Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers: the Most Polluting Machinery Still in Legal Use (substack.com) 362
"Pound for pound, gallon for gallon, hour-for-hour, the two-stroke gas powered engines in leaf blowers and similar equipment are vastly the dirtiest and most polluting kind of machinery still in legal use," James Fallows writes.
"According to the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the two-stroke leaf blowers and similar equipment in the state produce more ozone pollution than all of California's tens of millions of cars, combined." How can such little engines do so much damage? It's all about technological progress, and the lack of it: Over the past 50 years, gasoline engines for trucks and automobiles have become so much more efficient that they have reduced most of their damaging emissions-per-mile by at least 95 percent... Two-stroke engines, by contrast, are based on long-obsolete technology that inefficiently burns a slosh of oil and gasoline, and pumps out much of the unburned fuel as toxic aerosols... They're the basis of noisy, dirty scooters and tuk-tuks in places like Jakarta, Hanoi, Manila, and Bangkok, where they're being phased out as too polluting.
Using a two-stroke engine is like heating your house with an open pit fire in the living room — and chopping down your trees to keep it going, and trying to whoosh away the fetid black smoke before your children are poisoned by it. But these machines persist in American landscaping because they are cheap. And because — to be brutally honest — the people paying the greatest price in much of suburban American are the hired lawn-crew workers...
Fallows points out America's Environmental Protection Agency concluded the engines expose their operators to unusually high levels of carcinogens include benzene and other dangerous substances. And "The noise produced by two-stroke engines really is different from other sounds. New acoustic research shows that its distinctive low-frequency noise penetrates vastly further than other machine-generated sound waves. It goes through solid walls.
"There is an obvious, rapidly improving alternative. That is battery-powered equipment (to say nothing of rakes)... If batteries can power a multi-ton F-150 truck, it is fatuous for landscapers to say that they aren't strong enough for a dozen-pound leaf blower."
"According to the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the two-stroke leaf blowers and similar equipment in the state produce more ozone pollution than all of California's tens of millions of cars, combined." How can such little engines do so much damage? It's all about technological progress, and the lack of it: Over the past 50 years, gasoline engines for trucks and automobiles have become so much more efficient that they have reduced most of their damaging emissions-per-mile by at least 95 percent... Two-stroke engines, by contrast, are based on long-obsolete technology that inefficiently burns a slosh of oil and gasoline, and pumps out much of the unburned fuel as toxic aerosols... They're the basis of noisy, dirty scooters and tuk-tuks in places like Jakarta, Hanoi, Manila, and Bangkok, where they're being phased out as too polluting.
Using a two-stroke engine is like heating your house with an open pit fire in the living room — and chopping down your trees to keep it going, and trying to whoosh away the fetid black smoke before your children are poisoned by it. But these machines persist in American landscaping because they are cheap. And because — to be brutally honest — the people paying the greatest price in much of suburban American are the hired lawn-crew workers...
Fallows points out America's Environmental Protection Agency concluded the engines expose their operators to unusually high levels of carcinogens include benzene and other dangerous substances. And "The noise produced by two-stroke engines really is different from other sounds. New acoustic research shows that its distinctive low-frequency noise penetrates vastly further than other machine-generated sound waves. It goes through solid walls.
"There is an obvious, rapidly improving alternative. That is battery-powered equipment (to say nothing of rakes)... If batteries can power a multi-ton F-150 truck, it is fatuous for landscapers to say that they aren't strong enough for a dozen-pound leaf blower."
There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:5, Informative)
Here are a number of good suggestions [homedepot.com] for environmentally friendly leaf blowers. And they provide good exercise as well.
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Agreed, leaf blowers a pollution source in multiple ways from the gas engine, to the noise, to the dust and particulates
They are testament to the depths humans will fall to in their pursuit of laziness
I for one, will welcome their demise
Re:There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:4, Informative)
They are testament to the depths humans will fall to in their pursuit of laziness
Dude, it's not just laziness. It's also the fun factor. My wife and I fight to see who gets to use the leaf blower.
