Leaf blower

[Clive Page]

A couple of weeks ago I found that collecting leaves by rake was giving me too much back pain so after reading a few reviews I went out and bought a cheap Titan leaf blower from Screwfix. It worked, but only on the first day when the leaves were pretty dry. It did such them up and turn them into a compact mulch in the collecting bag, somewhat to my surprise.

But, guess what, in the British Autumn, leaves are nearly always somewhere between very damp to really wet, and I didn't think that blowing them would be at all feasible. Last week there was a day when the leaves appeared fairly dry so I took my new blower out for only the second time: after a few minutes first blowing and the sucking I found that the zip on the collecting bag failed catastrophically. Without this it really could not be used. Various other bits of the machine looked a bit flimsy too, so I took it back to Screwfix and and am pleased to say they gave me a refund.

I'm still not sure whether to buy a more robust, and no doubt more expensive replacement. I found that even with dry leaves it took a long time and quite a bit of practice to blow all the leaves into a neat enough heap so that the suck option could be used (or I could pick up the heap manually). Either way I'd say it was taking longer than doing it the old way, but it was somehow easier on the back. The real problem is that leaves are so often wet, and a rake will still work on them albeit with more difficulty.

[Huge]

There's a fair leaf blower going on outside at the moment.

Other than the ones that accumulate on paths/driveways, I ignore them and they either blow away or rot down.

[Stephen]

What an interesting thread. I have no trees in my garden but I had plenty of leaves from everyone else's trees this year. I did it the old fashioned way with a rake but the thought of buying a blower did run through my head, so I'm glad someone else asked the same question here.

It seems no-one finds the electrical blowers satisfactory. I notice all the replies here talked about blowing the leaves. Why do people not use the vacuum function, or is that even worse than the blow?

Is it that machines rated 2600W or above actually make a lot of heat and noise, rather than useful blowing?

I presume that petrol driven machines would be more powerful but they seem so expensive that they are in a different league to the electric ones price-wise.

I was interested to read about the scarifier, it looks like an electric rake, so it is good to know it works as one.

Thanks, Stephen.

[News]

In message , Stephen writes

Stephen, unsatisfactory to a certain extent. Our Flymo works, and will blow or suck the leaves, but only when dry. Wet leaves, which most are, given the time of year, are too heavy to be blown or sucked. A lot of our leaf cleaning is on a paved area, and wet leaves stick.

Given a dry day, and dry leaves, the vacuum function certainly works with the added advantage of shredding the leaves, therefore allowing far more per sack for eventual disposal. However, that means frequent stopping to empty the machine's bag.

Like so many tools and gadgets, you will not really know until you try. One man's meat etc. I have a shed full of 'stuff' - some I love, and use regularly whereas some sits there gathering dust from year to year.

[Chris J Dixon]

Whilst still dry, this is a task that my rotary lawn mower performs pretty effectively. When wet and compacted, the conventional rake is the best, possibly with the assistance of a pair of leaf grabbers:

Chris

[News]

In message , Chris J Dixon writes

Thanks Chris. Yes, those leaf grabbers look really useful. I have quite a lot of ex-RM mail sacks which are perfect for garden rubbish. What I really need is an ex-RM sack holder, to hold the sacks upright and open.

[Bob Minchin]

I have a pair of similar leaf grabbers and they are brilliant for picking up leaves once raked into a pile. As the OP of this thread, my main requirement is to blow the leaves off the flower beds and from all the various nooks and crannies formed by patio furniture, planter, pots etc that domestic management has installed and then rake them up manually. Shredding does not help that much as I can compress them into the wheely bin and they have enough density to be ejected by the bin lorry.

[Clive Page]

From my rather brief experience in using one: the blow function operates over a fairly wide area at least a foot square and maybe more if the leaves and grass are both dry, and the idea, apparently, is that you blow the leaves in to a tidy heap or two. The suck function only works over a rather small area, hardly wider than the mouth of the tube itself. So to collect all leaves in a given area you have to make multiple passes say in a raster pattern, which is time-consuming. So one tends to use it only when the leaves have been already gathered in tidy heaps by the earlier blowing phase.

I'm not quite sure why the suck is less effective than the blow, it may be a design feature. After all they are generally called leaf blowers not suckers. Also as soon as you get a few dampish leaves up the tube some get stuck to the sides and this significantly reduces the smoothness of the flow, which isn't a problem when blowing. Or it could be something fundamental in fluid dynamics (something I was never very good at, and whatever I once learned I have now forgotten).

[Chris J Dixon]

I bought a very cheap plastic rake, similar to this:

and cut away one third either side. This left me with a long handled but narrow rake which is great for working around plants and other obstructions.

It also gave me a couple of off cuts which I discovered can be used as hand rakes.

Chris

[Alan Braggins]

It's something fairly fundamental in fluid dynamics. You can blow a jet of fluid that stays fairly coherent and only disperses gradually, but when you suck, you don't create a directional jet moving towards the low pressure from only one direction, the suck spreads out evenly in all directions. (You can arrange that there's a vortex going into a suck, but not as easily as blowing a jet.)

[Alan Braggins]

[...]

When my petrol one stopped working, I found a second hand replacement from eBay was cheaper than a service, and probably cheaper than a new electric blower. I also have a rake, and leaf grabbers, and a leaf sweeper, all of which have advantages and disadvantages in different places. (I have several trees, and so do my neighbours.) The big advantage of the blower is that if you have a lawn with dog shit and leaves on it, you can blow off the leaves that are hiding the dog shit, without smearing the shit about and making it harder to pick up.

I have a scarifier, but its highest setting is "lightly scarify", not "rake things off the surface without scarifying". So if you want one to use as a rake, check before buying.

[Huge]

Something I've noted with politicans, too.

[damduck-egg]

Because I already had the battery and charger I took a chance and got the cordless blower from the Ryobi one+ range.

though I got mine cheaper than that. Main thing I wanted it for was blowing duckweed across the pond and out from among the pond plants on the towards the skimmer. Very impressed with how powerful it turned out too be and find it excellent at doing the things you mention. It is also light and easy to store and is so handy I often use it where getting a large one out from the garden equipment shed would too much hassle, quicker than using a broom when the Cotoneaster sheds berries all over the path, act as a powered bellow for the bonfire, bowing the car dry if I want polish it after washing and other things that I didn't know a good blow of air for. Its actually quite good on leaves as well even fairly wet ones. Obviously no good for acres of leaves but surprising good for smaller jobs.

G.harman

[Muddymike]

I have to contend with the leaves from 140 trees so have a 5HP Billy Goat. Its very easy to use in open areas but using the vacuum tube attachment is really a two person job. One to wield the tube the other to guide the machine! It does suck up wet leaves from the beds very well though.

Mike