A gardener’s work is never done. Even after you’ve striped the lawn with your new lawnmower, sculpted your hedges with your faithful trimmer, and used your pressure washer to blast the patio and garden furniture clean, there’s still more to do.
Fallen leaves are something that most of us have to deal with, and they can quickly build up if not collected. Leaving them on the lawn can lead to all sorts of problems, and I’m not just talking about them not looking appealing either.
Dealing with dead leaves that are scattered around your garden or stuck in your gutters is quite a time consuming if you don’t have the right tools for the job, but thankfully there are one or two options out there that make things a bit easier.
In this article, we will take a closer look at one of those tools- leaf blowers. In fact, we will be comparing the three different types of leaf blower and pointing out what each does well, and not so well of course, in the hopes of pointing you and other readers in the right direction.
Of course, it’d be nice to have the council coming around to help out with the larger leaf collecting jobs like in this video, but unless you want to move to Canada, I think you’re on your own 😉
Our street sweepers have been keeping busy sweeping away the last leaves of autumn. 🍂
The teams begin their day in the un-be-leaf-ably cold mornings clearing public spaces and sweeping suburban streets. 🍁
Check out the video below. 👇 pic.twitter.com/pMGkMFj5pI
— ACT Government (@actgovernment) June 2, 2021
Comparing different types of leaf blowers- the all-important factors
Here we will break down this comparison into different categories, in the hopes of making things as clear as possible. Petrol, electric, and cordless leaf blowers will be compared to each other for power, noise, weight, and other important things, giving you the most comprehensive picture of each type’s capabilities when it comes to clearing performance and more.
Leaf blowers compared for power
If there’s one thing that is almost universally true for strimmers, brush cutters, and other garden power tools, it’s that petrol means power. The 2-stroke engines that drive the majority of petrol garden tools are very efficient when it comes to squeezing power out of lower ‘CC’, and it is no different with petrol leaf blowers, making them a clear winner in this category.
Out of the remaining two types, there isn’t that much difference in power among the better brands and models, but if forced to choose between them, I’d probably say that corded electric leaf blowers have more power. I say this because sometimes smaller motors are used to keep the weight down on cordless machines, and when the batteries start to lose their charge, they can also start to lose power.
Although it might be tempting to reach for your credit card and buy the most powerful petrol leaf blower that you can find on Amazon, it is often the case that you don’t really need all that power. So, unless you have tons of leaves to deal with or really large property, you can probably save yourself some money and make do with an electric or cordless leaf blower instead. People with very small gardens might only need some leaf grabbers and a wheelbarrow to get the job done.
If you’re interested, here are some powerful leaf blowers in action-
Leaf blowers compared for weight
If you’ve never used a leaf blower before, you should be aware that it involves carrying a pretty large tool around for an extended period of time, so knowing which type is the most likely to leave you feeling fatigued through its weight is quite important.
Cordless and corded electric leaf blowers are much lighter than their petrol counterparts, with some of the lighter models coming in at under 1.5kg. That’s lighter than most cordless strimmers, as a point of reference. Some of the more powerful corded versions might be substantially heavier than that, at around 4-5kg, but that is still generally lighter than most petrol machines.
Petrol leaf blowers are the heaviest due to their engines, but their weights do vary somewhat. The heavier of these products should be used with a harness to avoid strains, and many of them actually come with free harnesses. Then there are backpack leaf blowers that are designed to be carried on your back, and this lightens the load on your arms by quite a large margin. they can almost feel like fun to use-
Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Give a 15 year old girl and her 2 friends a backpack leaf blower and you can watch football uniterrupted for hours!
— John Schneider (@Teleski19) November 11, 2018
Comparing prices of petrol, electric, and cordless leaf blowers
Obviously, price is a very important factor in most people’s purchasing decisions, and even if you have money to burn, why spend more than you need to?
The price range for corded and cordless leaf blowers is quite wide, with cheaper models going for around 40 pounds or less and the more expensive ones costing three times that. Like with anything, you will have to pay more for a trusted brand name, and as companies like Makita and Dewalt have produced popular lawnmowers, tillers, chainsaws, and just about everything else you can imagine, their products usually come with a premium price tag attached.
You can expect to pay between 100 and 500 pounds for a petrol leaf blower, again with more trusted brand names costing more. With petrol garden tools I usually advise people to avoid the really low-cost products, as there is just too much to go wrong with them, and lower costs usually mean corners have been cut somewhere. That’s no to say you can’t find yourself a good deal as the video below shows (even though it’s in the USA), I just recommend doing your homework before buying anything.
Which type of leaf blower is the easiest to use?
Although I wouldn’t exactly say that you need a degree in motor mechanics to be able to operate and service a petrol-powered garden tool, I have to admit that there is more to them than their electrical counterparts and this is as true for leaf blowers as it is for augers, pole hedge trimmers, etc. However, don’t let this put you off as there are plenty of videos on how to maintain and operate these tools, and it really isn’t hard to learn.
It’s quite difficult to say which is easier to use between corded and cordless leaf blowers. One just needs you to plug it into the mains, while the other just needs the battery inserting into the right place. I suppose the fact that you need to remember to charge the batteries does add a tiny bit more complexity to using cordless models, but they are still very user friendly, certainly more so than any IKEA furniture you might have bought😂 –
When you look at the confusing furniture instructions from IKEA. #BB20 pic.twitter.com/aHbboev3WA
— Rach BBCAN #BB20 (@RachBBFAN) August 3, 2018
Which is the quietest type?
let me clarify something here- all leaf blowers are noisy to some degree, it’s just the nature of the tool. Having said that, I have to admit that, at least in my experience with these tools, petrol leaf blowers are the noisiest of the three types. Not only that, but there will be some fumes to deal with too, and even though these aren’t that bad from modern machines, if you get nauseated by the smell of petrol and smoke easily, you should avoid buying a petrol leaf blower.
Electric and cordless blowers will vary in loudness from model to model and make to make, but they are nearly all quieter than petrol models. Another good thing about both of these types of leaf blower is that there are no smoke or strong smells emitting from them, so even the most sensitive of people can use them without issue.
This video compares noise levels, as well as other things, with different types of leaf blowers, so have a look to get an idea of what we are talking about-
Summary
If you are looking for a quiet and lightweight tool to blow a few leaves off your small to medium-sized lawn, then either a cordless or corded electric leaf blower will do the job just fine. What’s more, you can probably save a bit of money with these tools too, especially the corded versions.
Petrol leaf blowers are the most powerful and will shift large amounts of fallen leaves in no time at all, and will even help to blow those annoying wet leaves that are stuck to your path and patio. You will have to put u with a bit more noise, and servicing is a little more complicated, but these tools usually last a long time and their performance can’t be matched by either of the electric powered types.