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Laziness? What an ignorant comment. You could ascribe all of human progress to laziness. Why fly on a jet plane from New York to LA when you could simply walk?
Re:There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:4, Funny)
I for one, will welcome their demise
I, on the other hand, welcome our new pollution-spewing noise-making carcinogenic overlords.
Re: There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:3)
I miss growing up when leaf blowers were rarely used in my neighborhood, and people weren't striving to make their lawns look like astroturf.
Re:There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:5, Informative)
I went electric and I'm never looking back, unless I end up needing to mow more than a half acre again at some point in the very near future. Battery versions are already plenty sufficient for small to medium sized lots.
The electric ones work like god damn rechargeable drills. No dicking around with a small engine - just pull the battery out, slap it into the wall mounted charger, and 4 hrs later put it back in the trimmer or mower. When it's cool I can do my whole lawn on one battery, when it's hot it takes 1.5. And since the mower has a slot for a spare, "refueling" is literally stopping, opening the battery cover, swapping, and hitting the push-button start again. 5 or so seconds.
To winterize it I have to pull two knobs to fold down the handle.
I'm less sold on the snow blower. It really struggles when there's more than about 4"-6" of snow. It definitely needs more HP to get through a midwest winter. That said, if I get out and do one early pass during a big storm, it's generally OK. And since I literally just have to pull batteries and slap them in the charger when it runs low, it's doable but not ideal to tackle the snow blowing multiple times during a storm.
Given this is the current state of battery lawn and garden care, I can't imagine gas ones holding out too much longer. Battery versions are quieter and lighter, and already sufficient for a quarter to a half acre lot. And that describes a LOT of the homes in the US. They're only going to get better and more ubiquitous every year that passes now.
Re:There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:4, Interesting)
Liquid Piston [liquidpiston.com] is a good option of power and small size.
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The design does look impressive, but given that they still do not have a market there must be something wrong with them. I question the durability of the engine considering how flimsy the rotor appears to be. The design requires ports through the rotor for fuel and exhaust so it is going to be difficult to strengthen the rotor without adversely impacting performance.
Looks like they have a military contract for a drone engine. This could work out well. As long as one can swap motors on a regular basis
Re:There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:5, Informative)
There's always someone coming up with the next great thing to beat existing internal-combustion engines, usually some variant of a rotary engine. They sort of drift along for a few years until the money runs out, then sink without trace while someone else comes along with the new world-beating... variant of a rotary engine.
(Pauses to look up the Liquid Piston engine).
Oh, it's a variant of a rotary engine. Who would have guessed.
They'd increase labor costs (Score:2, Insightful)
The bulk of them are used by professional landscapers, and those guys like gas because they're more powerful (therefore faster) and don't need a cord.
It's not a solvable problem with our current political climate that emphasizes business success above all else. The landscapers will get together (or rather their b
Re:They'd increase labor costs (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a solvable problem with our current political climate that emphasizes business success above all else.
I think a bigger problem is the prevailing notion that the presence of leaves on your lawn is some sort of affront to aesthetic sensibilities.
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I am happy to let the leaves rot where they fall.
Unfortunately, I am matrimonially bonded to someone who feels differently.
Disclaimer: My leaf blower is electric.
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I am fortunate my wife isn't too picky about our yard, because I mainly see it as a place for the dogs to run around. If I do rake the leaves, it's generally because I want to dig them into my vegetable garden beds.
They're a fire hazard (Score:2)
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I've left them lay, mostly because of time/schedule/priorities/laziness, and they killed much grass, leaving many & much mud patches.
I have a big 4-stroke big leaf blower that I sometimes use. 8 HP "Little Wonder". It's heavy.
