than that.

The petrol leaf blowers look effective, but as I say, try a pressure washer (with the general purpose  nozzle)

TheMarlin

I use a rake 

VimFuego

I use a stihl at one garden I work on (it's 10 acres, so I'd struggle with a rake), blow the leaves into a big pile then put them in meter cube bags to take the compost area. 

boogieman

We’ve got a Flymo electric thing that sucks the leaves up. It works fine but it’s a bit unwieldy and makes your shoulder ache. It needs emptying every 10 minutes. On the whole it’s just easier to use a rake. 

57Deluxe

Jalapeno said:

Stihl. I've a hand held, but wish I'd got the backpack version.

Get ear defenders while you're at it.

and some for all your neighbours too

Yours,
B May

axisus

The most pointless invention ever. Imagine buying a dust blower to redistribute dust elsewhere in your house.

ESBlonde

NPP said:

I think they're just not very useful. I have a Bosch which sucks and blows but while this is useful in theory in practice the drawbacks more or less outweigh the benefits:

- it doesn't deal very well with wet leaves
- it is noisy and heavy (after a time)
- it has difficulties getting leaves out from between plants
- it sucks up a lot of dirt and risks sucking up or blowing away small plants if you really go for it
- as a result, the machine also slowly fills with soil and needs a time-consuming clean after use
- you need to faff about with extension leads and make sure these don't decapitate any plants
- you need somewhere to store the machine and its attachments

I have come to the conclusion that in a mid-size garden it is easier to use a rake and compress leaves by jumping about in the green bin - gathering up leaves is a little slower but work is less destructive and there's no time wasted setting up, cleaning and storing away machinery

This sums it up fairly well.

I gather leaves from all over to make compost. I was bought a petrol blower last year an dto be honest I found it easier to rake and or collect with a petrol mower. My own garden is on the small side so I'm getting leaves on school fields/paths etc. and the blower is sort of useful but a rake gets it done better. Sometimes I chop and blow the leaves into rows with the mower first then rake.

scrumhalf

HAve a detector fitted to all leaf blowers so that if the twat using it is one of those who think it's okay to blow all of the leaves from the garden into the street for someone else to collect the machine blows up in his face.

axisus

A cheaper one-off solution

Roland

This is one of those “wrong type of snow” discussions. It depends on the type of leaf, how wet it is, and how big your garden is. For example, dry beech leaves blow easily. Wet sycamore leaves don’t. Wet beech leaves shred easily in a mower, and pack down. Dry beech leaves don’t pack down as easily, and can clog your mower. 

A blower is great for chasing dry leaves. In a small garden you can suck up the dry leaves, but in a larger garden you’re constantly emptying the bag. 

Last week we didn’t have too many fallen leaves, so I mowed them up with the grass for composting. This week the lawn is covered with leaves. If they are too deep to mow then I’m going to rake them up and compact them in 1m bags. Either way they will go for leaf mould compost, ie not the normal garden compost.

Jalapeno

I'd agree blowing leaves on a windy is pretty futile, but on a still day excellent for getting the leaves under hedges, or on to flower beds to rot down AND add a bit of frost protection.

Stevepage

Dont bother with a back pack stihl. They're very expensive and not that much more power than a hand held one.

Go to a garden machinery shop and try and find a second hand stihl hand held blower. A good one will cost around £200.