Does anyone have any experience with the Shop-Vacs that can be used as leaf blowers? If they really work it would be a nice benefit (and cause me to go buy one now) but if it's a half-assed solution, better to know now. It seems like an "oh yea, and you cal also do this".
Ian
Ian"
It will blow grass clippings off your sidewalk and make noise. Forget about doing a big fall leaf cleanup with it. A seperate Toro electric blower (super blower Vac?) has lots of power for an electric model.
I bought the most powerful leaf blower (a backpack model) I could find last year and now I'm glad I did. It wasn't cheap, about $500. The force of the blower can easily tip you off balance if the nozzle is directed toward a wall. It cleared an acre lot in less than an hour yesterday, and moved a 5-foot high mound of leaves with ease. Ear muffs are needed.
According to Ian :
Define "work".
Blow really large dry leaves off a sidewalk? Or, blow sopping wet pine needles out of 8" grass?
Generally speaking, I wouldn't expect a shopvac unit to succeed beyond the dry leaves on pavement level. They're optimized for different things.
Purpose-built blowers are almost always going to be better than a kludge.
I've reserved my shopvac (a small and very old ordinary one, not a "convertible" that I got at a garage sale for $5) for blowing out pool lines.
I have a weedeater electric blower. It's not bad, but can't handle even slightly damp leaves on grass. I wouldn't have bought one, but it was free, and it gets used for blowing dry stuff off paved surfaces and is occasionally useful as a second pass after the slave teenagers finish raking ;-)
Warning: if the impeller explodes (it's plastic), you'll think you've been shot. Don't ask... Yes, you can repair housing cracks with ABS DWV glue.
Decent (as in backpack mount) gas blowers are really good.
If you need to blow any significant amount of leaves off grass, I recommend forgoing buying a blower, and rent a real one when you need it. And get weather-cancellation insurance ...
Walk-behind vacuum leaf shredders work well too. But _rent_ one (the Cub Cadet unit was >$1300 CDN when I drooled over the sales fliers).
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