Hello,

I had no bites when I asked through my company newsgroup, so I
thought I'd try this one...

We recently moved from a home that had a ton of leaves, pine
needles, small branches, and sweet gums, to a house with MORE
leaves, sweet gums and now, ACORNS. LOTS of acorns. LOTS of
leaves. Lots of branches. Some sweetgums...

So, we are considering purchasing these walk-behind multi-
purpose equipment that chip, shred, and vacuum leaves, etc.
Through my research I have found that people find they work
well, but are hard to push (118 lbs before vacuuming). There
are newer models that are self-propelled.

Consumer Reports suggests not buying one, but instead, recommend
purchasing a quality wood chipper and a quality leaf vacuum.

Anyone have experiences with these things? The types I am aware
of: Yardman, Craftsman, Troy-bilt, and Mackissic. Any others?

Looks like prices range from $499 to $1200.

I appreciate any and all feedback.

Thanks,
Cindy

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Lose "your attitude" before replying

I did the research last spring and wound up buying a 10 HP 3-way Yard
Machine from MTD (at Home Depot...about $400 on sale.) We went and
looked at some of the self-propelled models at Equipment Right of Way
(near State Fairgrounds) but they were expensive and didn't seem to
have the right setup to deal with the branches. To get one with a setup
to deal with branches, we were looking at more than $1,000. Also, if
you have flower beds, azaleas, etc. you can't really get the push-type
vacuums in there to deal with the leaves so you're going to have to
blow them anyway. The drop-down door on the three-way machine makes
doing leaves much easier...you can even blow the leaves right in. Of
course, during heavy leaf season, you'll still need to use a rake to
push them in.

Having a 10 HP unit makes it less likely that the machine will clog up
doing leaves. It will also grind those branches faster. Only issue I
have with the MTD machine is that the bag is just about too big for me
to handle when it gets full.

FWIW, I "wore out" a 5 HP machine due to the amount of debris and
leaves from our heavily-wooded lot. Hubby wanted to get a machine that
would work on the tractor's PTO but since I'm the one dealing with the
leaves, I wanted one I could just push around to where I needed it.

As for the sweetgum balls and the acorns, I either use the chipper or
the leaf vacuum to make chop them up before loading into the compost
pile.