Autumn leaves are nice, while they are still on the trees. But once they settle onto your lawn, thick in your flower beds, and piling up in corners around your house, you have to remove them before they become a matted down mess.
A thick soggy layer of leaves can kill patches of grass, smother shrubs, and invite insects and vermin to build nests. While for small yards a rake may get it done, the best and most effective tool for the job is a leaf blower.
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It can be difficult to select the right machine because there is such a variety of leaf blowers available with widely differing prices, features, and abilities. To help you decide, we ran in-depth tests on a wide range of leaf blowers, from the simplest models powered by batteries to gas-engine backpacks suitable for landscape contractors.
The Best Leaf Blowers
- Best Overall: Stihl BR800 C-E Magnum Gas-Engine Leaf Blower
- Best Value Gas: Husqvarna 125BVx Gas-Engine Leaf Blower
- Best Value Cordless: Ryobi RY40440 Electric Leaf Blower
- Best Commercial Duty: Echo PB-9010T Gas-Engine Leaf Blower
- Most Versatile: DeWalt DCBL772X1 Electric Leaf Blower
What to Consider
Should You Get a Gas- or Battery-Powered Leaf Blower?
If relatively peaceful leaf removal is your priority, battery-powered leaf blowers are quieter than their gas engine counterparts. They also have no engine exhaust, so you can use one without smelling like burned fuel when you’re done.
Battery leaf blowers are simple to operate, with just a switch to turn them on or off. However, for extended leaf-blowing sessions, they may require more than one battery, and their air output may decline as the battery’s charge declines, preserving run time at the expense of leaf moving power.
Gas-engine blowers run longer and can be refueled instantly. The thicker and wetter your leaf cover, and the more debris it contains (such as twigs, conifer needles, and nuts), the more power you need. In such cases, gas machines have the leg up in terms of power and can peel up wet leaves and push them farther—and from farther away.
For ankle-deep leaves, either a gas or electric backpack leaf blower is optimal. Shin-deep leaves and deeper require a pro-grade gas-engine backpack blower. If you only need one to sweep leaves or grass clippings from a driveway or sidewalk, go with a light, battery-powered cordless option—you won’t need as much power to blast across pavement.
Although we don’t review them here, a walk behind gas engine leaf blower is the best tool for clearing really large swaths of landscape such as a half acre of lawn or a big parking lot.
Backpack Versus Handheld Leaf Blowers
By taking the load off your arm and wrist, a backpack leaf blower can be less tiring to use. Most are designed with the engine or battery on your back and a tube for channeling the blower that wraps around to your arm.
Because it’s more powerful than a handheld model, a backpack leaf blower may be faster, freeing up your time to focus in on deeper leaf piles, wet leaves, or even leaves that are semi-frozen.
Backpack leaf blowers usually have thumb-operated triggers, which let you stop blowing leaves to move a gas grill or yard furniture out of the way without having to set the blower down. On the other hand, backpacks are bulkier, generally more expensive, and take up more space in your garage or shed.
Handhelds are smaller, lighter, less expensive, and work well in corners and other tight spaces. They are also better suited to clearing paved surfaces, which have much less friction than grass.
Air Speed and Volume
Air speed, in miles per hour (mph), is a measure of how strong the air stream is—higher mph will push leaves farther. Air volume, in cubic feet per minute (cfm), is a measure of how much air is moving—higher air volume will push more leaves.
So which is more important, air speed or air volume? You need both, because they work together. Being able to move a lot of leaves is an advantage, unless you can’t move them very far. And being able to move leaves far is great unless you can’t move many of them at one time. That said, if you need a small unit to clear leaves off of a small patio each morning, you can get away with prioritizing air speed.
How We Selected
In order to make our final selections, we ran several leaf blowers through a battery of tests. Aside from actually blowing leaves, we also ran a battery of performance tests to help us better understand and evaluate these machines.
To that end, we marked out a 6 by 14-foot trapezoid of pavement to run a sawdust erosion test. We covered the pavement with a thin layer of sawdust and lowered a blower’s tube parallel to the surface for just a second, blasting away the area where the air is most turbulent. The result showed the shape of the leaf blower’s effective area, as well as its length and width.
Next, we marked out a 6 by 12-foot rectangle of grass and timed how long it took to clear the area. To measure the run time for battery leaf blowers on their highest settings, we built custom timers. Then, we strapped each leaf blower into the apparatus and tested the batteries longevity with the machine running nonstop.
We also constructed an instrument using an MGL Avionics Stratomaster Vega air speed indicator (called an anemometer). The anemometer measures a blower’s air speed 6 inches from the tip of the tube. Finally, we took sound-level readings at the operator’s position and from 75 feet away—for the sake of your neighbors.
For the leaf blowers we didn’t test in person, we paid close attention to blowing power, runtime, price, and of course, customer reviews.
Backpack Leaf Blowers
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The test’s largest blower and its second heaviest is an air-moving monster. In the sawdust test, it swept out a gigantic bulb-shaped pattern that emptied almost half the particulate from the zone. It blew leaves out of the test rectangle and scattered them 20 feet away. For laughs, we found that it can skim a 4.6-pound brick over pavement like a hockey puck.
For all its raw power, the Magnum impressed us with how easily it starts. Its spring-loaded starting mechanism is positioned horizontally, so you can yank it while the machine is mounted on your back.
As for demerits, the Stihl is much louder at a distance than other blowers. Is it a reason to pass? Only if you have legitimate concerns about disturbing the peace.
