I’m lobbying the finance minister (wife) to buy a yard leaf vacuum with stimulus cash and it looks like it’s a go.

I think my spending nearly a whole day last week raking and blowing and hand bagging about 1,000 lbs of magnolia flower petals off our magnolia convinced her we need to work smarter, not harder here.

The tree drops tons of cones in a few months, then a metric shit ton of leaves. I’d love to have something that makes my life easier plus with a new baby coming in August, my free time is going to be very limited for a while.

It looks like Billy Goat is considered the best brand for this? Any specific models? Any other brands worth looking at? Any brands to avoid?

This is what I looked at initially:

Billy Goat KV601

About $1,100

The efficiency of something like that is going to be down to how much material there'll be and how efficiently it shreds before dumping it in the bag.

E.g.: Our Walker commercial mower, 48" deck, 7 bushel bin on the back. Through heavy leaf cover in the fall I can get about 2500-3500 sqft of leaves before it's full if I pre-shred them by making a first pass discharging back onto the lawn.

(We spread the last 3-4 cuttings in the fall into the gardens to improve the soil.)

The Honda does a good job mulching/picking up leaves.
Bonus feature: When you are not picking up leaves, you can remove the bag and mow your lawn.

Model: HRX217HYA

My dad always said, when I was a kid, he had one of them there self propelled rakes in the garage.

Never understood what he meant while drink drinking his iced tea watching me rake until I had kids. Then one day, as he and I were watching my oldest rake the yard he said, "looks like you got yourself one of those self propelled rakes."

OP - you need to get yourself a kid.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
The Honda does a good job mulching/picking up leaves.
Bonus feature: When you are not picking up leaves, you can remove the bag and mow your lawn.

Model: HRX217HYA

That's what I use, I only rank once around Xmas.

I took down my magnolia, it was a huge mess and too close to the house.

I had a similar one (not Billy Goat) and it had an extremely hard time with large leaves of a Bur Oak. Always clogging up and having to reach in to unclog. did small leaves great. I got rid of it.

I went to a Worx leaf mulcher and still have a hard time with the Bur Oak leaves

I'm buying the DR walk-behind leaf vacuum this fall.

I've never heard anything good about lawn vacuums and the only time I see them is in the store.

I'd invest in a good backpack blower, like a Stihl, instead.

I have an older Craftsman Eager 1 unit that I was given. After a carb rebuild, replacing the O-ring on the dipstick tube a plug and an air filter I've come to the conclusion that the handle is too short, and that while it sucks up and shreds dry leaves ok, not to even waste my time with damp or wet leaves.

If you have a lawn tractor, get one of these:

AGRI FAB Lawn Vac

quote:

Originally posted by pessimist:
I've never heard anything good about lawn vacuums and the only time I see them is in the store.

I can't say as I've ever heard anything bad about them, either, but there's this: I tend to pay attention to what the pros use, and I can't say as I've ever seen a pro crew use anything like what the OP posted. To which some might respond "Yeah, but they're pro crews." Exactly. Time is money for these guys, so they tend to use what works efficiently.

U have a Crafsman yard vac because I thought it would be a time saver. I was wrong, very very wrong. You will spend more time emptying the bags than vacuuming. BTW, hope you have an area where you can compost. Because if you don't you will be emptying that collection bag into a lawn waste bag one handful at a time.

The final issue is that in appears that 1100 dollar lawn vacuum wasn't designed any better than my 400 dollar Craftsman. That is the fixed intake nozzle, wait until you've had that bash into your gut for the umpteenth time. Then you will come to fervently hate that machine.

My advice is do not pass this "deal" up, run away from it as fast as you can. Because I'm certain that you will come to find this is the worst waste of money of your entire life. IF you were closer I would happily give you that damned Craftsman of mine and help you load it up. BTW, haven't pulled the rope on it for over 10 years so I have no idea at all if it will start.

I use my Honda mulching mower like the ones shown above.
Mine is set to the mulch only setting, not bagging. You can set the height up and go over small vegetation/weeds/vines to clear un-mowed areas and keep the leaves for mulch.

Chuck , the plumber rented one of those to do the leaves at his mom's house , he said "what a waste"

you need three people with four collector bags to get the job done ,
they fill up way , WAY ! too fast on the machine .
you go 8 feet and go empty the bag, go 8 feet and empty the bag. he said it got old in the first 25 minutes.

now he just rakes it all up and either burns it on a calm day , or he loads it up in the pick up and drives out of town with the end gate down

I had a Craftsman leaf Vac for a number of years . It worked well but it was heavy as hell as expected and when the bag filled up it was a pain in the ass to lift off and empty . Now I just mulch the leaves with my Bad Boy mower and the Leaf Vac is gone .

PASig, I had a friend that had a Billy Goat and he said they work great UNLESS you had pine trees that dropped pine needles. He said those things clogged it up very quickly making it almost useless. I was thinking of getting one myself until he told me that.

Backpack blower.

I have a husquvarna one and it would do what you want w/o having to unclog it. Just blow everything to the curb for the city to vacuum up.

I’d also suggest, like others here, to watch the mower companies...bet you don’t see them with vacuums.

I used to own a Garden Way vacuum similar to that. It worked well some of the time. Other times it clogged easily and was just a pain in the ass. Usefulness partially depends on what it uses for shredding. If it is a metal screen run, don't walk away. In my experience, there is no silver bullet. I find a rake works best.

I have that billy goat. It’s a pain in the ass. The bag fills up in 2 minutes, you dump it, bag fills up in 2 minutes again. Takes more time to dump the bag than actually fill it. It’s pretty exhausting honestly. I usually just use a leaf blower as it honestly does a better job and is less tiring. Doing it again, I would not have purchased the Billy Goat. I barely ever use it any more.

I live in a gated community with hundreds of oaks that hires a company to sweep up the leaves 3 times a week during the drop season. They have no vacuums and use leaf blowers and rakes and trash cans.

About 12 years ago we had a BIG spill/mess in our warehouse are surrounding areas at work. The company bought one of these, it was great we rode it hard and put it away wet. It got used very little after that. A few years later it was not working, the boss wanted it gone, so I took it to a shop and had it fixed for <$100. I used it at my Suburban home mostly for mostly leaves and to suck up clippings after lawn care.

Pros: Built like a tank, reliable, simple and worked very well. Kind of like a piece of rental equipment you would get from rental depot. Stronger motor than my Honda push mower and held 3-4 times more volume of debris. worked very well. Rock solid and with big wheels pushed easy. Way more efficient than using a mower or electric blower (Let alone a rake).

Cons: Heavy, this was a factor only when using in tight areas with lots of turning. There is a little learning curve getting the heights and settings correct (related to the height of the surface and density of debris you are cleaning up.) Getting the bag on/off was not super easy, but again, solid and required much less often than the mower. Not quiet like a Honda, more like an old B&S. Biggest deal for me was the space it took up; good size footprint and handle bars did not fold up/down like my Honda.

After a few years my garage was too full to fit everything I wanted. I could not give it away so it went to the dump. Now every fall I bite the bullet and spend several hours longer each go around using a rake and the lawnmower to do the same thing. I wish I had still had it, I wish I had bit the bullet and bough a small shed for it and other things.