I have several 2-stroke leaf blowers, but I pretty much don't use them. For one thing I can't stand the smell. That said, one is a "Green Machine" that runs very clean, and I tune it for clean exhaust (because I can't stand the smell). It's both blower and vacuum with shoulder
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Re:They'd increase labor costs (Score:5, Informative)
it doesn't have to do with aesthetics, it has to do with the health of the vegetation. Piles of leaves will kill a lawn in as little as one season.
That said, blowers the the most inefficient way to get rid of leaves. The simplest and best way to get rid of leaves is to simply mow them. This chops them up and returns their nutrients to the soil, saving you from having to fertilize in the spring. People who leaf blow are for the most part idiots.
Re:They'd increase labor costs (Score:4, Informative)
BUT, it does use a TON of power and in just those few minutes, it can wipe out 1/2 of the entire battery! And those batteries are something like $60 EACH and take quite a while to charge.
Electric/battery leaf blowers are really not a solution for a lawn-care company because they have to go from one yard to another to another to another, day after day. They would need a huge supply of expensive batteries, tons of chargers, and they would need to be replaced probably in less than a year from cycling.
Either you have very old or garbage/cheap ones 2 years ago I bought mostly Makita brand lawn care equipment Mower/Leaf blower hedge trimmer/multi tool, and Chainsaws all which runs a 36V 2 battery system I can get most of the work done about 2.5 Hours with the pair of 6 Ah batteries that came with the mower the rest came battery free friends who got dewalt, Stihl and other good brands also report similar long battery life however those that bought the "store brand" always complain about power and running out of battery. I will add that when I have a All day I dip into the batteries for all the cordless tools which is why I chose Makita as most of my tools are that brand
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The landscapers will get together (or rather their bosses) and prevent any attempt to ban them, and we're a long way off from battery powered leaf blowers being such a better alternative that they'd naturally replace them.
I wouldn't say a long way off. Several companies like Ego, Stihl, and Echo are focused on commercial applications for battery powered OPE. I'd say we are closer to 3-5 years. Noise abatement laws are also pushing the industry toward battery operated equipment. Cities are starting to restrict the use of 2-stroke equipment for landscaping due to noise.
Small electric generator and electric leaf blowers (Score:2)
I've wondered why some greener landscaper don't use a small 4-stroke generator and plug-in leaf blowers. This avoids the problem of swapping expensive batteries and the lower power and wight of battery operated leaf blowers.
It seems like there is an opportunity here for a compromise between really dirty 2-stroke leaf blowers and battery operated ones.
Some landscapers in our area do offer "no leaf blower" services and use old fashion rakes. They seem to be pretty successful -- and slightly more expensive.
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Re: They'd increase labor costs (Score:3)
Already banned in LA
https://codelibrary.amlegal.co... [amlegal.com]
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There are some pretty powerful battery powered ones, that obviously don't need a cord. You would have to swap batteries quite a few times in a professional setting, so you'd need half a dozen or a dozen batteries, depending on how much time you spend leaf blowing, but it's doable.
Re: There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:2)
You can recharge your blower in an hour. I will take 3 minutes to dump some gas in.
Re: There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:5, Informative)
They have interchangeable batteries. You charge half a dozen or so overnight (or more if needed) and swap them into whatever power tool you are using.
Re: There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:5, Insightful)
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Solution: Get a plug-in blower and an extension cord.
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Degree of difficulty - a yard more than 100 feet wide.
All my yard tools except the riding mower are all battery electric. I have a couple of older plug in electrics. They've not been used in several years.
Many of my neighbors have a lawn service to do their yard. Watching them, I can absolutely see why battery or plug would not work.
Not for the current battery tech, anyway.
A gas weedeater is far more powerful.
Re: There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:5, Insightful)
You can recharge your blower in an hour. I will take 3 minutes to dump some gas in.
I'll take 30 seconds to swap a battery. Glad we all now agree that battery is the better choice.
