“How to: Select a Gasoline Leaf Blower”
By Ron Stultz
Several years ago, there was a
television comedy show called "Home Improvement" where the main character, “Tim, the tool man,
At 60 years of age, I have
now been dealing with gasoline driven leaf blowers for almost 30 years and I am
with Tim, “more power.”
Now if you have a little yard
and hardly any leaves, then just about any leaf blower will do but if you have
a large yard or lots of shrubs that leaves collect in and around, you want as
powerful a blower as you can get that is not too heavy.
After years of having Home
Depot or Lowe’s sold, low to medium cubic feet per minute (CFM), designed for “casual
use” blowers, several years ago, I upgraded to the largest Stihl
hand held (blowers do come in backpack configurations and probably would be
fine but instead of $150 or $200, now talking $300 or more) made. The
difference more power makes: I can now
push around sticks, twigs, nuts of all types, blow leaves from out and around
shrubs and move leaves from 6 or 8 feet away, none of which I could do with a
smaller engine or CFM blower.
Time: I spend enough time on
my yard and if I can save 2 hours a fall on getting the leaves up with a more
powerful blower then the increased cost for a more powerful blower is worth it
for me.
Brand? I have owned several, casual use, relatively cheap,
makes and all were ok for a while but then, they simply wore out and had to be
replaced. These days, when I buy something, I want and expect it to last
and last. So what is the economy of buying 2 cheap, low CFM blowers over 15
years or just one, more expensive initially but higher CFM blower that requires
less time of you to finish any job?
“More power!”