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Some U.S. cities are banning gas-powered leaf blowers
- simonjgreen 3y agoWhy a push to outright ban and not just use electric? edit: I had stopped reading prematurely due to a massive advert I confused for the end
- mtoner23 3y agoPretty sure the bans are only gas
- lostlogin 3y agoIsn’t this discussed in the article?
- simonjgreen 3y agoYes. Turns out what I thought was the end of the article was actually just an obnoxiously large banner advert!
- dailykoder 3y agoThat's literally what the subtitle says >The roar of leaf blowers has long been ubiquitous in fall. But as more US cities ban the gas-powered devices, that’s starting to change. And if you want to be picky about it, yes, that's kinda of an "unnecessary" ban, but you just wouldn't get most people to change their habits
- simonjgreen 3y agoThat is literally not what it literally says in the subtitle. But see my other comment, I stopped reading prematurely as what I thought was the end of the article was just a massive advert.
- 29athrowaway 3y agoCommercial users do not like electric equipment because they discharge fast and do not have the means to recharge it between jobs. The solution there is to bring more charged batteries, but those as well as the charging stations for multiple batteries are costly. And when it comes to air pressure, gas blowers have more CFM than electric ones. Electric equipment can also not be used if there's rain, and the batteries are not resilient to cold.
- gambiting 3y ago>>The solution there is to bring more charged batteries, but those as well as the charging stations for multiple batteries are costly. I can't imagine they don't pay for themselves within couple months if you actually run a business. The amount of fuel used by any greenkeeping business is non-trivial, and batteries are not that expensive. >>Electric equipment can also not be used if there's rain Since when? Of course it can be. >>and the batteries are not resilient to cold. This only really starts to have a measurable impact in the kind of cold where I'd question your sanity if you were still blowing leaves outside.
- bombcar 3y agoMy M18 batteries have been functional down below 0°, and if you store them warm they can be used even colder.
- dylan604 3y ago"the most powerful can produce sounds of up to 100 decibels of low-frequency noise, around the same as a Boeing 737 taking off " The poor Boeing 737 just can't buy good publicity. Now, it's even being invoked in yet another negative story even if it isn't directly about the plane directly.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- aspenmayer 3y ago>> "the most powerful can produce sounds of up to 100 decibels of low-frequency noise, around the same as a Boeing 737 taking off " > The poor Boeing 737 just can't buy good publicity. Now, it's even being invoked in yet another negative story even if it isn't directly about the plane directly. You’re thinking of the Boeing 737 MAX series. The 737 is from 1967.
- dylan604 3y agoSee, it's even worse for Boeing. Now their good planes are lumped together with negative connotations about their bad planes in negative news stories that have nothing to do with Boeing, while getting discussed in forums rather than the actual topic of the article. Which was something about loose bolts making outdoor equipment loud. Damn, it happened again.
- aspenmayer 3y ago> See, it's even worse for Boeing. Now their good planes are lumped together with negative connotations about their bad planes in negative news stories that have nothing to do with Boeing, while getting discussed in forums rather than the actual topic of the article. Which was something about loose bolts making outdoor equipment loud. Damn, it happened again. To say nothing of the appropriateness or applicability of bringing up the 767 in the original article, which was almost certainly a case of SEO abuse, your usage of passive voice obscures your own role in contributing to and continuing this phenomenon. I’m not sure that you were aware of the distinction beforehand from your comments, and regardless, your comment here now glosses over your own role in virally and memetically propagating the same blunder that your passive statements ascribe to no one with a view from nowhere. Something something glass houses, casting stones, and so on.
- fodkodrasz 3y agoFor the eastern-european eye the whole leaf-blower contraption seems to be an extreme waste of resources. A broom and a rake are better in almost every way in my untrained broom&rake using eyes. The single reasonable usecase I saw it in action was when street-cleaners blew out cigarette buds (another waste of resources actually, both cigarettes and littering) from the rock ballast of railway tracks using leaf-blower machines (or something similar). How could it become so popular, does it have any benefits apart from using a machine for the sake of using a machine, and showing off (as it initially has been probably)?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pwg 3y ago> How could it become so popular, does it have any benefits apart from using a machine for the sake of using a machine, and showing off (as it initially has been probably)? When one has 10,000 square feet (or more) to "rake" and multiple large trees (either your own, or blown in from neighbors) dropping leaves on that 10,000 square feet, a leaf blower can change an 8hr+ job with a rake into a 30-60 minute effort by a single person. Which is the biggest reason why they were adopted by lawn care contractors, the contractor could now "rake" 10-12 jobs per day vs. 1-3 jobs per day with the same crew of 2-3 employees.
