Gizmo Guy: Best leaf blowers to deal with fallen fall foliage

It's easy to wax poetic and in song when autumn leaves are rustling up their reds and golds.

Less fun is actually sweeping, raking, and bagging that fallen foliage, a process that stretches over at least six weeks in my no-longer-city-swept (sigh) urban neighborhood. And it's a chore that must be done if I don't want sidewalks to get slippery, gutters to look trashy, and the corner storm drain to back up

Suburbanites have other concerns. "You might think a pretty blanket of leaves acts as a protective ground cover for your lawn and flower beds," mused WHYY radio maven Mike McGrath of You Bet Your Garden fame. "But it's really like covering everything with a tarp. The leaves cut off the water supply to the grass that's still growing in the winter, interfere with the earthworms, and allow mold to fester."

Answering all the calls for a "clean sweep," Gizmo Guy has been testing a variety of powered (and empowering) leaf blowers that promise to make our neighborhoods look great again.

And to include environmentalists, I've limited tests to nonpolluting and sometimes quieter electric leaf blowers - both plug-in and battery-operated varieties.

Blowing in the wind. Lightest (31/2 pounds), quietest, and easiest to use, a Black & Decker 20 Max Lithium Sweeper ($89.92 at Amazon.com) is a good candidate for pushing dry leaves along sidewalks, driveways, and curbs.

But it's underpowered for lawn duty. The snoot-nosed, otherwise Dustbuster-sized device runs for about 25 minutes on a rechargeable lithium ion battery pack (included). When measured with a sound-pressure meter (at one foot), the thing puts out a mere 82 decibels (dB) of whirr at slow speed, 88 dB when the turbo button is depressed.

By contrast, the Stihl BGA 85 is a true monster blower, whisking clean a leaf-laden lawn in short order. Gotta direct it at leaves several feet away. Point this 103 mph blower too close to your feet and you'll feel the kickback.

This Teutonic tornado is likewise useful for blowing acorns and pebbles off decks and light snow off pathways. A BGA 85 weighs about 10 pounds including battery, puts out a maximum 96 dB of whirring noise, and can toil for almost an hour per charge - the best time of this bunch. Stihl charges top dollar - $229.95 - without battery and charger. Still, if I had to bet which blower lasts the longest, this would be it.

Multitaskers. McGrath argues that a blower that just pushes leaves into a pile "simply delays the agony" of having to scoop them up and move them into bags or a mulch pile. Better by a mile, he argues, is a multitasking, all-in-one blower/vacuum/

mulcher that you can use to both gather leaves and/or vacuum up and pulverize them into small bits instantly usable as fertilizer or expeditiously put out for leaf collection.

The battery-powered GreenWorks G-Max Digit Pro Brushless Blower Vac ($149 at greenworkstools.com) offers a 10:1 mulch ratio while its first cousin, the AC-powered SunJoe Blower Joe SBJ605E ($99.95 at sunjoe.com), increases the compression to 16:1. Meaning you can stuff 10 or 16 times as many crunched-up leaves into one pricey eco trash bag as you would with unprocessed leaves.

And the third of the hybrid species I've been testing, the AC powered Worx WG510 Turbine Fusion ($89.95 at worx.com), boasts an even finer 24:1 mulching rate!

The visually similar GreenWorks and Sun Joe models appear to have been designed by a committee of small people. To run in blower mode, you stick a nozzle on one end and keep the back vent door shut. To run in reverse, vac, and shred mode, a leaf-storage bag attaches where the nozzle had before, while the vent door is flipped open and a different, wide-

mouth nozzle is connected there.

Oddly, the shoulder straps on the GW and SJ leaf bags are barely long enough to hang the bag off my 5-foot-8 frame while keeping the attached vac in a workable position.

Yes, you could just let the flimsy bag dangle. But that throws off the weight balance as the bag fills - holding 12 gallons (45 liters) of squashed leaves on the Sun Joe, maybe a gallon more on the GreenWorks.

With the Sun Joe, you also have a push-the-thing-around option - with roller skate-sized wheels that attach to the front.

By contrast, the Worx WG510 appears to have been designed by a genius - though maybe a deaf one. It's the loudest of the lot - topping off at 106 decibels - and heaviest at 11 pounds, versus 8.6 lbs. for the Blower Joe, 10.2 for GreenWorks.

On the bright side, Worx's wide-mouth nozzle stays put for both blowing and vacuuming duties. For the latter, the bottom flap door is opened and a hanging bag simply snapped into place. Its bag is smaller - quoted as 0.75 of a bushel or 26 liters - but sturdier, and the Worx makes up some of the difference with its finer mulching.

While a loudmouth - never to be deployed early morning or on Sundays - Worx is the leaf gatherer and eliminator I'd be reaching for the most.

takiffj@phillynews.com

215-854-5960   @JTakiff