Black & Decker Electric Blower/Vacuum/Mulcher Price: $54.99 Shipping Options: $5 Standard OR $18 Two-Day OR $21 One-Day Shipping Estimates: Ships in 1-2 business days (Monday, Dec 30 to Tuesday, Dec 31) + transit Condition: New
What’s not to like, this is great! This is not a refurb, it’s new. It has a metal impeller…great for mulching. It’s got a direct deposit into a garbage container and I love that and I’ve not seen this feature before at this low of a price. On top of that, Black and Decker is a company that knows how to treat their customers well. I don’t need another blower/vacuum but I’m buying one anyway.
I have one of these or I would jump on this. Currently $84.76 on Amazon and that’s without the garbage can attachment, so this is a really good buy. The only weakness is that non-leaf debris will eventually compromise the bag. The vacuum bore is large enough for magnolia leaves and suction is powerful enough to pick up twigs and acorns that have dried up. It’s easy to convert between blower and vacuum. A superior product in my estimation.
It says it is clog proof, but my past few B&D leaf blowers all seem to get clogged when I suck up massive amount of leaves. What makes this one different? I do see it has a metal impeller, but my plastic one never broke or anything. maybe the metal ones are sharper and stays sharp?
One thing I can tell you, sucking it up into a receptacle does not compress it as much as if you suck it into the bag. I guess all that swirling of leaves in the can causes it to swell up.
Pine Cones - how does the leafhog do with pine cones? Mulching pine/fir cones? We live in the woods and get a lot of leaves, two day job raking the backyard. But we have about 60 Douglas Fir tree around the house and have a ton of pine (fir) cones everywhere. Will the leafhog suck them up and/or mulch them. I know it won’t blow them.
Yes, it’s a really good deal - back in June 2011, I bought a Leafhog 4500 Lowes.com for $75.58, shipped. That was just the basic blower & bag; it did not include the leaf collection system. Lowes currently has the blower for $69.98 and the leaf collection system is another $29.99, plus whatever tax and shipping costs.
Most other online retailers charge even more!
I doubt this Leafhog would be able to mulch pinecones - I don’t think the opening between the vacuum tube and the impeller blade is large enough for pine cones to pass thru. My guess is that the tube would just clog up with cones.
(I don’t have pine trees on my property, so I don’t have any first hand experience.)
I’ve only had two problems with mine - the shoulder bag eventually ripped (because of non-leaf debris, as you described) and the plastic clip on the adapter that connects the “leaf collection system” (a flexible tube that connects to your trashcan) to the blower snapped.
Parts, including the adapter and shoulder bags, are available from blackanddecker.com and other online stores.
Not a bad price but wouldn’t by it based on my experience with the Craftsman blower/muncher (gas powered). Wet or damp leaves would clog the crap out of. And regardless what they claim, it will clog under the right conditions. It’s electric so you have to drag a cord all over your yard. I’ll stick with running my mower over it first with the side chute open so it blows a nice ROW of leaves, then run over it to mulch, then bag it. Yes, you make a couple of passes but you also get healthy doing it. Just sayin…