- RajT88 3y agoA riding mower with sweeper is more effective if the terrain permits. I have an acre of land with multiple large trees. I have an electric sweeper but never really loved the job it did.
- pwg 3y agoThere exists in very many areas of the US a common property size for single family homes that is large enough to make "rake by hand" a significant time investment, but that is simultaneously small enough that a riding mower and sweeper is "too much" and/or "too awkward" to use. These tend to fall out into the 5,000 to 15,000 square feet (464.5 m^2 to 1,393.5 m^s for those using metric) range (with some slop on both ends of that size range). It is for this size yard where the 'leaf blower' found a "useful market" by turning an all day effort using a rake into an hour or so's effort using a blower. In my area, all the leaf blowers that do arrive are all carried by lawn work contractors. However, personally, I'm not bothered by them so their arrival during summer (grass clippings cleanup - always seemed a bit overkill but it is what the 'lawn work contractors' do) or fall (leaves) has never caused me an issue. Note: I'm not detracting from or dismissing the fact that others may be significantly bothered, just stating the fact that I'm personally not bothered by them.
- anovikov 3y ago[flagged]
- deathanatos 3y agoI rent, and what kills me is listening to it interrupt my meetings and/or my ability to think and thinking to myself, "I'm paying, indirectly, for this service that I don't want. I'd rather they just leave the leaves me, and we can all just enjoy fall before maybe doing one leaf blow at the end of the season, or something." But somewhere there is a property manager who wants to have a "pristine"¹ looking property 365 days a year. ¹(for some definition of that … I think fall is beautiful, the sounds of leaves crunching under one's footfalls, the changing colors.)
- theossuary 3y agoWhen I got into gardening I learned to leave some leaves around through the winter. The good bugs in your yard need a safe place to hibernate, and it's really important to provide them small microbiomes in so they'll be there to keep things healthy in the spring. So don't clean your garden/yard too much in the fall, and definitely not after the temps get cold enough that bugs will be hibernating in those leaves. Also don't clean up in the spring till nightly temperatures are consistently about like 50° F. It's okay to clean up before last harvest and get rid of some stuff, but please try to keep some piles of leaves/dead plants around for the little critters. Of course don't keep leaves around of plants that are prone to disease, get fruit tree leaves out of your yard as soon as possible, for example.
- datavirtue 3y agoAs I read this, a snow blower fires up.
- b112 3y agoYes! Also in the spring, I see so many birds migrating land in flocks (eg, 20+ robins), and start overturning those leaves looking for food. The ground is still frozen, bugs are not flying, but there they are ... waiting to be consumed. (Naturally the robins and such don't get them all, so it serves a dual purpose.)
- cafard 3y agoOnly in the fall? A lot of lawn crews like to blow the grass off sidewalks after they mow.
- bitzun 3y agoI didn't learn about Leave the Leaves until ten minutes after I raked the last of our oak's fall leaves. There's always next year I suppose.
- mdp2021 3y agohttps://martin-perscheid.de/image/cartoon/3463.gif https://martin-perscheid.de/image/cartoon/3463.gif "I plead for a radical drop of old age subsidies" ~~ Martin Persheid
- silisili 3y agoOh goodness. I'll never forget my across the street neighbors. They were the nicest people generally, but the wife didn't work and used to spend all her spare time doing busy work in the yard. I'll never forget having to listen to leaf blowers running full throttle for hours nearly every day in the fall. This lady would get a ladder, climb up, and leaf blow her gutters out every single day between the hours of 11am and 2pm or so. Then chase those leaves around the yard in the wind, mostly fruitlessly. The only brief reprieve was her moving the ladder over 3 feet at a time. I don't think I've ever held such negative feelings for a human before that I didn't express. Having a good neighbor is so rare for me, I didn't want to spoil it by complaining, but boy did that make me miserable all fall long. They hurt my ears indoors across the street, I don't know how they are even legal.
- globular-toast 3y agoIn one of my worst places for noise pollution I would regularly have thoughts of throttling the perpetrators to death. This was one thing that made me realise how bad noise is for people.
- CalRobert 3y agoApparently this guy snapped after thirty years of sonic assault https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45919025 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45919025
- mbork_pl 3y agoWhat a sad story... That said, I absolutely love the expression "sonic assault". I'm adding it to my vocabulary, right next to the uses of "sonic" as a verb and as a noun. ;-)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- screye 3y ago
- 29athrowaway 3y agoThere are more options that can be much faster and convenient from which I would recommend lawn sweepers and mower bagging kits. There are also leaf vacuums but those work better vacuuming leaf piles. There are push behind lawn sweepers for smaller areas, and tow behind sweepers that you can attach to a lawn tractor or mower. On leveled ground, a lawn sweeper is faster than a leaf blower, and will pick up twigs, acorns as well as leaves. In any case... lawn robots are coming strong and it's going to be a lawn robot game soon.