Re: There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't have to drive to the gas station to get gas and oil for your machine?
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Do they sell 2-stroke oil at gas stations? That'll be another trip to buy 2-stroke oil, and then you have to mix it up and store it in separate containers that take up space in your truck//trailer...
=Smidge=
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Re: There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't have to drive to the gas station to get gas and oil for your machine?
Newb. If you haven’t had to browse/call around for a part or gasket kit, only to have it show up as almost the right model but the bolt pattern is off, then have to return it, then finally fixing it only to modest improvement due to a leaf in the leaf blower gas tank periodically getting stuck on the intake tube then you’re in the wrong place: you will want repair shop hell - it’s two doors down. The lower cost to your soul is clearly electric.
Re: There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:2)
Other than, you know, buying the gasoline and two-stroke motor oil and mixing it. But make sure you use a different gas can than the one for the mower!
Re: There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:4, Insightful)
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I have battery powered leaf blowers, lawn mower, chain saws, hedge trimmer and snow blower.
I've had these for a few years. They work great. They are quiet and powerful. No problem running down the batteries since I have spares.
Re:There are Environmentally Friendly Blowers (Score:4, Interesting)
Cripes I hate these things (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Cripes I hate these things (Score:3)
Yup. It takes a strange type of OCD weirdo to care about some leaves on the ground and buy a machine to spend time blowing them into a corner. Just for a wind to blow some more along soon anyway.
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Yup. It takes a strange type of OCD weirdo to care about some leaves on the ground and buy a machine to spend time blowing them into a corner. Just for a wind to blow some more along soon anyway.
It's not OCD to remove leaves from your lawn [umn.edu], though as the article says, it's better to mulch them if possible. Otherwise, dead grass, mold and possible rodent infeststation.
There is a difference between taking pride in your place and keeping it looking nice, and wandering around outside every day with a leaf blower not only polluting the air, but polluting with sound. If one is OCD about leaves, a rake is far better. No pollution and you get more exercise.
Re: Cripes I hate these things (Score:2)
Grassland manages just fine on it's own without people blowing leaves and other natural deposits from it. And if you have rats in your garden it has nothing to do with leaves.
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These are the most annoying fucking things ever invented. My fucking neighbor has one hobby, blowing nothing around at 100 Db. He just started as I type this.
Wait until your neighbor replaces theirs with a battery electric model. The whine is much higher pitched, much louder on the high setting, and is audible through walls that block exhaust soundsf the lower-pitched 2-stroke gas engines.
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What I don't get about this fascination is the concept of leaf blowing in the first place. Just moving shit around. Use a rake, it's faster and easier. Or use a machine which sucks and mulches directly into a bag for super easy disposal or for distributing directly back on your plants.
2 stroke leaf blowers are not only annoying, but about as pointless as a TV remote physically glued to the TV.
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Try using a rake on fir and pine needles and see how well that works for you.
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It works better than a leaf blower as the leaf blower just gets it stuck in grass, and on the path I use a broom.
What are you doing so very wrong?
Re:Cripes I hate these things (Score:4, Interesting)
Or just mow them.
Why do people rake up leaves? They are amazing fertilizer. The only downside is they kill the grass. Mow them down, return the nutrients to the soil. Faster and easier than raking or blowing.
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I’ve used an EGO battery blower for a couple of years now. More powerful than my old petrol blower and much less obnoxious noise.
A scarce solution. (Score:2)
Ah, let's put some scarce electronics into them. That'll solve the problem.
I concur (Score:2)
The leaf blower and string trimmer in particular are one application where the electric version is a more than adequate replacement for many many many cases.
Push lawnmowers and riding mowers...not so much, but they are big enough pieces of equipment to have 4 stroken engines and cleaner exhaust.
For small lawns, dragging an extension cord isn't a bad option. That's how I rolled in the 90s on my dad's lawn...
