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Lawn Vacuum - To buy or not?
QUESTION: I live in an area where we have to put leaves into paper bags and i do
about sixty of them a year. So far the best way I've found to pick the
leaves up is to use my lawn mower with a grass catcher.
I am wondering if anyone could give me some real life experience as to
whether a lawn vacuum would be a an improvement over what I am doing
now.
I'd also appreciate if someone could offer advice on the size of
engine, features to look for. etc. Here are my main reasons for buying
it:
1. Larger capacity bag than lawn mower.
2. Better shredding of leaves.
3. Picks up acorns (I hope).
I'd like to know from people who have them whether it was a good buy
or not. If it is a marginal improvement over a lawn mower, I'll
probably stick with the lawn mower.
ANSWER: I have a Sears unit. It is now three years old, and I feel it is one
of the best buys I have ever made. Off the top of my head, I can't
remember the HP maybe 5.5. It is NOT self propelled, but I have a
level lot and the wheels seem to be ball bearing. as they roll
smoothly.
It has a bag and a blower chute, I use the chute when the leaf density
is sparse and I "herd" the leaves up against the neighbor's stockade
fence, then switch to the bag and cllect them. It does a great job of
"compressing" the leaves, but they need to be somewhat dry - not newly
fallen - in order the get the maximum.
I have several sweetgum trees that drop the burrs in late fall. I have
learned to treat them as follows:
Prior to them falling (late Nov), I set my mower down a notch (I begin
the shortening of my lawn in late September) and cut the grass so that
the burrs don't entwine themselves in the grass.
When they drop they are green. I wait until they are brown and weigh
less. I set the vacuum height to just highe then the burrs and then
suck then up. At the same time, they will get pulverized as they go
through the vacuum. The sweetgum trees don't finish dropping their
burrs until almost New Years, so I have to do another pickup in early
spring before the grass begins to grow again. I end up getting about
98% of them - about 20-22 bushels of pulverized burrs. I throw them
on the compost pile or use them for coarse mulch.
One other thing, the unit has a tree branch chute for chipping branches
up to about 1.1". It does a better job than my old chipper shredder, so
I gave it away, and now use the vacuum also for chipping tree prunings
all year around.
I change oil religiously, and change the air filter as needed as there
is a great deal of dust and dirt generated when you have been
collecting dry leaves, and such, then have a fresh burr go through the
system and hit the bag and kick up a small cloud of dust.
All in all, a good idea to own one.
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