Patrick E. King wrote:
"Patrick E. King" wrote in message
...
Earlier I mistakenly posted to free.uk.diy.home and was advised to
post here.
I'm trying to source a Qualcast Turbo Vac 1100W.
My next-door neighbour has one of these which I've used and was
very
pleased with
it's performance.
He bought it some years back but cannot remember where he
purchased
from. However, I cannot seem to find a supplier of this model.
Qualcast's site does not offer any garden vacs.??
I don't want to buy a more powerful one which will lift half my
gravel along
with the leaves!
Any recommendations appreciated.
TIA
Regards
Patrick.

Just in case anybody is interested I ended up buying a Flymo 1600
Watt Vac and it does the job perfectly without lifting any of my
gravel.
I deliberately opted for the lower power model for this reason.
Also it is a relatively quiet-running machine.
Patrick.

I don't want to sound silly, but if you want a low-power machine to
lift leaves without disturbing the gravel, perhaps the one you use
for the house might be quite good enough. My 20-year-old Vax would
probably do the job pretty well. Or you could just wait for the
leaves to go away: they do that, you know...

The reason I take this attitude is that I disapprove of the present
commercial tendency to make people think they need more and more
machines to do simple, and often absolutely unnecessary, gardening
tasks. It's a simple hobby, for simple people: why anybody should
want to Hoover the garden is utterly beyond my understanding.

Leaf litter on the lawn will vanish in the course of mowing; the bits
you miss on flower beds will just add to the soil quality; and if a
few bits rot down on your gravel drive and make five cubic
millimetres of soil, well, next time you walk past, just pull out the
odd optimistic weed which may result. If that much bending sounds
like hard work, well, just run through with a Dutch hoe every three
or four years. Easy, and costs nothing.

Take it from me, the commercial gents are even now working on a way
of selling you a washing machine for the lawn. Do you want to be one
of the smart ones, or one of the suckers? Your choice.

--
Mike.