[Updated post. Originally published last year]
After some October snow in Virginia, it is time to rake up the fallen leaves.
It surprises me how popular leaf blowers are when a simple rake works so well.
Four Reasons Leaf Blowers Are Inferior to Rakes
- I’m not convinced that using a machine to blow leaves into a pile is any faster than raking them up. In fact, I think raking leaves is faster than using a leaf blower.
- Leaf blowers cost much more than rakes do.
- Leaf blowers are very noisy and disturb others, whereas using a rake is quiet.
- Leaf blowers have a difficult time with wet, matted down leaves. You can pull them up much easier with a low tech rake.
Clearly, raking leaves has many advantages over using a leaf blower. Leafblowers are selling mainly because of the hi-tech gadget-addicted American society. It is time to get back to basics.
If you need one, rakes are available from Amazon.com or your local hardware store. Personally, I prefer an old-fashioned metal rake like the FLEXRAKE shown below.
See Also: Snowblowers Are For Wimps (or Why I Don’t Use A Snowblower)