Lawn Vac's

[Lance720]

I've noticed a lot of you are using a blower to diperse excess clippings and have heard little about useing lawn vac's(eg.Billy goat). I'm considering a unit for fall cleanup and as it happens in my area MTD seams to be the most available. The other possibility is Toro. Anyone out there used these units or for that matter have used a unit that your happy with. <br>Lance<br>

[Guido]

Are you talking about walk behind vacs? or vacs for a mower? If your talking about walk behinds, as I think you are, I don't think their to good for leaf cleanup. I used one once, It was good for keeping the sidewalks at our church clean of trash, thats about it. It seemed to be a pain in the ass to push it on the grass, and then emptying it was a chore in itself, plus the dust was a killer! Its much faster using a push blower and a backpack blower (for the tight spots) and then load them on a truck or trailer by tarp or a leafloader. I don't recomend those push behind vacs for much of anything though :( sorry!<p>----------<br>&lt;a href=&quot;http://communities.msn.com/guidosequipmentpics/&quot;&gt;&quot;Guido&quot;&lt;/a&gt;<br>David M. Famiglietti

[eggy]

I have to disagree at least in my experince with lawn vacs. leaf removel is a big portion of my buisness plus it keeps me busy until about the first to middle december. Billy Goat makes some great models check out their web site www.billygoat.com they also have self propelled etc the best thing is try it before you buy it! Good Luck!

[Richard Martin]

Lance720 wrote:<br>{I'm considering a unit for fall cleanup and as it happens in my area MTD seams to be the most available.}<p>Don't buy it! I bought the 9hp vac 4 years ago. $900.00 plus 5% sales tax. The first year I used it a bit, the second year a little less, the third year on 2 jobs and it hasn't been to a job in the last year. These machines use an odd rubber disk drive that wears out very quickly. I wish I had spent the money on a Quik Vac or some other mower mounted vac system.

[turfquip]

<br>Lawn Vac's are toys for homeowners. Don't waste your hard earned money on one of these.<p>For Fall cleanup, nothing matches the versatility of a powerful backpack blower.<br> <br>A back pack, rake and a tarp are all you need to start producing leaf removal income.<p>A wheeled blower is nice too of course for the second man. <p>Two leaf removal hints: don't assume every leaf job has to be hauled away. Many clients will permit transporting to a perimeter area, woods line, etc. I ALWAYS ask if it appears that this might be the case. <p>When you CAN blow to a perimeter is when a wheeled blower really shines. For this purpose it's at least twice as efficient as a big back pack blower. <p>When you use 55 gallon drum liners bagging is AN OPTION. Spreading the opening of the bag open with the heels of your feet and &quot;hiking&quot; the material into the bag...although inefficient as heck, is do-able. <p>Also, as many of you know certain municipalities permit moving leaves to the curb for city pick up. This is the best possible situation for the leaf contractor.<p>Wanna know why?<br><p><font size="1">Edited by: turfquip dot com

[MOW ED]

My fall leaf procedure includes a Husky backpack blower (a workhorse) and my Walker-it chews leaves. <br>Best time is when leaves are dry - the GHS turns them to small particles of dirt but it will eat wet ones.<br>Don't screw with homeowner equipment unless you can get 100 per hour because you will make more with commercial.<br>As was said above the backpack blower will do wonders for your pocket - the 400 you spend will be made up in 2 or 3 jobs. <br>One last thing without rambling too much - try not to remove the leaves from the site if at all possible. If you have to you have to charge a premium because it can get to be a BIG pain in the butt. Good Luck.

[Lance720]

Thank-you for all your responses. I was looking at a larger model not the 5hp? smaller stuff and of course self propelled. I currently blow my leafs/debris and rake but living in the west coast we get a fair bit more rain than most. With this in mind I was hoping to find a unit that could pick up wet debris efficiently.<br> Thanks again for your responses.<br> Lance<br>

[AGG Lawn Maintenance]

We put everything curb side for city pick up.<br>Anytihng we take away we charge $50.00 pern load. Its hard to pick up wet leaves, my best advice is stay on top of them. We do a weekly clean up on the lawn by bagging the leaves. Each week we clean a little bit out of the beds as well. Because the grass slows down we don't edge and line trim we focus on debris on turf areas and charge the same as a cut in most cases. This way we have steady money and stay right up on the leaves. We sent the same amount of time as we do to cut edge and trim. We call in Fall Clean up. A Final Fall Clean up is removel of leaves from turf and bed areas left for city pick up and is in most cases 4 times a cut sometime more. Your best bet is to see what leaves can be left curbside and see which leave you can lose in the woods. We try to avoid taking anything away. Hope that helps.<br>Good Luck! Travis AG&G Lawn Maintenance

[Lazer]

We mulched every leaf into the grass last year.<p>It was a dry fall, which is important, but we used to haul away over 300 cubic yards of leaves every fall.

[Wasuellc]

Walk behind vacs are great for cleaning up sidewalks and driveways. Not to good over grass.

[gogetter]

I've done a ton of research on this topic lately!

I e-mailed Billy Goat and THEY even said that they don't work that well in wet leaves.
I've also heard several comments from various places on the web (homeownsers and pros) that lawn vacs create lotsa dust! And the bag size isn't as large as I'd personally like to see. Usually around 7 bushels or less. Plus, how many weeks of the year can you use this tool? Couple in spring, couple in fall?

I know most guys say blowing the leaves onto tarps is the way to go. This might be ok for really large lawns, but I just can't see that it's the best way for smaller lawns. Hell, if I used a walkbehind blower on some of my lawns, it would just blow them into the neighbors lawn (hmmm, maybe that is the best way to go after all. LOL!).

The other problems I see with blowing & tarping the leaves are windy days, and the fact that this doesn't reduce the volume of the leaves. Even one small lawn could fill my little 5'x10' trailer probably.

The idea I've come up with is this (disclaimer: I haven't actually done this yet, so I don't know how the end result will be. Input is appreciated).

Using a lawn tractor (had a Toro in mind) and the large 3 bin bagging unit which holds 10 or 11 bushels. Blow leaves out of beds, run over lawn with Exmark metro equipped with micro-mulch kit to reduce volume some. Then run over lawn with tractor/bagger reducing leaves even more and picking them up at same time. Dump onto trailer or tarps.

The side advantages of the tractor is being able to use it at other times of the year (which you can't do with a lawn vac), to pull attachments like aerator, dethatcher, etc.

Again, comments appreciated.