- Animats 3y agoIs this article out of the past? Battery-powered leaf blowers now seem to be about the same price as gas-powered ones. Where did this guy find a US$2200 leaf blower? For that price, it should be autonomous. The most expensive Stihl electric leaf blower I can find is $699.
- nyjah 3y agoThis is just one example of many. https://www.scag.com/product/wheeled-blowers/extreme/ https://www.scag.com/product/wheeled-blowers/extreme/
- exDM69 3y agoUnfortunately a battery powered leaf blower sound is almost as annoying as a combustion engine powered one. It's "quieter" for sure if decibels are measured but it makes a quite loud high pitch brain piercing squeal. I have neighbors with both kinds of leaf blowers, and I can't decide which one is more annoying.
- spiderfarmer 3y agoDisagree. 109 db is typical for a gas powered one. Electric hovers around 70 db. Of course, you can be annoyed by both. But then the solution is to move somewhere without neighbours.
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- ok_dad 3y agoEvery morning from 8-9 someone blows the two dozen large leaves out of the park across the way. I wish they just pick them up, it would go faster even. They do it when it’s wet! Do you know how badly wet leaves react to leaf blowers?!
- globular-toast 3y agoNoise pollution has become one of my biggest problems. I'm sure everything has got louder and it seems to keep getting even louder. Obviously I have also become older, but I don't remember my parents complaining about noise when they were my age. Leaf blowers aren't ubiquitous in the UK, but where I live now they get used. I'm three floors up and even with windows closed the noise inside is incredible. I also noticed the horrible smell when I opened the window to see what it was. > Most have what’s called a “two-stroke engine,” an outmoded design that burns a mix of gas and oil One thing that surprised me is the two stroke engine was invented after the four stroke (Ottoman cycle) engine. It does have advantages like being able to run completely upside down since it doesn't have a sump where the oil needs to drain. They also have a higher power to weight ratio. The thing that makes them outmoded is perhaps lithium ion batteries. You couldn't fit a four stroke engine to a leaf blower or chainsaw etc.
- siriaan 3y ago> You couldn't fit a four stroke engine to a leaf blower or chainsaw etc. Actually not true - you can definitely get four stroke blowers, chainsaws, weed whackers, etc.
- globular-toast 3y agoInteresting. How do they deal with oil circulation?
- smackeyacky 3y agoPoorly. I had a 4 stroke line trimmer and it definitely didn’t like extreme angles. Back to two stroke I went.
- rascul 3y agoI have a four stroke trimmer that I can change out to a pole saw. I can run it at any angle I've had to so far. It sees some weird angles with the pole saw.
- culebron21 3y agoWell, in my city there are few of these, but lots of low-paid workers removing leaves with rakes -- collecting them in piles, then in plastic bags, and finally into trucks, to the landfill I suppose. The bigger problem is fighting with the fallen leaves. Leaves attract earthworms that actually process them and fertilize soil. Without them, soil is getting empty. But still, in many cities go this vicious circle of making a lot of landscape care work that destroys it and needs a lot more work: agressively cut the grass + remove leaves -> poor soil -> bare ground without grass -> mud after rains washed on sidewalks & roads + need to bring fertile earth and seed the grass again.
- pnw 3y agoMy gardener has been creating a leaf bank in our yard, where they don’t remove all the leaves and instead let them build up in select areas. It’s amazing the difference in wildlife, we’ve seen a continuous stream of critters that we never saw when everything was blown clean. I quite like the aesthetic as well.
- beej71 3y agoYeah, I could never figure that out. The tree spend a lot of energy extracting nutrients from the soil, and then I'm just supposed to take the result and throw it away? Seems like it would stretch a lot longer if I didn't.
- neilv 3y agoIt gets even worse: my end of my block alone (in pricey Cambridge, MA), has multiple properties that routinely use multiple gas leafblowers at once, and gratuitously. One apartment building sometimes gets three workers using big backpack gas leafblowers simultaneously. One house on a small lot seems to pay two workers to walk around it with gas leafblowers, going on for ages, like they're charging by the person-hour. Another apartment building -- which seems to use a leafblower as a way for someone to kill time, just waving it around the asphalt, while the property is shabby-utilitarian -- switched to an electric for awhile... (which wasn't as bad as gas ones, but had a high-pitched component to the sound, like maybe metal parts scraping, which I'd guess was pretty hard on the operator's hearing). Random other leafblowers on and off throughout each day, for maybe 3/4 of the year, not just fall. I recently tried leaving neighborly notes to the property owners with the worst leafblower problems, and might have to refresh that again in the spring, if I don't move first. Or take my busybody-ness to the next level, and try lobbying local government officials for bans on leafblowers, and on the other main unnecessary noise pollution sources.
