“How to: Select a Gasoline Leaf Blower”

By Ron Stultz

1 December 2006

 Summary: Have "20" leaves to blow off a sidewalk, leaf blower size does not matter but if you got a man-size job to do, get the largest volume blower you can afford. Easy to back off power but not add if not available to you.

Several years ago, there was a television comedy show called "Home Improvement" where the main character, “Tim, the tool man, Taylor”, had his own handyman show on a cable channel in some city and was always playing with various home improvement projects. Anyway, Tim was always saying, “More power”, as he souped up everything from his bathroom to his lawn tractor.

 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!”