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When I was younger I spent an afternoon hanging out with my grandfather. We sat on the porch of my fathers house smoking cigarettes. My mom came outside and asked me to clear the fallen leaves off the porch. Well, young me went to the garage and pulled out the awesome backpack leaf blower my Dad had. Proceeded to spend a few very noisy minutes trying to get some leaves out of a corner, when my grandfather laughed and said, “you know, sometimes the harder way is easier.” and handed me a broom. Took all of a 5 minutes to sweep everything off nicely, whereas I was getting nowhere blowing leaves every which way.
I don’t even own a leaf blower now, don’t need one.
If you need to move leaves to a place a leaf blower is no good. They are only good for moving leaves away from a place
not just fucking leaf blowers, but mowers, weed wackers, and edgers as well, they’re all so fucking loud.
I can’t believe the house i currently live in is considered to be worth more than 150-200 thousand dollars. It’s 1.5-2x the price of that btw.
Electric lawn tools are pretty great. The blower is still pretty loud but everything else is comfortable without ear protection. And they don’t stink or require as much maintenance. I can’t see why they aren’t more popular.
yeah i can’t imagine why. I can see why ride on mowers aren’t, but thats only going to get better in the next 5 years lol.
Everything else can be replaced though, trimmers, edgers, blowers, everything.
I get the sentiment of being anti 2-stroke leaf blower (at least for personal use. Electric isn’t feasible for industry/city use quite yet). I don’t get why this comic is anti all leaf blowers though?
Battery powered leaf blowers are absolutely feasible. Battery tech has come along way and it takes less time to swap out a battery than fill a gas tank.
Why do we need to blow leaves In the spring?
? I know they’re called leaf blowers, but they’re just blowers. They let you use them for stuff other than leaves.
Specifically springtime? Here they’re used to blow all the little rocks and debris off of landscaped areas that accumulated over the winter so they can be swept up.
That said, they get used all year round… They’re a must have for any municipal/contactor snow removal. Shovels are not only way more work/slower for a light bit of snow, the blowers can take the snow off clean meaning no ice melt required (and you want to use that stuff sparingly for the sake of your concrete and the environment).
Because they’re fucking annoying?
Even my electric one is pretty loud. But it has the advantage of not making noise while idling
even if it is just as loud, it’s likely a much higher pitch noise, so as a result travels a lot less than a 2 stroke engine does. I swear i’m getting hearing damage from even being inside my home with the windows open from those 2 stroke blowers, it’s insane
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Feasible for home use absolutely.
Municipalities/contractors need to be able to run them all or most of the day, and you’d need a way to charge the batteries and/or a giant stack of them to keep going. Fossil fuels are pretty energy dense so you can just have a jerry can to refuel and keep on going.
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I think they can last about an hour these days (the backpack ones anyway) but if you’re anywhere away from a charging source then you’d need so many spare charged batteries to compete with a few litres of fuel. Again, not talking about home use; most people probably don’t even need cordless and can just run an extension cord to an electric hand-held blower.
Battery technology is getting better all the time though so hopefully soon as old machines wear out they can be replaced by electric alternatives.
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cities don’t have electricity
Not wirelessly, no…
Cost.
Switching to electric means buying multiple batteries and replacing all of your kit and outfitting the vehicles with the capability to charge those batteries during the day (because charging takes time and isn’t as quick as just filling up a tank of gas).
Sticking with the existing gas ones costs nothing.
Yes there are potentially long-term cost savings and yes it would reduce noise pollution but if anyone thinks these kinds of purchasing decisions are made on the basis of what would be sensible in the long term, they need to get out and live in the real world a little. Sad but true.
So?
So what?
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Practicalities of life, innit? Isn’t enough money to invest in the long-term best options for everything so you pick your battles. Id rather see investments in big infra and updating the energy grid, not replacing the odd leaf blower.
I hate those fucking things so much. To anybody who uses one: I hate you!
Fully agree! I’ve read that devices that run on electricity are not so loud.It’s the mobile ones running on fossil fuel that are so loud.Even with ear-plugs in it is distracting me to be productive or to relax.I’ve talked with people I know, and told them about the unbearable noise.Their response : “Yeah, but think about elderly people that could slip because of all the leaves”.Well, how did people cope with this decades ago when these loud devices were not super popular ?
have we thought about all the elderly people that might get run over by vehicles they can’t fucking hear?
I mean, deaf people are handling themselves just fine while hearing no cars.
My electric blower and lawnmower are pretty quiet.
