After a couple of days or weeks away from home, you come back to meet large amounts of leaves littered all over your yard. Your lawn looks so untidy and the leaves look like they are too many to clear at a good time. You could go ahead to use your leaf blower to corral the leaves into a pile or you could get a leaf vacuum to suck up the leaves as you navigate through the lawn all at once.
Any of those options will help clear your yard in no time. But what if the leaves are too much to pile up and you don’t have a vacuum? Can you use your leaf blower?
A leaf vacuum is an added advantage to a leaf blower. While the leaf blower is about blasting hot amounts of air to move leaves, the vacuum is about finishing the work. Most leaf blowers are designed with features that allow them to also work as a vacuum. And if you are lucky, you could even get a 3-in-1 feature which allows you to also mulch the leaves into tiny pieces after vacuuming. That way you dispose of the leaves easily and in smaller piles or even better as composts.
Table of Contents
Can A Leaf Blower Also Vacuum?
A leaf blower can vacuum if it has the features of a vacuum built in it. This is only possible with some specific models. They come with a leaf blower vacuum mode which allows you to switch from blowing to sucking when working in your yard.
What Is The Difference Between A Leaf Blower And A Leaf Vacuum?
Both the leaf blower and the leaf blower vacuum are very powerful and helpful tools when it comes to clearing leaves off the yard. So whether you choose to use a vacuum or a leaf blower, your yard will still be clean. However, each of them works better when used in particular situations or settings.
When clearing a yard with a leaf blower, leaves are blown into a pile for easy pickup. It expels air to move leaves. Vacuuming, on the other hand, is made of a suction system that collects dirt.
Pushing dirt up and down the house might seem a little ridiculous. That is why some homeowners when indoors might choose to pick up their dirt all at once and with a vacuum, it is even faster. While outdoors, pushing dirt to a particular position is a better idea hence the use of a leaf blower.
A leaf blower comes built to produce high speed and enough to blow leaves into a pile. They provide a faster cleaning option than a leaf blower vacuum.
Using a leaf vacuum to collect wet leaves is quite a bad idea. This is because it can clog your vacuum. In this case, a leaf blower is better because instead of the leaves going in through its nozzle, the air is released through the nozzle to push the leaf to a particular position. Also, the air expelled from the nozzle of a leaf blower is strong enough to blow wet leaves, unlike a vacuum with lesser power and not enough to collect leaves.
A leaf blower serves better when used in wide spaces. So, if your cleaning is done majorly in a wide space, the leaf blower is a better option. A vacuum, however, is best for clearing narrow spaces. But if you are okay with not having a perfectly cleared narrow space, then you can use a leaf blower. But if not, a vacuum is best.
A leaf vacuum comes with a collection bag that collects the leaves it picks and if you are lucky, the vacuum might even have a mulcher too. The mulcher comes with a collection bag that collects the mulched leaves. This feature is one of the favorite advantages attached to a leaf vacuum. It is convenient and very disposable. A leaf blower does not require a collection bag because it must blow the leaves.
A leaf vacuum provides a better and more convenient leaf disposal option because it is most likely to come with a mulcher. They come with blades that serve as an impeller and mulches collected leaves into small pieces that can be used as compost. Unlike a leaf blower.
Tests and results have shown that a leaf vacuum is most ideal for removing leaves from a hard surface than from the lawn itself. So while it is best to use a leaf blower on a lawn, a leaf vacuum is most suitable on the porch or pathways.
How Does A Leaf Blower And Vacuum Work?
A leaf blower is made up of a metal or plastic casing depending on the model. Now, within the casing of the leaf blower are its fan and motor. The motor provides the power needed for the leaf blower to work while the fan produces the air required to move leaves. When switched on, the fan spins its blades and collects air from the outside.
The blades spin the air and push it out through the leaf blower nozzle. Because the tube or nozzle is narrow, the amount of air produced by the fan comes out at a high speed enough to move even wet leaves. In leaf blower mode, the leaf blower as the name implies blows air out of the nozzle with a force sometimes as high as 300 cfm. The force and dynamics behind this activity are called centrifugal forces. It is present in every leaf blower irrespective of the model, brand, or manufacturer.
When switched to the vacuum mode with a button, the conversion could be as simple as the leaf blower motor turning in a reverse position such that instead of pushing out air, it sucks in the air at high speed. The airflow is collected forcefully thereby also collecting every light object in that direction. Lawn dirt or leaves sucked goes through a passage and are collected into a disposal collection bag that can be emptied when filled and possibly reused after being emptied.
The way the fan works when used as a leaf blower reverses when used in a vacuum. They are opposites. So it is safe to say that the leaf blower produces air while the vacuum does the opposite.
How To Use Leaf Blower As A Vacuum? – Step By Step Process
Before converting a leaf blower to a vacuum, you might first want to move the leaves into a pile ready to be packed. Using a leaf blower as a vacuum is quite easy. It’s just that it could be easier with one model than the other. This is because while some require that you change the position of the nozzle, others come with a button that just does the conversion without having to switch the location of the nozzle.
Here’s how:
- With your leaf blower on a flat surface, switch on the leaf blower
- Blow the leaves into a large pile at one corner of your yard
- Switch off the blower
- If the nozzle/tube is detachable, detach it and fix it on the opposite side of the fan which is the suction fan
- Now it can vacuum the leaves and corners of the yard, which the blower could not reach
- After vacuuming, empty the collection bag and clean it
- After use, you can choose to switch it back to leaf blower mode before storage or leave it as it is Any way you choose to leave it should be cleaned and stored properly
There are several leaf blowers with powerful 3 tools in 1 feature. That is it has the blower, the vacuum, and the mulcher. And with them, you don’t need to reposition the nozzle. Here is a couple of them you could try.
Husqvarna 360BT leaf blower: Most leaf blower models from Husqvarna have undoubtedly been in almost every review list as one of the top bests. They come with the leaf blower tool, the vacuum tool, and the mulcher, all in one compact body. If the Husqvarna 360BT is not your choice, you can always check other Husqvarna models.
Sunjoe: Here’s another manufacturer of the best and most powerful leaf blowers. Amongst its models, my best pick is the Sun Joe SBJ605E leaf blower. It can produce up to 440 CfM of air at a speed of 250 mph.
Green Works: Green works have amongst their products a battery-powered leaf blower that saves you the stress of having to mix fuel. It is the Green works 40 volts brushless leaf blower. It blows and vacuums with a large amount of air at a good speed.
Conclusion:
Using a leaf blower as a vacuum is indeed very possible. Converting it into a vacuum by switching the position of the nozzle is quite simple but might require special tools. It can also require a pause from the yard work and some time to prepare. But with a 3-in-1 leaf blower, you do not have to pause or do any repositioning. The conversion can be done with a button. And with the buttons off, your leaf blower goes back to default mode.
