Why leafblowers?

[dummygladhands71]

Many many lawns here in the AZ are gravel. Vacuums don’t work on gravel. Nor really do rakes or brooms. Leafblowers seem to be it.

[Toxylon]

Raking leaves is excellent lower-intensity whole body cardio exercise for an office-atrophied physique, close to completely silent and emits no emissions of any other kind (save for a fart or two).

I have raked untold tons of leaves in my life (often for a pay), and am better for it.

[BrickBat]

Agreed. Though it sounds speciously bizarre on the surface to say “I like to work”, few things feel as invigorating to me as a few hours of brisk leaf raking on a wonderfully cool and bracing fall day. Tonic for upper body, lungs, heart; plus a prideful feeling of accomplishment of getting a necessary task behind me and the neat(er) appearance of the property.

[Machine_Elf]

I’m not sure why, but I like raking leaves in my yard and I dislike sweeping grass clippings from the street/driveway/sidewalk. Maybe the yard-raking feels more productive because I end up with a visible pile of leaves at the end of it?

[Spiderman]

@filmore

A homeowner uses a battery once a week for a short time. The landscapers that do work for an HOA will typical use many blowers many hours a day many days of the week. The batteries for the good blowers are $150+ with a limited lifespan. I’m not sure that it would be economically feasible for a landscaper to use batteries. They’d have to carry a bunch of charged ones with them to last the day, and continually purchase new ones as the old ones died.

That cost should be offset by the savings on not buying fuel; they will probably come out ahead.

However, that isn’t where the costs are. CA has authorized $30 mil to help purchase new ‘E’-quipment; I saw that only works out to about $600/landscaping company so not a lot of help towards the purchase of said new equipment.

I also read it would mean 40-50 batteries for a typical 3-4 man crew. Some of those small companies just keep their equipment in their trailer while others may rent a small garage somewhere to park their stuff / make repairs. Some businesses will need to rent a facility & others may need to upgrade just to have access to enough electricity that they’ll need overnight to be able to work the following day.
How big are those commercial equipment batteries & how many of them can simultaneously charge on a typical 110 outlets? I have no clue what their draw is.

Do they make large charging units that can charge 10/25/50 batteries at a time, along with associated power management software? They don’t all need to be charged in the first hour they’re plugged in, just have the last one fully charged 10-12 hours after they’re all plugged in. How much do they cost & how large a space would they take up? Would they need to rent a second bay just to have the space for that large of a charger?

What happens when CA does their rolling brownouts that seem to happen every year; they can’t work the next day(s)?

[Machine_Elf]

@Spiderman

Do they make large charging units that can charge 10/25/50 batteries at a time, along with associated power management software? They don’t all need to be charged in the first hour they’re plugged in, just have the last one fully charged 10-12 hours after they’re all plugged in. How much do they cost & how large a space would they take up?

Here’s one example of a multi-battery charging station:
https://www.toro.com/en/product/66550

One of its operating modes is pretty much what you describe: it can charge a 60V, 7.5Ah battery in 38 minutes, then switch over to charge the next battery in line, until it’s gone through all six batteries. A 60V-7.5Ah battery is a lot of energy. I have a 60V, 6.0Ah battery and after mowing my lawn for 20-25 minutes, it’s only halfway depleted.

[elfkin477]

@Machine_Elf

A 60V-7.5Ah battery is a lot of energy. I have a 60V, 6.0Ah battery and after mowing my lawn for 20-25 minutes, it’s only halfway depleted.

It really is a lot of energy. Even my pole saw is only 40V.

[wolfpup]

@filmore

A homeowner uses a battery once a week for a short time. The landscapers that do work for an HOA will typical use many blowers many hours a day many days of the week. The batteries for the good blowers are $150+ with a limited lifespan. I’m not sure that it would be economically feasible for a landscaper to use batteries. They’d have to carry a bunch of charged ones with them to last the day, and continually purchase new ones as the old ones died.

I can’t speak to leafblowers but the guy who used to do landscaping for me switched from a gas-powered chainsaw to a battery-powered electric one some years ago and he claimed to be very happy with it. The subject came up when he finished the work he was doing part of which involved cutting down a giant mutant bush, and I remarked that I hadn’t heard the usual chainsaw roar. He proudly displayed his new electric one. This guy makes his living with these tools.

[Machine_Elf]

@filmore

The landscapers that do work for an HOA will typical use many blowers many hours a day many days of the week. The batteries for the good blowers are $150+ with a limited lifespan. I’m not sure that it would be economically feasible for a landscaper to use batteries. They’d have to carry a bunch of charged ones with them to last the day, and continually purchase new ones as the old ones died.

If every commercial lawn care provider in California is required to use battery-powered equipment, then the playing field is level. To the extent that commercial lawn care might be more expensive because of the battery requirement, it just means customers will all be paying more. It probably won’t mean customers cancel their service and start doing more of their own lawn care, because they’d have to buy their own battery-powered equipment (and also supplying their own manual labor). On the off chance that it does and results in a drop in demand for commercial lawn care services, then so be it - that’s the price of cleaner air and quieter neighborhoods.