If you use an electric one, I hate you only a little bit.
I have an electric leaf blower. It is indeed significantly quieter than a two stroke gasoline powered one, albeit not exactly what you’d call “silent.”
I primarily use it to dry off my bikes after washing, and to blow dust off my shop floor and outside. Sweeping is for chumps. I also use it to remove the grass clippings from my sidewalks (I just blow them back into the grass) because the very same Karens who bitch about leaf blower noise are also the very same Karens who bitch about the sidewalks being “untidy” and getting grass clippings on their shoes.
Unfortunately, my leaf blower is not powerful enough to blow them away.
Lol I will never for a moment care about people complaining about grass clippings on my sidewalk. The wind will always take care of it in the end. You do you, I have nothing against it, that just made me laugh.
and to blow dust off my shop floor and outside.
Shop vac wouldn’t work?
It would work, and it does work better for specific applications like metal chips around the drill press and grinders. But doing the entire floor with it would take all day. The nozzle is only 9" wide.
9” wide?
Do you mean use the vac as a blower? Less effective compared to a proper blower, and just as loud (maybe louder?) as an electric blower.
I had meant just to vacuum up all the dust.
That’d take 10x the effort and time.
So we can’t use technology to make life easier and faster?
Sure you can be out there for 10 hours fighting the wind with a broom doing a 60% job or you could be done in 10 minute with a leaf blower and be 99% done. It does it better in a fraction of the time.
Fuck people for getting chores done and enjoying life eh?
Better use a scythe to cut your grass, no mowers for you….
So we can’t use technology to make life easier and faster?
I can rake a yard in half the time it takes you to blow your leaves into a pile. People here in California spend hours - HOURS - blowing around leaves. It’s NOT efficient.
Your aren’t getting as good of job done, that’s just reality, and maybe they should use a vacuum option instead? Same noise, more efficient.
Alternatively, let the leaves lie - which is beneficial to insects as well. And lets your neighbours enjoy life :)
But a suggestion from the post you’re replying to is using an electric one.
Let the leaves lie on the grass sure (and mulch them assuming it’s not too many) but you still need a blower for all the other areas; concrete, landscaped rock, etc. They’re also used for snow all the time where I live. Nothing wrong with an electric blower.
i’m still trying to figure out why a blower is going to do anything for snow? You know that snow blowers exist right? I can’t imagine anything other than a snowblower/shovel is going to work effectively on anything that isn’t a very small layer of fluffy snow, god forbid you get any heavy snowfall, or it thaws and refreezes. Just seems like a complete nightmare to me.
What job exactly? What are you trying to achieve that would outweigh the noise and pollution, you’re creating?
Clearing leaves in ten minutes with a minor annoyance to others while saving themselves what little time our corporate overlords allow us to have?
I mean, all choices have tradeoffs, right? You might clear the leaves faster, but everyone else has to listen to the loud-ass blower and deal with just that little bit more pollution. In my opinion it would be better to have a hard noise pollution limit. If your blower is too loud (and it probably would be) you can still clear the leaves with a rake and the rest of us can live more peaceful lives.
I’m literally writing this comment listening to a leaf blower outside my house. I live in the suburbs. It’s usually louder outside my house than it is inside my house, thanks to the road noise and lawncare. That’s just not right.
They do fit within municipal sound limitations…. So to your point, they should be perfectly fine.
Sorry, perhaps that want great communication on my part. “Hard limit” as in, “very restrictive.” I.E. If your equipment isn’t quiet, it ain’t allowed to run.
That’s what I was talking about, how do you expect your house was built if there’s a hard limit?
Or the municipal sound limit isn’t the hard limit that Liz would like to have
Ever been right next to a tractor trailer or other heavy equipment the city uses? It’s all around 100db so unless you want absolutely nothing, not even buses. Thats not realistic.
They also need to account for construction, your house was built with equipment louder than leaf blowers for example. So how would your house be here with more restrictive sound limits.
Ever been right next to a tractor trailer or other heavy equipment the city uses? It’s all around 100db so unless you want absolutely nothing, not even buses. Thats not realistic.
Yes, and they’re usually gone in 30ish seconds. Those guys with leaf blowers run them a lot longer than that.
They also need to account for construction, your house was built with equipment louder than leaf blowers for example. So how would your house be here with more restrictive sound limits.
I bet if you plotted the noise, it would be numerous peaks and valleys of sound. Leaf blowers are a continuous solid line of noise.
