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• PRO

  Gary RK October 30, 2014 at 1:19pm

  In my experience, for professional use, it is not worth it unless you can guarantee minimal non leaf waste exists ( any soil etc gets flung off leaves and coats vac chamber to the point it blocks it up).
  
  It totally ruins them over a short period and ends up particularly bad for the operator if the leaves etc are dry ( dust exiting bag, which is effectively under your arm). They don't deal well with with wet leaves, acorns or conkers.
  
  We also tried buying the cheap mccullochs blower / vacs off eBay for around £70 years ago with a view that if they lasted an autumn they would be doing well. They didn't.
  
  Can see the appeal for homeowners & very small sites, but the bags are small, don't last (zips) and its dirty work..
  
  Jumbo bags, nets, green hands, rakes, blowers & manpower win hands down.
  
  Would be great to hear how others deal with this aspect ?
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  john doonan October 30, 2014 at 2:44pm

  cheers gary, i did have my reservations about them think your comments just put that idea to bed lol ideal scenario for leaf collecting just now is blowing leafs onto lawn and get the mower to pick them up
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  Paul McNulty October 30, 2014 at 4:57pm

  I tried it once, and had the same trouble as Gary.

  Possibly worth it for picking dry leaves from among planting, but a pain for anything else.
• PRO

  Simon Land October 30, 2014 at 5:27pm

  I have got one but to be honest don't use it that often. It's ok for leaves in borders as Paul said, or when you are generally dealing with a small amount of debris. I use it occasionally if I have hand cut a lot of lawn edges and vacuum all the clipped grass up as opposed to cleaning it by hand where the final aesthetics are that bit more important.
  
  I find a lot of time it's more hassle than it's worth, and it's a bit fidly to keep swapping between blower and vac attachments. Having spent a large proportion of yesterday cleaning up leaves, it stayed in the shed at home, with he job done by hand or with mower.
  
  On the plus side it's powerful and shreds the leaves to a good size to make lovely, lovely leaf mould!
• PRO

  Rich AGS October 30, 2014 at 6:50pm

  only time i use my is for collection off box hedge cuttings great for that ,
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  Eugene Baston October 30, 2014 at 6:59pm

  I too haven't gone down the route of the vac attachment (or other vac apparatus for that matter) and the comments above apply to a gut instinct that unless it's a fiddly fiddly job.....it ain't worth it.

  BR600 magnum plus an ancillary Kombi if required, and actually, so long as you are knowledgeable about plant borders you can generally clear border leaves with the KM130 nice and easily too IME.

  Gary - ahhhh, now there's a though - NETS! But hoow can they be used, please? I have tennis courts to clear and the nets are ready placed :-> ...... but I (think) I can see the gain from nets erected periodically only if I can establish them sensibly....i.e. no snarling as they brought out on site and erected.

  So how do you stop netting snarling?

  ???

  Cheers, Eugene
• PRO

  Seth Burgess October 30, 2014 at 7:01pm

  I have a client (who I do once a month maintenance for) who cuts his grass rear discharging it and then goes over it with a shredder vac, It's a camon I think.

  Bit of a weird way to do it but he insists it stops thatch.

  On a slightly more related note does anyone use walk behind lawn vacs?
• PRO

  Gary RK October 30, 2014 at 7:20pm

  Something one of my guys started to do for large areas at business parks;

  We have some long lengths of 'green netting' 6ft high.

  Set them up like a small goal mouth with an amount of netting still lying on the floor using metal fencing pins

  Then blow large areas into them (leaves go in, blower power goes thru :-).

  Roll up like a Swiss roll.

  Load into van, bring back to yard and unroll into skip 

  Works well for large areas...
  
  Eugene Baston said:

  I too haven't gone down the route of the vac attachment (or other vac apparatus for that matter) and the comments above apply to a gut instinct that unless it's a fiddly fiddly job.....it ain't worth it.

  BR600 magnum plus an ancillary Kombi if required, and actually, so long as you are knowledgeable about plant borders you can generally clear border leaves with the KM130 nice and easily too IME.

  Gary - ahhhh, now there's a though - NETS! But hoow can they be used, please? I have tennis courts to clear and the nets are ready placed :-> ...... but I (think) I can see the gain from nets erected periodically only if I can establish them sensibly....i.e. no snarling as they brought out on site and erected.

  So how do you stop netting snarling?

  ???

  Cheers, Eugene
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  Ben Marshall October 30, 2014 at 8:01pm

  Ive had a similar experience to Gary, i had a ryobi(i know,wtf!) blow vac about 6 years ago, messed about with it for an hour, got a terrible back ache from all the thrutching about and all the bits of dirt and stones that got sucked through the fan bent the spindle, so it never worked properly again! i could have done the leaf clearance in half the time just blowing it into a pile and raking the lot up into bags.so Blow and rake up is my answer.
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  Simon Smith October 30, 2014 at 8:35pm

  I only ever use mine for picking up the last leaves on a windy day. and for that it is useful. but really for almost all things the br600 is faster.