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The issue with the electric ones is that those lawn care companies have crews that run leaf blowers all day long from one house to another. This is no longer p

The issue with the electric ones is that those lawn care companies have crews that run leaf blowers all day long from one house to another. This is no longer possible as they take hours to recharge after each use. It works if each home owner buys a leaf blower of his own, but that's way less efficient from a manufacturing/maintenance perspective. We're just increasing inefficiencies.

Workaccount2 4y ago
Maybe they need to have another truck follow them so they can bag and dispose of lawn clippings.
rektide 4y ago
These folks can have multiple batteries. That's the real answer, imo. Greenwork's Pro backpack's runtime is 37 minutes at full power on their 60V 8Ah battery (~1/2kWh). Yeah, it's a $300 battery. But with a 4 year warranty, and much longer expected life-time, buying 3-6 for each blower you've got is scary upfront but a drop in the bucket over time. There's some other sub-optimal options, but hopefully we don't see this energy-wasting noise-making cheapening out. They can charge them when they drive in most modern trucks (AC inverters are practically standard for work trucks). Worse, they start carrying around generators or idling their trucks; back to far more expensive (over time), polluting, and noisy. But both ought be better than a small screeching 2-stroke in terms of quality of life for the hundreds of people in the nearby area. We're doing great. This is a huge improvement for quality of life for a huge huge number of people. For far more energy efficient & less costly over time systems, at modest investment cost. Particularly if you are a landscaper, having 6 sets of batteries that last 5+ years (and many many more if you're only cycling batteries once a day) seems like an incredibly minor investment cost.
- count 4y ago
  That green works pro battery doesn't take hours to charge either. It's about 30-40 minutes from empty to full again.
- afiori 4y ago
  The real solution is not to leaf blow your lawn.
  - acuozzo 4y ago
    I mostly use my electric leaf blower for my driveway, walkway, porch, and deck. I can accomplish in a minute or two what would normally take 20+ minutes with a push broom.
- prepend 4y ago
  The lawn crew that I use works 6-10 per day so that’s 9-15 batteries to buy, carry around and charge. And that’s just for one person. There’s normally two people with leaf blowers. Hopefully there’s some industrial version as carrying 20 batteries and charging them five days a week is really expensive.
  - banana_giraffe 4y ago
    My local lawn crew actually runs a cord to an outlet outside my house to charge their batteries for the next house. They were clear they do this when I hired them, but I'm super happy with it since I no longer need to worry about the noise for calls and the like. Granted, it probably only makes sense for a smaller crew like the one I found, but I thought it was a nice solution.
  - rektide 4y ago
    9 batteries by the numbers I presented runs to 5.5 hours. 15 batteries at 37 minutes a piece is 9.25 hours. I can see that being a possibility for someplace like a college campus where one crew is literally just roving around an limited area for the day to maybe get in 5.5 hours of straight actual use, maybe, if the team is super well pipelined in what they are doing. But it seems like a fanciful/rare/contrived example. How many days of this a year does the crew work? For most lawn-care folks, I tend to think they have a lot of different sites to cover, and there's some transportation, and a variety of tasks other than leafblowing. I have a hard time imagining someone actually clocking 6 hours of actual full-throttle use of a leafblower on any day, much less day after day. Even in exotic uses (unseen in the city in question/my own city, DC), I think adaption is less of a challenge than one might think.
    - prepend 4y ago
      I’m not a yard company but I’ve talked to the team that does my yard and they said (two of them) that they do 12-16 houses a day and each house takes about 30 minutes. Usually one is blowing the whole time while one mows and weedwhacks and then the second puts on a backpack. They have a long day from like 7am to 6pm. So my example certainly isn’t contrived. But it’s just one example and the only one I know.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bluefirebrand 4y ago
> The issue with the electric ones is that those lawn care companies have crews that run leaf blowers all day long from one house to another. This is no longer possible Why does this matter though? Does this army of leaf blowers that run all day actually contribute anything useful? I get some people like a tidy yard or tidy lawn or whatever. Who cares though? It shouldn't be treated as some inalienable right to have a tidy driveway so leaf blowers must be allowed. > We're just increasing inefficiencies. Yes but it doesn't matter because the job of blowing leaves doesn't matter. It's just control freaks trying to tightly control nature and franky, who cares. They can pay more for the privilege of having someone use a rake or broom to clean up leaves instead.

