5 ms·
I will buy one of these for my neighbor at my own expense as soon as they are available. Dude loves his yard, I get it, but he is out there for at least 30 min
by lukev 3y ago
I will buy one of these for my neighbor at my own expense as soon as they are available.
Dude loves his yard, I get it, but he is out there for at least 30 minutes every single day with his gas blower. Usually over dinner time when we are eating outside on nice days.
Wonder if getting neighbors to subsidize quieter tech is a viable approach. Nobody cares about their own noise but everyone cares a lot about the neighbor.
- diogenescynic 3y agoEven if you bought it would he use it? There are already electric blowers that aren't very loud. If they're using a gas blower then it might be more about something else--in which case I have a feeling they won't be interested in quiet leaf blowing tech.
- usefulcat 3y agoI think the only effective solution will be for cities to start banning gas powered leaf blowers. I'd definitely vote for that.
- nuancebydefault 3y agoI would even say, start burning gas powered leaf blowers. How often have I have seen people using it on just a handful of leafs. It almost takes less effort to pick them manually.
- beebeepka 3y agoBut picking them manually does not emit insane amounts of air and noise pollution which is most of the "fun". What's the point of doing anything if it doesn't hurt anyone? Kind of like motorcycles.
- dmd 3y agoNot just banning, but enforcing the ban. Our town banned them ... with a $50 fine, which landscapers are happy to pay the once or twice a year they get dinged, if it means they don't have to buy new equipment.
- arp242 3y agoConfiscate the equipment instead of fining people? Not excessive in terms of monetary cost for both private individuals and businesses, but does actually solve the problem, and much more disruptive in terms of hassle caused. Downside is logistics on the police end: they actually do need to take those things with them, which is a bit of a hassle, and then do something with them (e.g. send it to a recycling company or whatnot).
- asdff 3y agoWhen they tried enforcing the leaf blower ban in LA, the landscapers went on a hunger strike that lasted 7 days until city officials backed off.
- anvil-on-my-toe 3y agoDenver (and the rest of the Front Range) has a proposal on the books to ban the sale of gas lawn equipment, and tax incentives to buy electric. > Further regulations would limit the use of [gas] equipment during the summer ozone season. Starting in 2025, public entities, like schools and cities, would be banned from running equipment from June through August. Commercial landscaping businesses would face the same restrictions in 2026. I'd vote to apply that to residences as well, but you have to start somewhere. [1] https://www.cpr.org/2023/07/07/denver-gas-lawn-equipment-ban-2025/ https://www.cpr.org/2023/07/07/denver-gas-lawn-equipment-ban...
- carabiner 3y agoThey are so fucking loud. The one outside my apartment makes it too loud for me to take meetings inside my apartment. I can't hear anything over the noise. I lived in another place where I could literally hear one that was over a mile away (it was at a construction site where I could see them doing it at night).
- jermaustin1 3y agoOur HOA requires weekly (during growing season) lawn mowings. So on top of the $450/mo, we also have to fork over $30-50/wk to some maintenance company. They take around 10 minutes to do the entire lawn, mow, edge, weed, and pickup. I cannot complain about the speed, or the cost actually. My neighbor has a family member come and do their lawn (I offered my guys to them for free, and they turned it down). So every Wednesday or Thursday, for nearly 4 hours, there are various 2-stroke engines going on. It is a HUGE noise, and my home office faces their house so for most of the day I'm having to ask people to repeat themselves because I cannot hear them over the sound of the neighbor's lawn equipment.
- mcpeepants 3y agoMy (older, empty-nester) neighbors on both sides are like this. Landscaping is their hobby and they enjoy spending several hours, multiple times per week with an assortment of power equipment. My one neighbor has 3 lawnmowers: 1 ride-on, and 2 push mowers. He and his wife use the push mowers _at the same time_, and then they follow up with another pass by the ride-on. I pay $35 per week and it's done in ~10 minutes.
- arp242 3y agoEven current electric leaf-blowers are much quieter than the gas-powered ones. "Even more quiet" is of course always nice, but s/gas/electric/ today would already eliminate >95% of the problem.
- thinkcontext 3y agoMy city has a subsidy for electric law equipment, both residential and commercial. That's in addition to a ban gas leaf blowers.