Re: I concur (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't see any downside to electric for homeowners. When I was buying mine the store owner said they'd just sold a bunch of the same model to a landscaping company who had trialled one and really liked it for noise and maintenance reasons.
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For riding mowers, Ryobi has a decently affordable one with good reviews, but it uses golf
Re: I concur (Score:2)
If I had a small enough yard for a push mower I'd just drag a cord and not pay extra for the batteries and charger.
Re:I concur (Score:4, Informative)
As someone with a power cord lawn mower, I'd never go back to gas, despite the hassle of the cord... just much less maintenance and hassle, I know I can plug it in and it will always be at 100% efficiency. With gas powered, tons of maintenance, and every time I'd go to use it, there'd be some problem.
Not sure why anyone wants to use them (Score:2)
I think the only obstacle to switching to battery-powered lawn equipment may be costs sunk into ICE-powered lawn equipment. The up-front costs are similar and the battery-powered stuff is so much easier and more convenient, nobody who tried it would ever go back. Even a corded electric lawnmower is better than a gas-powered mower for home use on small lawns - the trouble of moving the extension cord around is much less than getting the engine to run again after it's sat for a while, to say nothing of tendin
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His channel [youtu.be] does a good review on lawn trimmer string.
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The biggest contributor to environmental microplastic is never talked about. It is all of the polyester and acrylic clothing and blankets, etc that people run through the laundry every day.
Although not good, weed whacker string fibers are a minuscule contribution compared to what comes out of our washing machines every day.
Problem solved! (Score:3)
Using a two-stroke engine is like heating your house with an open pit fire in the living room — and chopping down your trees to keep it going
No, heating your house that way would be better because pretty soon you would have no more need for a leaf blower.
And the most pointless (Score:2)
Wait a few hours or days and some wind will blow the leaves away for you. And if you did use a blower to clear them the same wind will just blow some new leaves onto your lawn anyway. A gadget for people who want to play at gardening.
Battery doesn't measure up yet (Score:5, Insightful)
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I have a Ryobi 40V blower
Buy budget equipment, get budget quality.
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Ever considered a rake?
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So, you're proposing the rough equivalent of "Ever considered a handsaw" to someone who is using a chainsaw to cut down large trees?
If you're a homeowner with a small yard, a rake can be about as fast since it doesn't require as much maintenance/fueling etc, but as the yard size (actually, area to be "de leafed") expands, the rake quickly loses out on both time and effort.
Leaf blowers can also work much more efficiently than rakes when there are obstacles around (such as planters and bushes and lawn furnitu
Battery electric leaf blowers are expensive (Score:2)
And gardeners and landscapers are typically poor. These are marginal jobs, often held by immigrants and people without much training or education. If you can afford a pickup truck (probably on time payments) and some cheap garden tools, you've got a self-employed business. You probably don't have the budget for a battery electric leaf-blower, though.
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Re:Battery electric leaf blowers are expensive (Score:4)
How do these work on the eighth or tenth yard of the day on the 6th day of the week of continuous usage?
I very much doubt that a $69 battery powered weed whacker and leaf blower are very powerful or very long lasting. Good enough for punters doing their own modest sized yard and who have the time to snag "good deals" but "time is money" when you're in business.
However, if a better leaf blower is 30% more efficient across the needs of various yards (including wet leaves etc), to a homeowner it's not worth much more. To a professional, it's worth hundreds of dollars more.
If you're a typical homeowner in a few months you've probably only put about one day of wear and tear on them that a two man gardening crew would put on them in one day. You probably do, at most, one yard a week. A two (or, in the area I'm in, three is more typical) gardening crew will probably do around more than 60 yards in that week.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
THIS (Score:4)
I have a backpack leaf blower as I have a ton of trees on my property. I can blow all the leaves in my entire yard into a big pile in about ten minutes. Then we rake them into bags. They might be more polluting, but they are very efficient (I only refuel my blower once or twice a year) for the amount of work they do. I have a battery powered leaf blower for when I only have a few leaves, or to clean up from mowing the lawn, but the backpack is a hundred times more effective when doing a lot of leaves.