It’s usually louder outside my house than it is inside my house
Isn’t this what you would expect almost anywhere, unless you live with someone who is unusually noisy? Even when I lived somewhere where I usually heard only natural sounds, it was louder outside my house than it was inside because of the ducks, chipmunks, cicadas, etc.
Actually, you know what? With that bullshit attitude, yeah, maybe you shouldn’t be allowed to use technology to get your “chores” done faster. If you’re picking destructive and disturbing over leaves-on-the-ground, then you’ve proven yourself incapable of making good decisions at this time.
I’ve got an electric powered one, it’s just as loud as a gas one, but still within municipal sound limits.
Sorry, find something else to complain about.
Electric just as loud… WHAT? ARE YOU EVEN A HUMAN?
They produce the same DB the percussive sound of the engine travels further. At the point of sound they can be just as loud.
yeah, me and my homies mow and blow within ten meters of each other so that way we all share equal hearing damage.
I’ve got an electric powered one, it’s just as loud as a gas one…
No it’s not.
Source: I have ears and have been around both.
Sure if you compare the loudest backpack blower to the quietest electric there’s a Night and day difference,.
But what about the quietest gas one compared to the loudest electric? I’ve got a 60v leaf blower, it’s iirc 13db louder than the 20v. And it’s far louder than a lot of gas ones people use for personal use.
If the deafening whine of a leaf blower feels inescapable, you’re not imagining it.
Leaf blowers produce a low-frequency buzz that “allows loud sound at harmful levels to travel over long distance and readily penetrate walls and windows,” said Banks, who published a peer-reviewed paper in 2017 analyzing noise pollution from the gas-powered lawn equipment.
The pilot study found that the loud noise produced from the machinery could travel up to 800 feet away from the source.
Short- and long-term exposure to noise pollution has links to a host of health impacts, including, in some cases, increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and other serious heart-related problems, and hearing loss. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists gas-powered leaf blowers and lawn mowers among the sources of loud noise that can damage hearing over time.
Electric leaf blowers are quieter. After testing both types, Consumer Reports gave electric devices an average score of 2.9 for noise at the ear, compared to 1.7 for gas models. (The lower the score, the worse the noise.) And when the sound was measured 50 feet away, the electric leaf blowers earned an average score of 4.8 versus 2.5 for gas.
“It dissipates over a much shorter distance and it can’t penetrate walls and windows easily either,” Banks said.
TL;DR - Not only quieter but the sound from and electric leaf blower doesn’t travel like the sounds from a gas leaf blower.
you’re very wrong btw.
This is a well known fact about how sound travels through the environment. Lower pitch noises (gas engines) tend to travel very far and very aggressively. They’re so much more potent.
High pitched whining sounds (electric motors) don’t travel nearly as well as lower pitch sounds, and they tend to be much much quieter at distance.
Combine that with the sound profiles of the ICEs compared to the constant whine of an electric motor in a certain part of the spectrum of audible sound. Now you have modulation on the ICE which is going to be much more potent to begin with, since it’s an entirely different sound profile. As well as being much harder to tune out, given the fact that it’s not just a persistent whine.
This is why the abrams powered by a gas turbine are known for being incredibly quiet, even though when up close, you can still hear them loud as shit. The sound just can’t travel through the environment as effectively, and like i said, even if it does. It’s not exactly the incredibly distinct sound of an ICE.
I addressed that in another comment, at the point source the DB is the same, but the percussive sound of the engine travels further.
yeah, and that’s a good thing?
I mean sure you might have to wear hearing pro still. But that’s not my problem, what is my problem is having unavoidable hearing damage from my neighbors who are currently mowing.
You understand blowers aren’t just used for leaves right? They’re great for all sorts of debris in all the difficult or impossible to get places (imagine rocky landscaping for example). Isn’t the issue 2-stroke blowers but not blowers in general? What’s wrong with electric?
They’re less annoying and polluting but still a fucking nuisance. And most of the time they’re just used to achieve some idiotic standard of cleanliness, without any practical usefulness.
This is likely region dependant I suppose.
I’ll push back a little on the “most of the time it’s just for idiotic cleanliness standards” part there as I’ll assume it’s referring to homeowner use which I’d argue is likely not the ones using blowers the most often. Keeping walkways and ramps etc clear of slippery leaves, snow, or other debris is super important in all our public spaces and nothing does that job as quickly or as well as a blower.
Goes against their narrative and they don’t like being called out.
