Hacker News Reader

Comment by danaliv | Hacker News Reader

Good riddance. When I lived in Oakland the noise from these things was constant in my neighborhood. They were running every single day. It was intolerable.

View on HN

Don't hold your breath. I've found out in this thread that they've been banned in LA already for some time now. The landscapers do not care and neither does the LAPD.

Agreed, good riddance, but the noise is not going to go away, it's going to become a high-pitched scream, rather than a lower-pitched buzz.

The higher the sound frequency, the easier it is to muffle it.

That high-frequency sound doesn't carry as far, at least

That doesn’t fit any electric blower I’ve ever heard. The overall volume is notably lower and the frequency isn’t too different - slightly higher but even a hair drier with a smaller diameter isn’t a “high-pitched scream”.

It's notably quieter, because it's notably less powerful. In the best case, you hear the noise for a multiple of the time because the work is done more slowly and/or by more people using blowers together to move debris.

Battery powered blowers exist and are just as powerful. A cord (as others have noted) can't deliver enough power for the job and so they have to run it longer. However a battery can deliver just as much power as an engine, for only a little more weight.

I looked for a 2500+W battery blower before buying my Echo gas blower. (I'd tried two different corded ones that were underpowered and went looking for something that would actually work.)

I couldn't find one (at the time, probably 4 years ago). Most everything I could find was 1/4 of the equivalent power.

Look again. Battery powered equipment is advancing very quick right now. The market of 2 years ago was different from 4 years ago, which is different from today.

Though I will admit to not being sure exactly what you will find.

I will look out of an engineer’s curiosity, but as a customer, I already have one; I have no need nor want for a second one.

In 5 minutes of googling for "commercial battery leaf blower" and "backpack battery leaf blower", it looks like they're mostly still in the 500-600W (2/3 HP) range with a couple hitting around 1000W, even for the backpack units.

Most 80v battery powered leaf blowers are in the 5-600 CFM range, same as a 3hp gas blower.

My gas blower is 1100 cfm @ 220mph. I can't readily find the HP rating, but it's the 5-6 years ago equivalent of the current 79.9cc Echo. Mine is on the mid-range of the commercial blower range.

I just went to Stihl's site out of curiousity (and because most backpack blowers I see out in the world are orange) -- their biggest professional 4.4hp gasoline backpack blower is 912cfm @ 199mph avg.

Most of the ones in the middle of the product lineup are 500-600cfm

Yeah, I wouldn't use my battery powered one for commercial purposes, but that is due to runtime and 120v charger. Unless you have a thick mat of wet leaves, 600cfm is more than enough for a homeowner.

The number I got for a 3hp model was based on a husqvarna I saw from a quick google search, I think... almost certainly a residential model.

> Unless you have a thick mat of wet leaves

Pacific Northwest resident chiming in.

I absolutely have a thick mat of wet leaves. But IMO, the solution isn't a more powerful leave blower; it's a rake.

The commercial grade stuff is similar power and I have zero evidence supporting the claim that it’s less effective since I see the same crews taking roughly the same time in my neighborhood.

Why would that be the case?

With battery powered chainsaws, the noise signature is much better and quieter.

2 stroke engines just have a way of screaming in their power band.

The noise from a blower only partially comes from the engine. The rush of air through the nozzle produces lots of noise as well.

High-pitched screams are less carrying though? They used to clean this parking lot next to my house and this one guy always spent an entire hour with his damn leaf blower (doing bugger all most of the time, blowing 6 leaves with it, I always suspected he just used it to avoid having to do actual work), and the noise was so pervasive in the entire apartment that I just had to leave and go get groceries or something because I found it completely unbearable and ear plugs don't block out low-frequency noises all that well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com