Everyone (Score:2)
Everyone in my neighborhood either uses backpack leaf blowers themselves (my neighbor has one of those giant gas-powered leaf vacuums) or they hire lawn services that use them. That's because our neighborhood has a *ton* of trees. It's one of the reasons we moved here. Nobody really minds.
I'd wager that having two dozen mature, giant trees (the oak and hickory tower over the house) more than counteracts the pollution generated by running the leaf blower for an hour or so a year.
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A two stroke riding lawnmower? I've never seen one of those.
My two stroke weed wacker was replaced with an electric one. It was easier to put the trolling motor battery and an inverter into the wagon and pull that around than than keep that persnickety two stroke running.
The electric chainsaw is a toy even with 120 V. The Husqvarna will be sticking around for awhile. I don't live in town though, so there are no near neighbors. And it's not used all that many hours.
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Have you heard of a rake?
Many, many people seem to see the outdoors as something to be avoided as much as possible.
Personally, I find raking leaves quite calming and enjoyable. At least until one of my neighbors comes outside with his leaf blower, anyway.
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It is when one has a "yard" bigger than some city blocks.
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Fatuous Argument (Score:5, Insightful)
If batteries can power a multi-ton F-150 truck, it is fatuous for landscapers to say that they aren't strong enough for a dozen-pound leaf blower.
That's a fatuous argument. An electric F150 weighs 35% more than the petrol power version and has a range well under half that of the gas-powered version. It's not power that is the issue it's the power-to-weight ratio. This is why we do not (yet) have viable commercial electric aircraft and when we eventually do they are going to have much less range and fly much slower than jets.
For leaf blowers, you cannot just arbitrarily increase the mass of the device because it has to remain wieldable by a human. This means that electric, battery-operated leaf blowers have less power and a far shorter operating time. Worse, recharging takes a long time. This makes them fine for domestic use but clearly not for professionals.
I'm no fan of leaf blowers: they are dirty, noisy things and I'd be fine with banning them but let's not fool ourselves that existing technology can effectively electrify them. Future battery tech might but not that which we have today.
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Worse, recharging takes a long time. This makes them fine for domestic use but clearly not for professionals.
I don't get this argument. All I can think is that the few people in the comments here have never seen a battery powered OPE tool before. Due to noise ordinances that outlaw most gas powered OPE popping up all over the country, they are used commercially today. They don't have fixed batteries, and swapping the battery takes 30 seconds. Pros carry enough batteries that they can swap while the others are charging on chargers back in their trucks or trailers. Home users are not buying the high end Ego, Stih
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If I ever need to ride my leafblower 350miles then you may have a point. But the reality is people not using leafblowers in a professional capacity do not go through a full tank, heck they are unlucky if they fill it up more than every 1/5th time.
Unlike cars which are significantly heavier due to range anxiety people demanding that they do far more than is actually required of them there's zero reason why electric is heavier than combustion.
And just to drive home my point:
Makita MM4: 140mph, 356CFM, 9.8lbs
P
I care more about the noise (Score:2)
They might pollute a lot because of combustion, but noises from these things are off the chart.... I looked up into electric ones and they are nowhere as powerful..
Not all low tech (Score:2)
https://powersportsbusiness.co... [powersportsbusiness.com]
"If batteries can power a multi-ton F-150..." (Score:2)
Obviously a person who makes a stupid comparison like that can just be ignored.
Use corded (Score:2)
I am using our shop vacuum in blower mode, and with up to a high-hp motor it works really well. Can run continuous at 1000 watts with no issues.
The problem with portable electric blowers their batteries are usually not up to the task. I know of no widely available battery that can pull that amount of power. My best estimate (the specs were not available), the tool packs peak at about 400-450W, probably much less due to heat.
