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Comment by tenken | Hacker News Reader

... doesn't the battery powered still use the same basic engine for a leaf blower... ? Won't it still generate noise.

Seems to me it's outside your door/sidewalk it's still a lot of noise

No. Battery powered does not have an engine, it only has a motor. The engine in a gas-powered device is where the combustion happens, and that combustion causes much louder noise than an electric motor. Same as the sound of an electric car vs. gas-powered.

That's my point about regulating the noise, not the tech. But objectively, I the electric ones I have heard are way more quiet (though still obnoxious). The gas ones basically sound like a chainsaw, and are louder and have more jarring harmonics.

Personally, I'd advocate a rake.

Surely the actual combustion is a large contribution to the noise? Especially for a smaller device with less insulation

It is, but even without the engine, its still blowing air at high power. Picture a giant hair dryer, it's still super noisy.

I think you're right. Googling around most of the sound is generated by the air movement, but ICE blowers seem to be ~1-3 decibels louder, but may be a bit more powerful.

Gas engines emit more lower-frequency noise that travels through walls more.

Electric leaf blowers are much quieter from my experience. The gas powered motor itself generates a lot of the noise.

Making them illegal didn't seem to help in LA where the gardeners still defiantly use the gas powered blowers with zero repercussions. Hopefully you'll have better success outlawing them in your community.

You have to start somewhere, the easiest way is to ban new sales as that is what you can enforce without too much expense (both financial and political). Then as old machines slowly fail, most people will buy new electric ones. And if there are still 100s or 1,000s of people stubbornly using their petrol powered tools, at least there are no 100,000s or 1,000,000s of them.

The electric motors tend to be quieter and also weaker. But there are also newer models that are more powerful. And they do generate noise, but it sounds more like a hushed vacuum cleaner rather than the typical leaf-blower sound. If you want to hear the difference check out this particular timestamp of this comparison video (https://youtu.be/UUQeGzGy0Ds?t=397). The gas powered blower is ~5 dB louder at peak. The electric one is at 78 decibels peak (max power with "turbo") but the gas powered blower measures at 78 decibels just idling. The reviewer notes that the electric one is very bearable for him as an operator, but the gas powered one is too loud to think clearly.

That particular model of leaf blower with the backpack is fairly powerful, and the reviewer notes it pushes more air than the gas powered one he is using. However, a number of comments mention that the gas powered blower is much more powerful and that the reviewer is biased, which may be apparent from his early praise for the electric model.

The big issue is that the electric blower's runtime is limited. He gets 22 minutes out of a full battery using it "normally", which takes 1 hour 40 minutes to charge on the standard charger, and 42 minutes on the fast charger. He concludes that electric is better in every way for homeowners, and there's no reason to go back to gas unless you are a commercial user (presumably due to the battery limitations).

> The electric motors tend to be quieter and also weaker. But there are also newer models that are more powerful.

Reminds me, couple of years ago I tried estimating what it would take to run a steamer to kill weeds. Felt like you could do it off a 240VAC 30amp circuit but not a 120V 15/20 amp one. Trouble while more modern houses have exterior outlets, none have 240V. Then again, EV chargers can deliver that.

Maybe the solution for gardeners is run power of an electric truck like the new Ford one.

The new F-150 Lightning has generated a lot of buzz, if they can deliver in 2022 (that is, ship in volume despite the chip shortage) it will be a game changer.

I'm sure the small gardening contractors will raise the issue of cost, but the large landscaping companies should have no excuse.

My real concern is that they will only be able to ship a limited run, which will get snapped up by the early adopters, that is the truck enthusiasts and EV fans who have enough disposable income and the patience to just get in line and wait.

Electric versions of lawn tools are much quieter. I switched to a battery powered lawn mower this year, and it barely makes more noise than a box fan you'd put in a window. With my old gas mower that was a similar size, I had to wear hearing protection over top of ear buds just to be able to hear any music.

It uses magnetic field to spin the rotor, so it can be completely silent. A gas engine, on the other hand, has to use a bunch of mechanical parts and belts, in addition to cylinders burning fuel, and those are noisy.

Have these people never heard of rakes?

Where I live you can't really leaf-blow anyway, as the leaves are almost always wet and heavy.

Try getting maple seeds (the helicopters) or pine needles off 2-8 week old grass seedlings with a rake (to prevent the grass seedlings from being smothered).

Gas blowers make light work of heavy, wet leaves. It’s why the landscapers use them rather than electrics.

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