Best Leaf Blowers for 2023 – CNET

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$180 at Best Buy

Greenworks 80V Cordless Leaf Blower

Best general cordless leaf blower

$149 at Ace Hardware

Craftsman Brushless 20V Cordless Leaf Blower

Best cordless leaf blower on a finances

Which is the very best leaf blower?

It may be overwhelming to buy for a leaf blower due to the variety of choices accessible available in the market. We just like the Greenworks Pro 80-volt cordless leaf blower the very best, primarily due to its vitality-environment friendly design and finest-in-class air energy. But you additionally want to contemplate different components corresponding to noise stage, relative worth and weight. We’ve spent weeks testing and evaluating the issues in our lab as a way to make some knowledgeable suggestions.

If you’ve got spent any of your life within the suburban or extra rural areas of the US, it is powerful to recollect a time when leaf blowers weren’t a factor. Even if your loved ones did not personal one, your buddy, neighbor or the man down the road most likely did. Although bigger stroll-behind variations have been accessible as early because the Fifties, the extra conventional backpack and handheld sorts did not seem till the Nineteen Seventies, in accordance with the October 1977 subject of Popular Science. 

But the panorama is altering. All these leaf blowers we keep in mind from years previous have been fuel-powered. Today some cities and states have outlawed fuel-powered leaf blowers outright, and much more areas prohibit the times and occasions you should use any kind of leaf blower. Check out the legal guidelines and rules for leaf blowers within the US.

Still, the actual fact stays that leaf blowers are one of many quickest and best methods of transferring leaves and different bits of particles round in your property, particularly in comparison with different conventional strategies corresponding to raking and sweeping. We’ve examined a number of of the usual electrical fashions accessible in the marketplace right now, taking into account issues like how a lot energy their airflow really affords, together with different frequent issues like battery life and the way loud every unit will get. First, let’s check out the very best of the very best.

Best leaf blowers for 2023

Greenworks 80V cordless leaf blower

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Greenworks 80V cordless leaf blower

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Greenworks 80V cordless leaf blower

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Greenworks 80V cordless leaf blower

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This 80-volt Greenworks mannequin proved to be not solely our greatest general leaf blower, but additionally our strongest leaf blower. During our propulsion checks, the place we use every leaf blower to energy a customized-constructed air cannon and see how far they’re going to shoot a weight, Greenworks was the clear winner within the “turbo mode” class, with a mean distance of 34 ft and 11 inches. Even in commonplace mode, its common distance of 26 ft and eight inches would have positioned third general within the turbo class. No different leaf blower we examined moved air with extra energy.

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Ryobi 40V cordless leaf blower

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Ryobi 40V cordless leaf blower

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Ryobi 40V cordless leaf blower

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Ryobi 40V cordless leaf blower

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This Ryobi unit had a good exhibiting general. Only one different leaf blower we examined price much less, and it outperformed a couple of fashions that price extra in our propulsion checks. That left it as an inexpensive center-of-the-pack performer — however if you happen to’re wanting for one thing quiet, it is likely to be the precise leaf blower you are wanting for. While the entire different leaf blowers we examined hit decibel ranges nearing 100dB, the Ryobi blower was the quietest, ringing in at a extra average 81.5dB.

Craftsman 20V cordless leaf blower

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Craftsman 20V cordless leaf blower

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Craftsman 20V cordless leaf blower

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Craftsman 20V cordless leaf blower

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This Craftsman unit is the most affordable on our listing by about $70, and it is one in every of solely two fashions we examined that runs off 20 volts or much less. Even so, it managed to punch above its weight in our checks, incomes third and fourth locations, respectively, in our turbo and regular mode propulsion checks.

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How we check leaf blowers

We check tons of issues right here on the Louisville-based CNET Test Lab. Some checks are simple, some are tougher. Some take a couple of minutes and a few take days. Creating check protocols for new product classes is all the time thrilling, however let me let you know that anytime the phrase “air cannon” comes up in our proposed check methodologies, there is a bit of additional electrical energy within the air. 

We’ll get to the air cannon leads to a bit, however we begin our checks by really utilizing the leaf blowers as meant. We maintain them, we push the buttons, we blow stuff round — you realize, leaf blower-y stuff. As we go, we be certain to judge the stability and ergonomics of the general design, together with attachments. A product that performs properly however is tough to make use of — or one which’s actually painful to your particular person — properly, that is not prone to rating properly.

