Why would I need a leaf blower?
Fall is a wonderful time of the year, where the years harvest is done, and the weather is slowly starting to change. But the wildlife, and nature all around is changing as well. Most Americans have trees in or around their properties. Even in the city. Every fall, the leaves will start to die off, and fall. Most of the time those leaves land in our yards, roof tops, and gutters. If you have a small yard, you could purchase a rake, gather all the fallen leaves, and bag them, burn them or mulch them. How ever if you have a larger yard, or a very large number of trees on your property, it could take long periods of time, heavy labor to clean these leaves up. This is why you need to get a leaf blower. I have done two years worth of comparisons and research on my own yard, and I would like to explain to you the benefits of owning a leaf blower.
1. Electric Leaf Blowers Are Better
There are several reasons why you should take into consideration of buying an electric leaf blower. Traditionally, and even up to 5 years ago, electric leaf blowers were weak, and used gasoline. Loud 2 stroke engines would create a very annoying drone style noise, that could possibly start complaints with your neighbors. Electric leaf blowers are considerably quieter, and do not require the use of oil, gasoline, and its cheaper to maintain compared to electric leaf blowers. Aside from the financial benefits, its an environmentally friendly option as well, because harmful pollutants are not flowing into the air, just so you can clean up leaves around your yard. Believe it or not, they are affordable and very practical to get even the best brands.
2. Electric Leaf Blowers Get Similar Results Compared To Gas Powered Leaf Blowers
Granted, the horsepower that are on these small gasoline engines are amazing, however, with the power of Ni Cad and Lithium Ion battery technology, as well as the development of powerful brushless motors (even on corded leaf blowers), you can get very similar results when you are using electric leaf blowers vs. gasoline. The electric leaf blowers are also very lightweight, which is ideal for use, reducing fatigue in your wrists, arms, and shoulders during prolonged use. Just like all electric power tools, amps are how we measure the power of electric motors. Because of the advancements of brushless motor technology, a corded leaf blower can have speeds over 200 miles per hour now. Electric cordless leaf blowers can produce over 150 miles per hour! Its obvious at this very point in time, having a corded electric leaf blower will be the winner here, however, if you have a fairly large yard, I would recommend using the battery powered style leaf blowers. In our small community and neighborhood, there are noise restrictions in place, and having my cordless electric blowers is a plus when it comes to my neighbors. I was able to do my entire 1.25 acre yard with my Ryobi Cordless leaf blower in just under one hour.
3. You Get More Features With Electric Leaf Blowers
Because you need to save as much weight as possible, and you need to get all the performance you can out of an electric leaf blower, companies and engineers have developed many ways to make your electric leaf blower more efficient. They have altered the nozzle design to really compress and squeeze the forced air into a more singular stream of air, giving you precision aiming, and concentrated air flow when the leaf blower in in use.
They also have modified to use an attachment, switch the motor to run opposite, and use a leaf blower corded or cordless electric, to be used as a vacuum, to allow for a storage attachment, that will keep your leaves in one place for easy disposal. The blades from the electric motor chop and grind the dry leaves, so you have a finer material to work with if you intend to use the leaves on your compost pile. I did however have a better experience using a corded style leaf blower because of the constant power and less “jamming” when a few still green leaves were sucked into there.
The comfort of the lightweight electric leaf blowers are a night and day difference compared to a gasoline type leaf blower. Lightweight, ergonomic handles, and gel grips made the handling experience one of a kind when I did my first initial use of the blower.
Frustrations With Electric Leaf Blowers
My first ever purchase of an electric leaf blower was a corded style Toro brand off of Amazon.com. I had a smaller yard, and one extension cord was all I ever needed, and it worked perfectly. When we moved out of town, into a more rural area, using one extension cord wasn’t enough. I would tangle and trip on the cord and get frustrated. If you have a larger yard, more than .25 of an acre, I would personally stay away from corded style leaf blowers.
Until I purchased the Ryobi, all of my battery operated leaf blowers would not last long enough to even do half of my hard when it came to leaves. I was constantly swapping out batteries just to try and get the job done quicker. Using up more valuable time that I should have used towards the cleaning of my yard of leaves.
On the Greenworks brand leaf blower, that had the vacuum bag attachment, would always get clogged and didn’t do a very good job of “sucking” leaves (dry or wet) at all. I eventually did a better job just using a poker stick and a trash bag. But when Ryobi and DeWalt launched the newer style Lithium Ion brushless leaf blowers, I never had that issue again, and personally I can tell you that I have enough juice in my Ryobi leaf blower to do my entire yard, hook up the attachment bag, and vacuum all of those leaves up. It was amazing how long that battery lasted on that tool. I was beyond impressed and very satisfied.
Top Brands Currently For Electric Leaf Blowers
In my opinion, if you need to purchase a corded leaf blower I would try the:
Toro 51621 Ultra Plus Leaf Blower Vacuum w/ Metal Impellar 12 AMP
The speeds on this leaf blower are variable, giving you optimum performance and can blow air up to 250 miles per hour. They sell this with a bag that captures leaf particles and not dust or any other pollen or unwanted debris. It comes with the vacuum tube attachment, bottom zipper bag, a retractable cord storage. It also has a metal impeller that chops anything it comes into contact with.
If you want to purchase the an electric cordless battery powered leaf blower, then you need to try:
The Ryobi Cordless Mentioned Above or I had awesome luck with the Snapper XD 130 MPH 550 CFM 82 Volt Cordless Leaf Blower
This is almost as powerful as the corded style leaf blower that was mentioned above! This is all you will need when it comes to a yard clean up. You can get about 40 to 45 minutes of run time on this Briggs and Stratton Lithium Ion Battery 82 volt battery. They also include a rapid charger in case it isn’t enough, in as little as 30 minutes you will be back to working on that yard! The motor they placed inside this leaf blower can push 550 CFM’s of air which is equivalent to around 130 MPH, and they did not skip on the features. Ergonomic handle, and metal ring at the end of the tube to protect against all kinds of materials that could scrap and damage the plastic tubing and nozzle.
Conclusion
There are many different types of brands out there, as well as styles of leaf blowers. Before you go and make a decision on what to use or purchase, you need to look at your situation. Understand the tools you are looking to purchase, what they can do, how long they will run for (if its a cordless battery operated style leaf blower) because you don’t want to waste your money on something you will never use. These tools are a very large investment, and you want to make sure that you will get the best use out of them possible. Almost all home owner, and house renters will have an estimation of the yards they need to prune and clean up. With how the prices of oil and fuel are going, it is no surprise that companies are now spending money on research and development of high powered electric motors and batteries strong enough to run them for long periods of time. You also need to make sure you read up on reviews on brands not mentioned in this article, because you don’t want something that you will immediately need to put money into. Amazon is very transparent on how long the warranty will last on the items you purchase, because you need to be protected in case something goes wrong with your leaf blower. Be sure to check out other articles we have written involving other power tools, and enjoy using your new leaf blower!