It's that time of year again. Leaf season.

I clear about 3 acres of my 20 using 2 Stihl BR600's, the amount of leaves I have is insane.

I spent 8 hours this weekend using both blowers with my helper. They do a great job with wet or dry leaves.

Can't speak to the other brands since I have not compared them, but there's a ton of youtube videos I've watched that does.

 

Now that's a lot of trees = a lot of leaves

 

best blower on the market is Redmax or Husqvarna 580 if you like throttle on the tube.

this is a good read...
http://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/whats-the-best-backpack-blower-on-the-market.166938/

 

I have a BR600. I love it. It starts easy, has good power, and is easy on gas. I use it to blow leaves, snow, gravel out of the yard from plowing snow, cleaning up the mess from cutting trees down, and to keep the sidewalk and driveway clean.

 

What do you dislike about the 4-mix engines?

 

This is more fun than blowing

 

I'm just a 2 stroke guy and dont want all those moving parts. When they go bad with the plastic cam. Valves etc.

It's just my opinion. Many love them. I chose to stay away from them.

 

I did landscaping for a summer, we used a BR400 for cleaning out flower beds before re-mulching. But for fall leaf removal we used BR600's and a Billy Goat blower. They worked well together, but it's a lot of mind numbing work. My yard is about 1.5 acres, surrounded on 2 sides by woods with 9 mature red maple, bradford pear, and sassafrass trees in the yard. The first year I borrowed a BR600 and went to town, blowing them in the woods or raking them into a trailer and dumping in the woods. It took about 4-5 hours with my girlfriend helping me.

So the next year I built a block-off plate on the discharge chute on my mower, and just chop them up. 2 passes on the mower turns them to a fine dust, and I do it once when the leaves have been falling about 2 weeks, and then wait 2-3 more weeks and do it again so to not put too much of a strain on the mower. The next year my grass was incredibly green and thick too. It probably takes an hour each time chopping them up, so spending 2 hours riding the mower and getting free mulch beats 2 of us spending 4+ hours blowing and raking leaves any day in my book.

 

Your neighbors must love you.

I sit and collect mine.
Every weekend until some time after Thanksgiving.

 

Then you set up a big catapult, aim it at the pile, climb in and...

 

that's a lot of mulched leaves......what do you do with them?

 

after the catapult game.....

 

Are they all typically that dirty looking?

 

Got me just posting pics shared with me and others. 4 600 blowers looked like that and worse.

 

I have a vegetable garden and flower garden or two. I use them as mulch next Spring and Summer. I hate weeding. They are mostly oak leaves which are pretty tough and don't break down too fast. Almost always use all of them.
Also add them to lawn clippings in the compost pile for the brown and green premium beneficial blend .

 

I looked at the Stihl BR600 - went with the 550 instead. I like the narrower diameter nozzle - seemed to lead to better force when I tried the two models. I've been VERY happy with the 550 and blow about 2 acres of lawns with a lot of leaves and pine needles - packs a punch. Now, if only the oaks would drop their damm leaves......Cheers!

 

Yeah!! I hear you them dam Oaks

 

Yep. We've had to clean up all the poplar leaves, and all the while the oak leaves are just taunting us. The yard will be covered again soon

 

A couple of them Oaks I'm going to take care of, Park my truck out there close by and cut them down and burn them up

 

Thanks for all your help. Those pics are a little scary.. Any idea what caused the damage? Hopefully they were old worn heavily used machines