Hacker News Reader

Comment by sidewndr46 | Hacker News Reader

It isn't so much the noise that bothers me, what I've never understood about leaf blowers is what are they meant to accomplish? When I watch people use them they either blow the leaves into the street or the neighbors yard. What do they think that does?

Now on the other hand, I do own a very noisy leaf vacuum. But when I've collected a bag full I can just deposit the leaves in my collection container. They are taken off to be composted

View on HN

I use mine (electric) to blow leaves from the street and sidewalk back onto my grass so that I can mulch them with the lawn mower. I also use it to blow debris back onto the grass-free perennials area around my tree to get free mulch. I'm weird, but it's really handy for that. The entire reason I own a lawn mower and a leaf blower is because I couldn't find a lawn care crew that would mulch everything in place - everyone around here wants to take your leaves away and then bring in artificially dyed mulch (and charge you for it).

They also work for blowing snow off the sidewalk if the snow is still fluffy.

I own a Stihl leaf blower and primarily use it to clear debris from the gravel paths in my garden. Because raking gravel also collects the stones. Debris includes leaves, leaf husks, beech nuts, catkins, and a range of other things that drop off trees. I use a big rake to clear the lawn (I actually enjoy the physicality of this task).

All of this stuff is composted over the year in a large pile in a secluded corner of my garden, along with grass cuttings, scarified moss, etc. The volume of stuff usually exceeds the amount I can get rid of using the local council's garden waste collection.

Now that you say that, it makes much more sense. It isn't like I go into my neighbors backyards and monitor them using their leafblower. So all I really see is the yard maintenance guy in the front yard. I'll commonly just see them blowing them into the street. Not all of them do this however.

Yes, any tool can be used in foolish ways.

I use mine to blow debris from the driveway onto the lawn so it doesn’t get tracked into the garage, or to clean the leaves, sticks, and pollen from our many trees that accumulate on the back deck. The times I’ve had landscapers come they used tarps to collect the bulk of the debris they gathered with the blowers and hauled it away.

generally for landscapers it saves them the trouble of raking, which can put a lot of strain on your back — they'll blow the leaves onto a tarp and then wrap them up for easy removal

in my experience, homeowners mostly dick around with them

I guess that would work, but I have never seen anyone do that.

Only for lack of trying. Most of them do do just that.

My son and I raise money for our Boy Scout troop by doing yard cleanup in the fall. Using leaf blowers and tarps is how the crew worked through 20 acres of cleanup over two weekends.

This thread is like people who’ve never cleaned a yard before saying “I’ve never understood the purpose of rakes and brooms - don’t they just move things around? Surely you need to pick things up to really clean?!”

Keep in mind; in some towns a truck comes around and collects the leaves from the street with a vacuum (although I guess your town doesn't?).

I have seen (predominately contractors) blow leaves into a tarp to take away on a truck though.

There is a pile of leaves so deep in the street in front of my house that it has an entire ecosystem living in it. At this point they have composted some, insects have begun to live in them and grass is growing from the pile.

In many places that would be the homeowner’s responsibility to clean up. Even if not, it’s often in the homeowner’s best interest to not have a huge pile of rotting leaves clogging the gutter.

there is no gutter, just the curb. The couple times I looked into this, to do maintenance on the street I'd need to have some form of insurance.

Well I guess everywhere is different. That's truly bizarre to me though.

Our town used to do that, then they decided it was too costly and stopped. I am waiting for them to corelate the increased need to clean leaf-clogged storm drains with this decision.

I would think that encouraging everyone to put their leaves in the gutter might also cause clogged storm drains.

To be fair, they are very good at removing debris from a front-porch. I fully support banning them, and they are heavily overused in situations when a rake works just as well, but they are superior in some cases.

I guess that makes sense, but I always personally just use the hose for that. The way I am billed, I don't really pay much for the water I use.

They're great for landscapers. I just use a push broom. It takes more time, sure, but efficiency isn't the goal.

I use it to remove pollen, pine needles, gravel, debris from clippings, etc from my deck and drive-way. Sometimes I use it to clear out the gutters on my roof. I usually blow it all down into one corner then use a dust-pan and broom to collect it all and throw it in the debris bin. I hate it when people just blow the debris somewhere else; they're making it somebody else's problem and that's wrong.

The leaf blower is used after using the weed eater (String trimmer) to blow all the little bits back into the grass.

Wouldn't letting the leaves to decompose be better for the soil instead of constantly removing them? I mean, the tree supposedly uses the nutrients from the soil to grow those leaves, and if you keep removing them away, at some point the tree will simply starve and die, right?

Better for the soil, but it kills off the grass.

Lawn services mostly use leaf blowers to clear driveways and sidewalks of grass clippings.

A groupof Bay Area condo and apartment owners discuss that they don’t understand leaf blowers. Good thread.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com