And being limited in power means there is no physical way this will work as good as
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I do as well. Surprisingly that "blower" comes in handy for more than just leaves and grass.
Spare batteries solve the endurance issue (Score:5, Informative)
I've a nice gasser Shindaiwa that just sits because electrics are far more convenient than dealing with premix and fuel system maintenance (easy for me as an experienced mechanic).
Electric leaf blowers are much more convenient than gassers and can be operated one-handed, useful when recovering from shoulder replacement surgery. Lawn care pays more than enough to switch to electric and electrics have much less downtime than gassers.
I also switched to electric chain saws for home use/limbing but they are NOT there yet for commercial use like firewood cutting and logging.
Contractors can easily recharge their batteries via an inverter plugging into any typical vehicle and have done so for many years where they lack shore power.
Ban sales of two stroke engines (Score:2, Insightful)
There are small cheap four stroke engines. They use two stroke because they can get away with it, not because it's necessary for the form factor.
They should have been banned a decade ago, but better late than never.
Chainsaws (Score:2, Informative)
They're saying leaf-blowers but they mean chainsaws.
Same engine.
I have an 80V electric and a 2-stroke gas and there's about a 3x difference in productivity.
Once you get past fucking around with the carb the gas wins. But for a quick job electric wins. I can't afford a dozen coal-powered $115 batteries for a day's work so I can heat and cool my house without fossil fuels.
And, yeah, I pay taxes on over 30 acres of forest so you California whiners can have clean air. Piss off, eh?
Anyways, Cali woke society
they ought to ban premix in town (Score:2)
I own a 2 stroke chainsaw and string trimmer but we also live in town on a tiny lot, and we have a plug in string trimmer to do the yard work here. It's not realistic to use electric on big lots out of town, but in town you should have to.
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For commercial work you would need a better grade of gear than I use but it is doable. You would probably need about 3 or 4 sets of decent grade batteries to get you through a work day but you could use solar panel on your vehicle to charge the ones not being used. Somewhere a
California just outlawed these (Score:2)
California legislature passed a bill this year to outlaw ICE engine lawn equipment and generators.
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California legislature passed a bill this year to outlaw ICE engine lawn equipment and generators.
Are they replacing the generators with electric ones as well?
The real issue is noise. (Score:2)
I do not disagree that gas this and pollution are real, but coal plants, cars, and everything else crushes blowers as a pollution problem.
It is disingenuous to say they reason banned is pollution. They annoy people.
Noise pollution or just pollution? (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure the noise is the bigger issue, they're that goddamn bad.
Battery standards rant (Score:4, Insightful)
American problems (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of the world doesn't even know what a "leaf blower" is. Why do the leaves need to be blown anywhere? Before blowers, they just sat there and over the winter slowly degraded and became food for the new plants next year.
The Devil's Hairdryer (Score:2)
There's a reason these things go by that name.
They suck. They're noisy. They stink, and they pollute. They're the epitome of waste and lazy, mindless consumerism.
Ban the fucking things.
They don't know 2-stroke from 4-stroke (Score:4, Insightful)
The picture attached to one article shows a Makita tool being used by "Jose Delgado" the landscaper. Makita doesn't make 2-stroke gas engine tools
The picture attached to another shows a crew using Stihl backpack blowers. Stihl doesn't make 2-stroke gas engine backpack blowers.
One article states "There are about 16 million pieces of small off-road equipment in California. That compares to a vehicle population of about 18 million statewide,” Well, cars are registered so you know exactly how many there are. Tools are not. They have no idea how many small gas tools there are and how many hours each one is in use. They sure don't know how many 2-stroke engines there are.
I have 5 gas yard tools. 4 of them are 4-stroke. My chainsaw is 2-stroke, and it is used every few years.
They are pulling this out of their ass.
Re:They don't know 2-stroke from 4-stroke (Score:4, Informative)