Makita Leaf Blower / Vacuum Recommendations?

[Ferdinand]

Does anyone have a recommendation for any of the Makita leaf blowers / vaccuums.

 

My requirements:

 

- To use Makita LXT batteries, as I am now a Makita cordless shop.

- The application is garden tidying up plus hopefully collecting leaves for leaf mould. I am not heavily treed but a couple of my neighbours have a number of mid-size trees on the boundary.

- Probably blowing dust out of the garage, and bits and pieces in between tenants in rentals.

- Probably need a midrange one rather than a mini or a professional level.

 

Questions

 

- Do any of these do anything useful as vacuums for autumn leaves which are slightly damp, or is that a dead loss given that they are mainly aimed as blowers?

- Garden is roughly the same size as a garden for a typical 1930s semi plus 100ft garden - say 700 sqm plot size in toto, but I do get a fair amount of leaves. Not however the rolling acres of some on bh.

 

All comments are welcome, as I know very little about these.

Cheers

 

Ferdinand

 

[ProDave]

We bought a petrol one the year before last.  It worked the first year, but last year it was too wet and wet leaves just stick to the ground and don't blow anywhere.  this year is shaping up to be the same.  Looking to be an expensive toy that won't work very often.

[daiking]

Consensus was that a real man would only have a petrol blower

 

[joe90]

As said above, only any good if your leaves are dry!!!

[Adam2]

Just bought a Makita dual battery blower + 4 non-makita batteries to try out. Will give it a blast this W/E on pine needles etc and try and remember to come back here with info on both the blower and performance of batteries!

[Ferdinand]

Mine also just arrived, and it is a vacuum blower one which has a plastic shredding disk on the vacuum intake.

 

Will also report back.

 

F

[Ferdinand]

So, took it outside to try blowing the damp leaves in the lane, and it shifts them, quite happily.

 

Then realised it was still on low...

 

Vacuum to be tried a bit later.

 

(Update: 

Tried it outside on wet leaves for a couple of minutes. 

 

Handled wet, but not decomposed,  leaves fine on a low setting.

 

Mine is the 36V vacuum / blower from Makita.)

 

What about you @Adam2?

 

F

[Ferdinand]

So, last update on this.

 

My machine - Makita XUD363V (= 36 vault and can also Vacuum) looks a of a bruiser, and it is not small. I would not give it to my 7st 5'0" mum, as she may have vanished without trace, anymore than I would give a 9" angle-grinder to an office-wallah without at least some manual work history, because s/he would vanish behind the nearest bush the first time it jammed. 

 

As a blower it is very powerful. Air delivery is up to 800 cubic m / hour, which is a lot. Airspeed is apparently just about 100mph. In practice that means it blows and sucks OK including damp leaves. It also has the sensitivity not to pick up gravel in my limited experience. Weight is about 4kg as a blower, and 6kg as a vacuum plus the contents of the 50 litre bag.

 

The first time getting to grips with it as a vacuum is a bit of an octopus-wrestle  - 2 ends of the shoulder strap go on on a thing that is now the other way round and has 2 big pipes attached, and an extra strap on the bag, but after that it is fine. And there is a set of chopping blades in the intake which gets more in the bag and does cut up the leaves to an extent.

 

Two sets of decent sized Makita batteries (eg 4 x 5Ah or 6Ah in total) should give I think around an hour of work, so continuous should be possible with a dual fast charger.

 

Overall I like it. But the price still hurts. The naked thing without batteries is £250-300, and that is perhaps a little overdoing if you need a dust-out-of-van blower. 

 

Random thought: I think the thing to distinguish between gravel and leaves is a lot of air but also a wide vacuum nozzle. This is 125mm which generates a lot of force relative but relatively lower pressure, reducing the force generated on small objects such as gravel.

 

(Update: the machine does wet leaves fine, but not if they have started to deteriorate. The collecting bag is not waterproof, so doing wet leaves gives a wet leg - so wear your gardening trousers.)

 

F