On 29/10/2011 14:02, Jake wrote:
On Sat, 29 Oct 2011 13:23:34 +0100 (BST), wrote:
Are there any of these that are any good? My wife is considering
an Eckman, which looks plausible, but I am a bit suspicious.
For example, sooner or later, it will pick up a stray stone.
Regards,
Nick Maclaren.
I prefer blowing to sucking - I've generally got so many leaves that
I'd spend hours emtying the bag. So at height of the leaf season I use
a petrol blower to get stuff into a corner and then it's easy to
collect and transfer to the pile. The lawnmower, set high, will do a
decent job of pickling up and shredding the leaves at other times
(but, again, emptying the collector's a pain in high season) and, with
the blades at their highest, I don't get grass cuttings mixed in with
the leaves.
I do have a garden vac (Handy brand came as a freebie with something
else but retails about £30-£40) which I'll use for the odds and ends,
mainly on the pavement in front of the house. That has a plastic
grinder. The occasional stone gets sucked up but you hear it straight
away. Simply release the "on" button and the stone drops out. Doesn't
seem to do any damage.
I vacuum up most of my leaves on granite chippings. I must say that the
vac seldom picks these up at all, and I rarely hear them hit the plastic
shredder blade (which is a bit like a single-sided squirrel-cage fan
blade). Yes, the blade has the odd chip,but this cheapo Power Devil vac
has surprised me by lasting 10 years, and is still going strong. My
previous B&D only lasted 4 years, and you had to change the tube
attachment if you wanted blowing rather than vacuuming - not very
convenient. With the current one I just have to push a lever through 90°.
But, as I say, garden vacs aren't much good when you have lots of
leaves as the bag fills up too quickly. Plus they're a bit iffy with
wet leaves which can clog up the grinder.
Agree about the wet leaves (if I had a mower I'd use that for wet
leaves), but not the bag filling up too quickly. A full bag - even if
the leaves are dry - tends to weigh heavily on one side, soon causing
shoulder ache. Emptying the bag regularly also allows stuff which
hasn't been shredded properly to be removed. It's surprising how
inefficient a vac can become when even a small blockage has occurred.
How much is "lots of leaves"? My neighbour uses a vac and one year took
35 large dustbin-bags full of leaves to the local tip (now he can get
quite a bit in the garden recycling wheelie) as a result of living under
a 25m+ sycamore and 20m+ oak.
IMO garden vacs are useful gadgets.
--
Jeff