Workaccount2 4y ago

Maybe they need to have another truck follow them so they can bag and dispose of lawn clippings.

rektide 4y ago

These folks can have multiple batteries. That's the real answer, imo. Greenwork's Pro backpack's runtime is 37 minutes at full power on their 60V 8Ah battery (~1/2kWh). Yeah, it's a $300 battery. But with a 4 year warranty, and much longer expected life-time, buying 3-6 for each blower you've got is scary upfront but a drop in the bucket over time. There's some other sub-optimal options, but hopefully we don't see this energy-wasting noise-making cheapening out. They can charge them when they drive in most modern trucks (AC inverters are practically standard for work trucks). Worse, they start carrying around generators or idling their trucks; back to far more expensive (over time), polluting, and noisy. But both ought be better than a small screeching 2-stroke in terms of quality of life for the hundreds of people in the nearby area. We're doing great. This is a huge improvement for quality of life for a huge huge number of people. For far more energy efficient & less costly over time systems, at modest investment cost. Particularly if you are a landscaper, having 6 sets of batteries that last 5+ years (and many many more if you're only cycling batteries once a day) seems like an incredibly minor investment cost.

count 4y ago
That green works pro battery doesn't take hours to charge either. It's about 30-40 minutes from empty to full again.
afiori 4y ago
The real solution is not to leaf blow your lawn.
- acuozzo 4y ago
  I mostly use my electric leaf blower for my driveway, walkway, porch, and deck. I can accomplish in a minute or two what would normally take 20+ minutes with a push broom.
prepend 4y ago
The lawn crew that I use works 6-10 per day so that’s 9-15 batteries to buy, carry around and charge. And that’s just for one person. There’s normally two people with leaf blowers. Hopefully there’s some industrial version as carrying 20 batteries and charging them five days a week is really expensive.
- banana_giraffe 4y ago
  My local lawn crew actually runs a cord to an outlet outside my house to charge their batteries for the next house. They were clear they do this when I hired them, but I'm super happy with it since I no longer need to worry about the noise for calls and the like. Granted, it probably only makes sense for a smaller crew like the one I found, but I thought it was a nice solution.
- rektide 4y ago
  9 batteries by the numbers I presented runs to 5.5 hours. 15 batteries at 37 minutes a piece is 9.25 hours. I can see that being a possibility for someplace like a college campus where one crew is literally just roving around an limited area for the day to maybe get in 5.5 hours of straight actual use, maybe, if the team is super well pipelined in what they are doing. But it seems like a fanciful/rare/contrived example. How many days of this a year does the crew work? For most lawn-care folks, I tend to think they have a lot of different sites to cover, and there's some transportation, and a variety of tasks other than leafblowing. I have a hard time imagining someone actually clocking 6 hours of actual full-throttle use of a leafblower on any day, much less day after day. Even in exotic uses (unseen in the city in question/my own city, DC), I think adaption is less of a challenge than one might think.
  - prepend 4y ago
    I’m not a yard company but I’ve talked to the team that does my yard and they said (two of them) that they do 12-16 houses a day and each house takes about 30 minutes. Usually one is blowing the whole time while one mows and weedwhacks and then the second puts on a backpack. They have a long day from like 7am to 6pm. So my example certainly isn’t contrived. But it’s just one example and the only one I know.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bluefirebrand 4y ago

> The issue with the electric ones is that those lawn care companies have crews that run leaf blowers all day long from one house to another. This is no longer possible Why does this matter though? Does this army of leaf blowers that run all day actually contribute anything useful? I get some people like a tidy yard or tidy lawn or whatever. Who cares though? It shouldn't be treated as some inalienable right to have a tidy driveway so leaf blowers must be allowed. > We're just increasing inefficiencies. Yes but it doesn't matter because the job of blowing leaves doesn't matter. It's just control freaks trying to tightly control nature and franky, who cares. They can pay more for the privilege of having someone use a rake or broom to clean up leaves instead.