The Devil's Hair Dryer: The Case Against Leaf Blowers | Hacker News Reader

The Devil's Hair Dryer: The Case Against Leaf Blowers

citylab.com

13 pointsbilifuduo8 comments

God I hate leaf blowers.

Interestingly when I went to Beijing recently I was pleasantly surprised at the absence of noisy gardening machines. The streets were much cleaner there and the landscaping noticeably better. I think I want to move there now.

Coming back to the US I feel like this is a poor third-world country now.

I absolutely hate raking leaves, but I just don't get leaf-blowers. I always imagine this situation playing out: two suburban warriors, lined up toe-to-toe across from each other on opposite sides of their property line, furiously blasting away with their leaf blowers, trying to push a single oak leaf over the line in a pathetic form of tug-of-war.

You'll love this one I'm sure:

My neighbor was using a leaf blower just a few hours prior to the arrival of what was expected to be a direct strike by a category 4 hurricane. Winds were already gusting pretty well, with at least a couple bands of heavy rain having already passed over. About half of the neighborhood was boarded up with plywood, and probably 2/3 of the families had evacuated, yet there he was, out with his leaf blower.

Have you tried mulching the leaves on your lawn? ... collect up your leaves and spread them out on your lawn(s). A couple of passes at right-angles with a mulching mower (not bagging obviously) and the leaves are obliterated and your lawn is put to bed for the winter. Supposedly the leaf litter & grass clippings rot down together to properly feed the lawn.

Out of laziness, that is pretty much exactly what I do. I just run the things over with the lawnmower, fall and spring. I'm of the school of thought that if you don't have more than two unregistered vehicles on cinderblocks in your yard[1], you're doing a good job of beautifying it, though.

[1] Actual town ordinance where I grew up... If you had three, you had to put up a fence.

How long until improved battery technology makes electric units comparable to gas-powered units? That would reduce the noise and air pollution. Not the dust, of course.

I have an EGO electric leaf blower; it uses a 56V li-ion battery and is really quite excellent. On turbo mode the battery only lasts about 20 mins, but I also have the EGO weedwacker and EGO lawn mower (which are also both excellent), so I have plenty of spare batteries.

Any recent improvements in small gas engines? Can't they be made quieter in simple ways, like a better muffler?

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