- unwind 3y agoI don't know what to say about this subject, not having been subjected to it (and also having a lawn and sometimes considering getting a (battery-powered) blower). I found this part of the article annoying in a misleading bad-sciency kind of way, though: The rest is emitted as toxic fumes of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), two of the main ingredients in ground-level ozone, which both trigger asthma attacks and contribute to premature death. I know ground-level ozone is bad news, but it's still just O3 so there is no way any organic compounds are ingredients in it. Perhaps they play a part in the formation of ozone (I'm no chemist) but then say that. I had to look it up, and the US Environmental Protection Agency says [1]: [Ground-level ozone] is created by chemical reactions between oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOC). This happens when pollutants emitted by cars, power plants, industrial boilers, refineries, chemical plants, and other sources chemically react in the presence of sunlight. So that sounds about right then, and was a very quick search away. [1]: https://www.epa.gov/ground-level-ozone-pollution/ground-level-ozone-basics https://www.epa.gov/ground-level-ozone-pollution/ground-leve...
- a-french-anon 3y agoHere in France, we're legally forbidden from being noisy during Sundays, isn't there something similar to guarantee at least one day of peace?
- bowsamic 3y agoIn Germany we also have that, but I'm British and in the UK there was nothing like this. People do full on loud drilling work on Sundays with no issue from their neighbours. There may be "officially" laws to restrict noise on Sunday in the UK, but it's not socially expected at all. Here in Germany everyone knows not do on Sunday, not so in UK. My wife is also British and she hates the Germany noise restriction, she wants to be able to make as much noise as she wants whatever day she wants. That's simply the British way. Though her mum is French and she prefers it the German way.
- gambiting 3y agoIn Poland it's also socially unacceptable to be making noise on Sunday. I don't think there are any actual laws against it, but no one ever cuts the grass on a Sunday for instance. And yes, I also live in the UK now and it's really annoying that people don't keep Sunday noise free, with all the cutting drilling and what have you. Oh well, different society, different expectations.
- givemeethekeys 3y agoHere in California, the gardeners show up en mass on Monday morning. Rise and shine, ringinginginginginging .... =)
- iancmceachern 3y agoThis is the California sunrise soundtrack. Every morning, like clockwork. I would pay extra, whatever the cost, to have rakes and brooms be the tools, not the blowers. Amen
- mixmastamyk 3y agoGood luck. Been illegal for 15 years in Los Angeles but we get to enjoy it four days a week on our street.
- bob1029 3y agoI take a bit of heat from my HOA because I simply refuse to participate in activities that I wouldn't want my neighbors doing every day. Leaf blowing is bad, but nothing touches my experience with a neighbor and his pressure washing hobby. Imagine someone cleaning their driveway every weekend. The leaf blowers are like a symphony by comparison. I've moved 2 times over bad neighbors alone. Both times they acted like it was an assault on their humanity that I would leave over such a thing. Not everyone has the luxury to do so, but you can find a quiet place if your sample size is high enough. It's not just about having enough money to buy an isolated ranch home. There are so many odd things that can make noise that you won't discover for months.
- Modified3019 3y ago>pressure washing hobby. Imagine someone cleaning their driveway every weekend. A neighbor of mine a few doors down does the same, it's baffling how they even have concrete left.
- fmajid 3y agoI never understood leaf blowers. They just move the leaves but the wind will blow them back. I had a Toro brand corded electric blower that could be reversed to suck and chop the leaves into a bag, that could then be emptied into the compost bin. Much more effective solution.
- glimshe 3y agoThe point is to pile up the leaves so they can be manually collected, put in bags etc. The "suck" solution makes sense if you don't have a lot of leaves, but people with large yards or lot of trees need large bins or even trucks to collect the leaves after blowing.
- emptysongglass 3y agoWhy don't you just leave the leaves where they are??
- bombcar 3y agoIt can ruin the grass. The main problem is the obsession with grass.
- ragnot 3y agoI hate to break it to you but if you don't grow grass then weeds and mud will take over. The weeds bring insects and mosquitos and the mud is well...mud. Letting leaves kill my grass was a terrible mistake, I'll never make it again.
