Need some input on back pack blowers.
Either Stihl BR600 or Tanaka TBL7800R.
Read Stihl is built in China, the Tanaka is Japanese. Appears Tanaka is better built.
Tanaka does not offer gutter cleaning accessory, where Stihl does. Although I think I could rig something up with a Sears accessory.
Any other suggestions welcome.
Thanks
I find a gas hand blower adequate. Why a backpack?
Any peculiar reason you need a back pack unit?
Toro makes an electric blower, when held in hand at knee high it moves rocks across my yard. Almost equal to a Cat 5 hurricane.
Popular Mechanics magazine recently reviewed 7 backpack blowers, its online free
I have both and they both have advantages and disadvantages.
For long, time consuming blows, the backpack is much less tiring since it's not hanging off the end of your arm for extended periods.
On the other hand, once you turn it off, you have to take it off to restart it and then put it back on.
On the third hand, I can use both of my hands to carry rakes, tarps and other items with the backpack on, while the hand-held must be carried with my, umm, hand.
The backpack is quieter - or at least seems quieter - than the hand- held, but maybe that's because it's behind my ears, not in front of them. It's definitely lower pitched, which is much less annoying.
Last year I used both, but this year I'm having some carb problems with the hand-held, so I've been using the backpack more often. I must say I really enjoy it.
All my leaves stay on the ground. Otherwise it would probably be 300 bags or more. It's too intense. My back gives out raking and bagging. The next spring I find crumbles leaves against my fence. I run them over with the tractor and they disappear into the grass.
I, for one, hate electric blowers, mowers, trimmers, etc.
I just did my leafs with the back pack and then strolled down the block and did the leafs for the elderly "just-had-a-bypass" lady down the street. An extension cord would have made that stroll just a tad inconvenient.
I live across the street from a very steep wooded hill - almost a cliff.
I blow the leaves into a pile, rake them onto a big tarp, drag them into the woods and dump them down the hill.
When I just have a few, I fill up a rolling garbage can and dump that down the hill.
All of my yard and garden debris goes down the hill.
A couple of my neighbors do the same thing.
By the end of the fall the pile of leaves is huge. By the time we start cutting our grass in the spring, the pile is almost gone. Nature is a wonderful thing.
When I lived in Vermont, I had to make sure to get the maple leaves off the lawn before Winter set in or they'd kill the grass. My lot was such that most of them blew into the woods but one tree in the front yard left them where they wouldn't blow away. It only took a couple of hours to get them cleaned up, so it wasn't a big deal. The dump took grass and leaves free. Here in Alabamastan they even pick them up free. ...and garbage collection still costs about a third of what it did in VT.
I live on a curve. If you look up my street from the "main road" you can see my lawn sticking out as the curve begins.
A lot of the leaves that blow up the street get caught on my lawn and stick. I also get a huge EOD pile of snow as the plow makes the curve.
But you know what? The curve of the road and the placement of my house on the lot is such that I can sit at my kitchen table and look directly into the woods without seeing any other houses. That view makes the extra work well worth it.
Don't all backpack blowers include a little Mexican feller in the box of accessories? 8-)
TDD
I try not to listen to conversations. This one I could not avoid.
Two Officers speaking to each other. One Black officer and a Mexican officer.
Jose: "At least if I get stopped I can claim I'm a landscaper."
Pause, no response from the black officer.
Jose: "They will charge you with felony joy riding."
< a true conversation I witnessed >
Use a rake or a broom or leave whatever you intend to blow around alone.
Blowers make a lot air & noise pollution.
I wonder if anyone can remember how terrible life was before the invention of blowers. Great machines for people who want to pretend to work; lots of noise, little effort, questionable utility.
cheers Bob
She doesn't have electricity?
-snip-
Spoken like a man who has never had a physical disability, a tight schedule, *or* a leaf blower.
Jim
Yes I can remember and no, I don't want to go back to that labour intensive back-breaking task of leaf raking.
Wrong...... I have had (& still have) all except a leaf blower that I "use". I have one (cool salvage score) that sits in the garage unused.
Users of leaf blowers (esp gasoline powered) "export" the negatives to their neighbors & the world in general just to benefit the user (or one who hires the user).
I don't see how having a disability or a tight schedule preclude leaving the leaves alone. Or is noise & air pollution the cost you wish everyone else to bear for your leaf removal?
Is it really necessary to remove leaves from the landscape? And besides a leaf blower is probably the moat lazy, inconsiderate means to do so.
I acknowledge that they are fast & easy but the noise and air pollution is the cost borne by everyone.
If they were way quieter and didn't foul the air with HC's & particulates I'd probably have a different opinion.
cheers Bob
Is it really necessary to remove leaves from the landscape? And besides a leaf blower is probably the most lazy, inconsiderate means to do so.
I acknowledge that blowers are fast & easy but the noise and air pollution is the cost borne by everyone.
If they were way quieter and didn't foul the air with HC's & particulates I'd probably have a different opinion.
Save you back AND the environment...... leave the leaves alone.
cheers Bob
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