# Why are backpack leaf blowers and lawn mowers so darn loud?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-backpack-leaf-blowers-and-lawn-mowers-so-darn-loud/603316
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 18, 2011, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-backpack-leaf-blowers-and-lawn-mowers-so-darn-loud/603316 "2011-11-18T05:31:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2017, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-backpack-leaf-blowers-and-lawn-mowers-so-darn-loud/603316/41 "2017-12-15T15:55:30Z")
**[That Ear-Splitting Leaf Blower? It Also Emits More Pollution Than a Car](https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-ear-splitting-leaf-blower-it-also-emits-more-pollution-than-a-car-1513346400)**
Zombie lives to say when OP was O, 11 million blowers were blowing leaves, according to an EPA report “[National Emissions from Lawn and Garden Equipment](https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-09/documents/banks.pdf).”
The EPA report has some interesting things, referencing all the members of this thread’s _fortissimo_ symphony orchestra: leaf blowers/vacuums, trimmers/edgers/brush cutters, chain saws, snow blowers, mowers.
From the WSJ summary:
Four-stroke engines are more efficient, but two-stroke engines are inexpensive and pack more power. They also run in any position—even sideways or upside down—a feature made possible by the way they are lubricated.
Four-stroke engines must operate in a generally upright position because their lubricating system would spill oil, if the engine were turned upside down
Two-stroke engines lack a separate lubrication system; their oil is mixed in with the gasoline used for fuel. Some of it lubricates the engine, and some of it burns up, but a significant amount escapes through the exhaust.
All gasoline engines expel some unburned fuel in their exhaust, but two-stroke engines release a higher percentage.
ETA: Post #38 by **Dolomite** mentions the engine configuration in a different context.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2017, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-backpack-leaf-blowers-and-lawn-mowers-so-darn-loud/603316/42 "2017-12-15T16:08:42Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#):
>
> Good to see you’re still around, **Hail Ants**.
Not so fast…
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### Author:  [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2017, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-backpack-leaf-blowers-and-lawn-mowers-so-darn-loud/603316/43 "2017-12-15T18:18:39Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#):
>
> **[That Ear-Splitting Leaf Blower? It Also Emits More Pollution Than a Car](https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-ear-splitting-leaf-blower-it-also-emits-more-pollution-than-a-car-1513346400)**
>
> Zombie lives to say when OP was O, 11 million blowers were blowing leaves, according to an EPA report “[National Emissions from Lawn and Garden Equipment](https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-09/documents/banks.pdf).”
>
> The EPA report has some interesting things, referencing all the members of this thread’s _fortissimo_ symphony orchestra: leaf blowers/vacuums, trimmers/edgers/brush cutters, chain saws, snow blowers, mowers.
The filthiness of small engines is nothing new, but the disparity compared to cars has gotten worse over the years as cars have gotten cleaner and cleaner. There’s a lot of emissions control tech on a car, and it can be justified because the increment in cost and weight is a small percentage of the car’s total cost and weight. Not so for a small engine: if you add liquid cooling, closed-loop fuel injection, EGR, an evaporative emissions recovery system and a catalytic converter, your handheld string trimmer ends up weighing 40 pounds and costing $1000.
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### Author:  [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2017, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-backpack-leaf-blowers-and-lawn-mowers-so-darn-loud/603316/44 "2017-12-16T01:38:59Z")
> [@constanze](#):
>
> I’m not your dude, mate.
You’ve objected to this [interjection](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUqKNDKIc3A) before, dude. It’s just an interjection, dude. No one’s making you his bitch.
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### Author:  [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2017, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-backpack-leaf-blowers-and-lawn-mowers-so-darn-loud/603316/45 "2017-12-16T20:37:20Z")
I know this is an old thread but didn’t California ban two stroke engines? I vaguely remember some noise about such a laq a few years ago and that was the reason personal watercraft moved from two stroke to four stroke motors.
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### Author:  [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2017, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-backpack-leaf-blowers-and-lawn-mowers-so-darn-loud/603316/46 "2017-12-17T05:43:57Z")
> [@dalej42](#):
>
> I know this is an old thread but didn’t California ban two stroke engines? I vaguely remember some noise about such a laq a few years ago and that was the reason personal watercraft moved from two stroke to four stroke motors.
I had thought so too, but it seems no one told the gardeners. I do a lot of walking around my neighborhood and they’re all using gas two-stroke equipment.
As far as noise, it happens the guy who “gardens” my current rental actually uses an electric blower which he recharges here sometimes, but it is so damn loud it made me jump out of my chair one day when he showed up unexpectedly (his schedule is irregular; I suspect it depends on his binge drinking cycle).
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### Author:  [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2017, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-backpack-leaf-blowers-and-lawn-mowers-so-darn-loud/603316/47 "2017-12-17T06:42:57Z")
What is it about leaf blowers that makes people unable to spell?
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### Author:  [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2018, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-backpack-leaf-blowers-and-lawn-mowers-so-darn-loud/603316/48 "2018-01-01T07:34:53Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#):
>
> What is it about leaf blowers that makes people unable to spell?
Rage, probably. They can’t spell because they are filled with justified rage.
Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
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### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2018, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-backpack-leaf-blowers-and-lawn-mowers-so-darn-loud/603316/49 "2018-01-01T07:46:25Z")
I once lived in an apartment, facing another higher class apartment complex just across the street. One day I started hearing a new noise. They had hired a boy to put on a leaf blower, and walk around the property from 9 to 5, machine idling, and every time he saw a leaf on the sidewalk, he would rev it up and blow it onto the lawn. I phoned city hall. They phoned the apartment complex. The boy was reassigned to some other quieter task. Or, sadly, maybe fired.
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### Author:  [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2018, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-backpack-leaf-blowers-and-lawn-mowers-so-darn-loud/603316/50 "2018-01-17T02:17:53Z")
[Who Needs a WeedWacker When You Can Use a Scythe?](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304782404577490583379647566)
_Grim Reaper Jokes Aside, Suburbanites Take Swing at Ancient Mower_
_WSJ_, June 29, 2012
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2018, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-backpack-leaf-blowers-and-lawn-mowers-so-darn-loud/603316/51 "2018-01-17T02:32:08Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#):
>
> [Who Needs a WeedWacker When You Can Use a Scythe?](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304782404577490583379647566)
> _Grim Reaper Jokes Aside, Suburbanites Take Swing at Ancient Mower_
>
> _WSJ_, June 29, 2012
I have one of those. We call it the ‘Death Thing’. Came with the house. We use it as a decoration.
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