- bombcar 3y agoOh sure - you can’t just let it go fallow. You have to strategically decide what to plant that provides adequate ground cover, which is NOT simple. Now, rake, blow, shake, snow, wait. That’s what grass needs and it is easy and looks good. Or you go with artificial turf or something similar and that has its own issues.
- JeffSnazz 3y agoIf you don't have an HOA, consider not leaf blowing or raking at all. There's not much point and local insect populations probably need them to weather winter.
- beej71 3y agoAnd if you do have an HOA, consider not having one. :)
- giardini 3y agoThat's called apartments. Most dwellers don't own theirs. Its a completely different living arrangement. As soon as you have a common area or a shared wall, roof or other construction artifact you need an HOA of some sort.
- JeffSnazz 3y agoMany single-unit family home neighborhoods do not have an HOA—people just get along or take their concerns to the town itself. I mostly associate HOAs with suburbia.
- cryptoz 3y agoThe frequency of gas smell / poison air filling my whole apartment is 100% out of control. It is absolutely mind blowing to me that with all doors closed and windows shut, the noise isn’t even the issue I have. It’s the poison that enters so quickly and hangs around for so long, and it happens so often. The smell those things put out is vile and it hangs in the air for so long. It’s nauseating and I’ll never figure out how that became legal in the first place. Like surely if I walked around blowing gas smell into people’s apartments I’d surely be arrested. But no, apparently that’s totally legit to do. Wild. And of course, the noise is unbearable as well. All for what?! Ugggghhhh.
- renegade-otter 3y agoAbout time. I've read horror stories of people moving out of cities during the lockdowns to escape their small hellholes, only to find out that their Zoom meetings are now going to have leaf blowers in the background all day. It's one of those things where your "right" to own a gas leaf blower smashes into my right to not be forced to listen to it. You have a remedy - buy a quiet non-gas blower, and I do not.
- torginus 3y agoI would ban gas-powered gardening instruments altogether (except industrial scale ones). They are loud, stinky and have worse emissions than a 50 year old car.
- stuckkeys 3y agoGood. Hope they ban them in my stated/city also. Every god damn Tuesday. For 3 hours. That is all I hear.
- smackeyacky 3y agoWhen my drunken neighbours have spent the night hooting and screeching until 3am when they finally collapse in a pool of vomit, you can bet the leaf blower is coming out at 9am sharp to cut through their hangovers.
- oliwarner 3y agoWhat amuses me most about all this is that the conversation immediately drifts back to electric blowers, as if blowing is the only way to tidy up leaves. More often than not, they're actually just blowing "the problem" elsewhere and you've still got to pick them up. What's wrong with rakes and towed sweepers?
- antisthenes 3y agoIt's an american thing, because there is municipal leaf collection at the curb of the property, so all you have to do is blow the leaves over there and be done. If you rake, then you have to put them in bags/bins and drag them. It's somewhat slower and hard for older people (although my parents still do it and enjoy it at retirement age).
- thehoff 3y agoNot everywhere does leaf collection at the curb. About 10 years ago we lived in a city that did that and it was great. They told you the two or three times they would come by to vacuum the leaves so all you'd have to is get the leaves to the curb. Where we are at now, we have a wooded lot out back so we blow them back there (folks across the street do blow them to the curb and pay for a company to come out and vacuum them up). No way we could just rake them either, there's just too much. For lawn sweepers they can be pretty big so you'd need somewhere to put it when you're done (at least the ones I've looked at).
- cafard 3y agoTowed sweepers? We do rake our lawns, front and back, and haul the leaves to the curb using an old shower curtain as some would use a tarp. However, my wife does prefer to rake leaves out of the garden beds, so every fall we have a conversation that starts, We really should get a leaf blower, and that then is forgotten until the next fall.
- oliwarner 3y agoIt's a trailer for a garden tractor/mower/atv. Essentially a box with a little rotating sweeper. You buzz around at 5-10mph and it picks up all the leaves. If you have your cutter on, you're basically making and collecting mulch. Much faster than either blowing or raking. Beds, I'll make an exception for.
- giardini 3y agoHow about banning the f*ers? Bring back the common rake, which works well, provides decent low-level exercise and won't cause lung ailments in the population for decades to come?
- jauntywundrkind 3y agoThis has worked pretty great in DC. Massive quality of life improvement.
- raydev 3y agoSo strange to me that leafblowers are the target of constant community ire and potential regulation, yet roving groups of Harleys and non-Harley motorcycles, imo much more loud and harmful than leaf blowers, can destroy people's eardrums with zero consequences.
- ath3nd 3y agoLeaf blowers are absolutely useless. If you want to do useless stuff but without the noise, take a rake.