Electric leaf blower noise ranges

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We do love our knowledge, so we be certain to gather and analyze producer specs alongside our personal check knowledge. There are two details of information that we gather for leaf blowers: The first is sound stage. As a contributor to restrictions being positioned on outside instruments throughout the nation, extreme noise may be fairly the trouble. That’s why we run a sound stage check for every mannequin, putting it at roughly the gap you would possibly look forward to finding this sort of product working out of your ear. We place it perpendicular to the sound stage meter and file the outcomes. You can see these leads to the graph above, the place it is clear that Ryobi’s blower is, by far, the quietest of all of the items we examined. Everything else sits in a cluster as they race for loudest leaf blower — a title presently held by the DeWalt Max Flexvolt 3. 

This is the place our propulsion cannon is available in. Yes, we might have grabbed some leaves and a few unfastened particles and blown it round our check areas, and stated, “Hey, this thing blows leaves.” But we needed to go one step additional and see how the leaf blowers’ output translated to uncooked energy. 

To do that, we constructed an air cannon largely from 3-inch PVC. Amenities included are an air gate, so we are able to ramp up every unit and launch all of the air into the cannon immediately, and a restriction plate, to maintain the projectile from coming into the core of the equipment. There’s additionally a base for balancing and a 5-foot barrel for launching the projectile. 

The projectile itself is a spherical plastic tube (just like these pneumatic-pushed tube containers at financial institution drive-throughs) containing a sand combination and, in complete, weighs 210 grams.

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We load the projectile into the cannon, safe the leaf blower nozzle into the enter port, ramp the leaf blower as much as full energy within the chosen mode, open the air gate and foomp. We measure the gap the projectile travels from its resting location inside the cannon to the spot of preliminary influence on the ground. We common this distance over a number of makes an attempt. Voila!

We examined every leaf blower at each regular and turbo settings, noting that the DeWalt Max Flexvolt 3 solely affords a single setting. The colourful visualization above reveals the utmost common distance achieved by every model, and makes it clear that our prime choose from Greenworks blew the competitors away so far as air energy is worried. You can discover the total outcomes from each rounds of checks within the graph under.

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Some takeaways right here. First, the DeWalt mannequin would not provide two separate modes. If we rely that as not having a turbo mode, technically it might win the traditional mode comparability. But since it may’t go any greater by way of energy, it is already form of in turbo mode. It’s concurrently out and in of each regular and turbo states — a Schrödinger’s leaf blower if you’ll. Otherwise, Greenworks was the massive winner. On the other finish of the size we have now the Milwaukee mannequin, which was barely in a position to get the burden out of the barrel of our cannon in any respect.

The check outcomes are fascinating right here whenever you begin evaluating specs. Take the Milwaukee and Craftsman blowers, for occasion. The marketed specs for CFM and mph are almost the identical — 120 and 450 for Milwaukee and barely decrease numbers of 110 and 410 for Craftsman. However our check knowledge reveals Craftsman outperforming Milwaukee greater than 12 ft in regular mode, and outperforming it by greater than 10 ft in turbo mode.

Other leaf blowers we have examined

Milwaukee M18 Fuel Model 2724-40: This unit was most likely probably the most disappointing one to check. Its specs lined up with a few the opposite smaller items on our listing, however the general efficiency was drastically totally different. In our propulsion checks, the Milwaukee was barely in a position to dribble the projectile out of the launch tube at its regular setting, giving it a rating of about 5 ft. Turbo mode kicked that as much as 14.5 ft, however that was nonetheless lifeless final in our turbo checks, and fewer distance than we noticed from three of the opposite leaf blowers in regular mode. Meanwhile, our prime energy choose from Greenworks was virtually 5 occasions as highly effective as Milwaukee’s blower in regular mode and greater than twice as highly effective in turbo mode — and it prices $100 much less!

Ego 56V Leaf Blower Model LB7654: Ego did are available second general in our propulsion checks, so give it some credit score. That tracks, as we have usually seen excessive efficiency scores from Ego throughout the model relating to energy. Still, on the finish of the day, Greenworks edged it out in our lab and took the highest spot on this listing. It’s nonetheless a stable alternative with worth level — particularly if you happen to personal different Ego merchandise that may borrow its battery when wanted.

DeWalt 60V Model DCBL772X1: This mannequin was the one one on our listing that does not provide two separate modes (regular, turbo). That appears a bit odd when you think about that the inside chamber of this factor really seems like a jet turbine engine. It had higher-than-common efficiency from its one mode, however the worth appeared a bit too excessive at $300. It was additionally value noting that this unit took an additional three seconds (give or take) to spool as much as full energy. Not actually a recreation changer, however good to know if you happen to have a tendency to make use of brief bursts.

Leaf blower FAQs