When I wrote my comment I was thinking of the municipality workers with these gadgets in my area, sometimes using no ear protection! Hardly anyone at home, where there’s mostly just small gardens, uses these super noisy things.The city council probably thinks that they are saving a lot of money and time and giving their workers a much easier time. And like I wrote : I’ve read that devices running on electricity are quite silent. If there can be electricity poles for E.V. why not for this ?
My electric battery one is just as noisy as most gas ones. They just aren’t feasible for city work since they would need a genset to charge them anyways, or they would be having to need 60 batteries for one crew for a day.
People do still use reel mowers and such.
Golf courses, definitely. I managed a hardware store for a while and our primary customer for reel mowers, as well as sharpening services for the same, were golf courses.
but to make them, and ship them to you is more destructive than a scythe.
That’s how stupid these arguments are. Forgetting the big picture while looking at a blade of grass.
mmmmm leaded gas, make my engine go brr more harderer, but make my brain go bonk, totally worth it.
So we can’t use technology to make life easier and faster?
Not when it makes the lives of others shorter and worse.
I mean, you CAN, just not without being a dick 🤷
Hard physical labor like raking and shoveling snow is directly linked to increased heart attacks, so that’s kinda disingenuous.
Yeah, I am always surprised when I visit friends in the suburban parts of Germany. We live in an appartment in the middle of the city and it is so much calmer here. :)
But German suburbia at least has sundays when lawnmower (etc.) are illegal to be used.
I used to have a neighbour who would use a leaf blower purely to blow away litter from his driveway, which would then blow back onto his driveway shortly after.
I’m not sure why you wouldn’t just use a brush like a normal person.
I know it’s spring because that’s when the drone of small gas motors starts up. Non-stop mowers, blowers, trimmers, and chain saws.
I’ve started moving towards electric. Some of the newer, smaller equipment like trimmers have gotten really good with good power and longevity. I prefer it to gas. However, bigger equipment like mowers haven’t caught up yet, there are quite a few for smaller lawns, but bigger lawnmowers are quite expensive so far.
Hope that continues to improve.
Mate I got my mom a ryobi 40v to cut her lawn and i can do the whole thing on a half a charge. If you need more, it can carry an additional battery on board and youre total capacity is as unlimited as gasoline.
I use a pair of snips to do the edges. No stupid fucking weed whacker is even necessary.
The future is electric.
I have the 40v Ryobi mower and it works great. Also have the 40v weed wacker and it works equally as well (I also have the pole saw attachment for it.) And I have the 18v leaf blower. All electric and no issues in the 4 years I’ve had them.
Honestly, if you have a relatively small yard, an electric one works great. I had cheap, battery powered Ryobi mower back when I had a yard. It lasted two years without an issue before I moved and didn’t need it anymore. I’ve definitely had gas mowers that cost more that started needing extra attention after the first year.
Mowing lawns is killing pollinators.
People put so much energy into growing grass. Seeding, liming, fertilising, watering… so they can create endless, mindless busywork and destroy biodiversity.
Lawns were originally a status symbol. A “hey lol look at me I have enough land I don’t have to grow food.” Shameful that it took off as a defacto standard.
I’m in the process of overseeding my yard with clover so I have an excuse to not mow nearly as often. Literally the first mow of the season was just to chop it down to give the clover room to grow.
I have a lot of clover covering my yard. I really love it when it blooms. My whole yard looks magnificent and I don’t mow for about 2 weeks as I enjoy the carpet of color.
Hell yeah. I love to hear that.
Thanks! I’ve been itching to get this done for a couple months (because I fucking love clover), but weather and waiting to see pollinators prior to mowing were keeping me from getting it done. Can’t wait for it to start growing!
This. I am SO sick of lawn mowers! My neighbor does the lawns once every single week. She will spend all day mowing it and using weed whackers etc. I am so sick of the noise! I don’t want to always be forced to wear my noise canceling earbuds. I want to hear the birds and the wind for god sake…
Also, people driving slowly down the street with their car music so damn loud that you can hear/feel them coming 2 streets away because of the subwoofer…
But how else will you know how rad their taste in music is?
It’s so rad. The listener is so cool.
My neighbor does the lawns once every single week
Until about a year ago I had neighbors on 2 sides of me who’d mow 1-2 times a week. Elderly retired neighbors who seemed to mow as their hobby. I subscribe to the No Mow May philosophy. I don’t mow until May because that’s about as long as I can get away with before my grass start’s getting too excited. I also mow every 2-3 weeks depending on the rate of regrowth to keep it reasonable but also not over-mow. Its a balancing act of what I can do for the environment without having to fight my neighbors, in-laws or city
Yep. The years of hoarding greenspace as a private citizen is coming to an end.
