Air in vs. air out

Cleaning up a customer’s yard is just as important as mowing and taking care of the grass itself. Whether it’s leaves or grass clippings, if your crews aren’t cleaning up the debris left behind, what’s the point of doing the work to begin with?

To help with this, there are two products on the market: blowers and vacuums. They each have their own set of pros and cons, so it’s important to weigh these against each other before you make a decision on which is best.

Vacuums are used for picking up debris in the yard and collecting it in a container for easy disposal. Blowers – typically of the backpack variety – are used by crew members to blow debris into piles. A larger vehicle with a vacuum attached will then come along and suck up all the piles in one trip.

“The key with the vacuum is you’re going to get the very professional, very manicured look,” says Peter Cook, president of PECO Lawn Vac. “You’re moving all the debris from the lawn. There’s not going to be anything left over.”

Backpack blowers can sometimes be a more universal option.

“You can clean off your gutters, you can clean your driveway off,” says Steve Uljua, product training specialist with Husqvarna. “(You) can blow off the mower when you’re done with it.”

Vacuums.

BOB-CAT offers collection systems, which are attached to a mower and can be taken off when not in use. When the operator uses the mulching blades on the mower to cut up the leaves, they’re then sucked into the bags of the system, similar to a vacuum.

If you’re not collecting year round, a vacuum could get bulky to store in your workshop with all the other equipment you need to keep there in the off season.

However, if you’re clearing a lot of larger properties, the larger vacuum may be worth the hassle of storage. It also helps with cleaning up more than leaves.

“Shredder vacs are nice for commercial properties, like shopping malls, because they’re easier to clean up cigarette butts or garbage,” says Andrew Lentz, product manager for Milwaukee Tools. Another advantage to using a vacuum is that many also give the option of shredding or mulching the material. “The shredding performance (of STIHL’s shredder vac) transforms 14 bags of dry leaves into a single bag of clippings,” says Thomas Techow, product manager for STIHL. This can save time by not requiring the bag to fill up as quickly and need more dumping, something a lot of people consider a negative.

“They can fill up fast,” Lentz says of vacuums. “It’s more time consuming: carry it over, empty the bag, put it back on.”

Blowers.

“The thing with the blower is, you’re going to have to move the leaves somewhere, so a lot of cities have curb pickup on leaves,” Uljua says. “The city comes and picks them all up.”

Another pro of using blowers in residential areas is that you have a choice of power.

“Blowers are usually offered as gasoline, electric and battery-powered,” Techow says. “The battery-powered blowers can be used in areas with emission and noise restrictions, such as schools and hospitals.”

If your blower is battery-powered, it will also feature less vibration, less weight and less noise. “It’s substantially quiet,” Lentz says. Depending on where you’re working, this could be a requirement. “Places like Santa Monica outlawed the use of gas blowers for emissions and noise levels,” he says.

However, blowers have a few steps in their cleanup process as well. This is something to consider, since the blower process requires extra equipment. According to Lentz, blowers can be more powerful than some vacuums – meaning they can move larger debris – and can be used for eight hours. It also saves on operator fatigue because instead of walking the whole property with a handheld shredder vac, you can use a blower to reach a wider radius with less operator movement.