Mowing lawns is killing pollinators.
People put so much energy into growing grass. Seeding, liming, fertilising, watering… so they can create endless, mindless busywork and destroy biodiversity.
Lawns were originally a status symbol. A “hey lol look at me I have enough land I don’t have to grow food.” Shameful that it took off as a defacto standard.
Good point. As a matter of fact a friend of mine living in another country in Europe told me that in his country it is forbidden for people to have a garden and put only stones and tiles (sp?) in it so it cannot breath. In my country there has been a trend for many years that people turned from a garden with plants and flowers to a garden with just stones and zero green. This week I saw in an on-line newspaper that lots of people in my country are now getting rid of the stones and buying plants. The “help-the-bees” cry of help which some people have been talking about seems to finally take off with larger numbers! Fingers crossed.
I hate seeing gravelled gardens, it’s so ugly. There’s loads of low maintenence plants you can choose from.
Exactly. Soulless. Graveyards look far more inviting and fun than a tiled garden.
I take advantage of not having an HOA and have curtailed lawn mowing to 3-4 “harvests” a year in order to comply with county ordinances. Clearly this is helping the local ecology as we have a robust population of lighting bugs every summer, unlike the neighbor’s yards.
That’s actually amazing. For real, thanks for sharing that. I love hearing about these decisions can have such a positive impact in our small corners of the world.
In my case it’s the AC units that ruin it for me. We have nice weather that would cool the apartment if we open the windows but if some of the closest neighbors has their unit on it makes it unbearable for the rest
it’d help if AC units weren’t so shittily constructed, and the motors maintained properly. We recently had ours replaced, it was quieter, it’s gotten louder over the years. Presumably due to bearing wear.
I really hope noise pollution in general becomes a bigger topic of conversations. Yes, I hate gas leaf blowers and they ruin so many spring and fall days. But what about my annoying neighbor who insists on revving his Corvette at 5:30am? I hear that damn car for a good five minutes as they are driving away from the neighborhood.
Most suburbs have noise ordinances for max decibels, if you can record it a few times and include the db at the time.
I wish there was I could do that. But what am I supposed to do? Stand on the corner of a street with my phone out and a DB meter in hand?
There are apps to let your phone do both or more reasonable would be to set up a security camera to record your backyard or something innocuous, use it to file a report and if nothing happens from the police report take it to the city council to show they aren’t enforcing city ordinances. I’ve seen a few people take noise complaints to council to get it enforced.
I think even skimming under the noise limit won’t remove the annoyance of these things. And why is it even necessary to blow grass clippings off the sidewalk? If it’s really that bad it didn’t take much more effort to just sweep them back on the grass.
2 stroke bees
The timing of this post could not be more perfect. I’m sitting at my desk at home, with the windows open for the first time this year, sipping coffee and browsing Lemmy… and the duet of leafblower and weedwhacker begins next door. The most infuriating part: the property in question is a NEVER-used artist’s studio/gallery that nonetheless gets multiple visits per week from landscapers/caretakers/contractors/etc. I’ve lived next to the property longer than the studio has even existed, and I’ve seen the owner once.
Well at least it’s not overgrown and trashy?
i would prefer it be overgrown and trashy to be honest, if i’m selling the house i’ll just mow it myself lmao.
Funny, I was reading the post while my gardener was outside. At least they don’t stay long.
Me: opens windows
The neighborhood: Doom Blood Swamps
I like the German approach of having silent Sundays.
the German approach of having silent Sundays
Except if you live near a semi-popular street. Then you still have constant traffic noise.
Related: AC. I live in an apartment complex in which each unit has a shitty, absurdly loud AC unit. Come 17 °C and one jackass ruins it for everyone else who might to sit outside or have their windows open. Between that and landscaping…
I feel like the biggest crime is apartment and condo buildings putting individual ACs for every single unit instead of a more efficient full building system. There’s fancy systems that pump the heat from the air into the waterheaters and between units to run at more efficient ratios, or radiant systems that basically run a “cold” utility through the building to be tapped into by units and has the benefit of economies of scale, etc.
Leaf blowers strike me as a very American thing. People do use them here in the UK, but rarely
The US specializes in technologies that enable laziness
Ah yes, tools. The crutch of the lazy everywhere.