This Greenworks leaf blower is the lightest and most compact of the backpack models we tested. On its Turbo setting, the blower’s air stream forms an effective leaf-moving zone, but the outside edges of the air stream appear to be less powerful.
This blower also scored high marks for its padded and highly adjustable shoulder straps (which can save you from a sore back later), the comfortable handle, and the 90-degree elbow that connects the impeller housing to the flexible blower tube. The elbow permits the blower tube to pivot straight up, so it takes up less space when stored in the garage or shed.
Each Greenworks leaf blower also comes with a 4-year tool and battery warranty.
Echo’s PB-9010T backpack leaf blower lives up to the promise of a professional-level machine. With its combined air speed and volume, we cleared leaves in our 6 x 12-foot test area in a remarkable 4.9 seconds.
You’ll want to wear hearing protection while using the PB-9010T, though, as all that gas-powered goodness isn’t quiet, measuring 101.2 decibels at full throttle. We found the backpack straps and padding very comfortable, and the blower tube is easily adjustable for people of different heights. The backpack has a designed intake system that pulls in cool air across your back, keeping it comfortable even on hotter days.
This is a great value, too, helping you do more work in less time and for less money.
This is a good machine that delivers a wide, nearly perfect symmetrical air pattern with a well-defined boundary that reaches all the way out toward its end where it flares into consistent branches. That shape and volume contribute to debris-moving efficiency, in both the leaf test and when we swept the parking lot clean after the sawdust tests. It was the quietest blower—a relief to the testers (and to our neighbors).
The machine also gets high marks for comfortable control surfaces such as its handle and trigger and its shoulder straps, which are well padded and highly adjustable. The cruise-control lever, however, is difficult to pivot, and the flexible blower tube seems a bit too short, further adding to the pivoting troubles.
We’re partial to Husqvarna’s mid-duty leaf blowers designed for homeowners with large properties. We’ve owned and used a 130 BT blower for years, so we can vouch for these machines, both in terms of their leaf-moving ability and their durability and ease of starting. The 150 BT continues that fine tradition.
This model has several improvements over my old timer. First, it’s got a lot more power. Second, it has improved shoulder, waist, and chest straps that not only make the machine easier to carry but more importantly help hold it to you if you have to work your way across a hillside or go over and around obstacles.
Suppose you have to climb a ladder while wearing this thing, to get the leaves off a flat-roof building, like I used to do. You appreciate features like that. And in terms of the aforementioned easy starting, we found this machine started with a single pull, and a lazy one at that. So if you’re looking at the heavier end of the mid-duty range of backpack leaf blowers, look no further than the 150 BT.
Unlike other backpack options, this leaf blower actually works perfectly well as a handheld leaf blower. The optional backpack is a large battery link that connects directly to the blower. This backpack from EGO is also compatible with other EGO-branded handheld tools as a power extender.
When connected to the backpack, this leaf blower has an impressive runtime of up to 350 minutes. As for the power, you can reach up to 170 mph of air speed when using the tapered nozzle and up to 146.1 mph without it.
Don’t expect the total package of backpack and leaf blower to be affordable, with the entire package costing over $600.
Handheld Leaf Blowers
This handheld blower/vac from Husqvarna is the least expensive gas leaf blower we tested, and a considerable value. We clocked the air speed at 109 mph, which is a little lower than others we’ve tested.
The volume of air is higher though, at 470 cfm per the manufacturer’s site, which seems to make up for it. The time to clear leaves from our test area was within one second of other gas handheld blowers we tested. And when we compared results from our sawdust test, we found that this Husqvarna had a similar airflow pattern to the Stihl handheld unit, although slightly shorter.
One design feature we appreciated was the offset on the blower housing, bringing the blower tube in line with the handle. This makes it easier and less fatiguing to use by limiting the twist caused by back pressure when you pull the trigger. We also included the 125BVX in our leaf vacuum test, given that it has included vacuum tubes and a bag.
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Cordless leaf blowers have reached a new height in run time with the Stihl BGA 200 (and AR 3000 L backpack battery). Although we clocked about 70 minutes on the maximum boost setting, you can get hours out of it, depending on usage—you would rarely use a blower continuously at full throttle.
We cleared our test area in 10.4 seconds and found that the narrower air stream allowed more precise aim—meaning we could clear right up to the edge of an area. This accuracy was beneficial when blowing around garden beds, leaving mulch undisturbed.
Another big benefit of the BGA 200 is how quiet it is. From 75 feet away, we measured it at 64.7 decibels; that’s just barely louder than an average conversation. So your neighbors will appreciate the BGA 200 as much as you will.
Don’t be misled by this DeWalt’s low air speed, the slowest in the test. The air stream is well-shaped and productive. It carved out a large rectangular area in our sawdust test. The tool has good balance, and we found it was easy to use it in a sweeping motion in our leaf test.
It cleaned out the area quickly, if not perfectly. Its brief run time, however, suggests that the tool is best used on small patches of leaves or for jobs like construction-site cleanup or sweeping out the garage.
Its design for these purposes is clear, judging by the hefty skid plate below the blower housing and battery that should help this tool withstand rough-and-tumble use. While not perfect for big yards, this leaf blower has everything it takes for less orthodox environments.
If you’re already using DeWalt’s 20-volt power tools—and you’re looking for a leaf blower that’s lighter, slimmer, and trimmer than the one above—consider this tool. We can’t say it’s particularly powerful, but it is one of the lightest, easiest-handling, and least-tiring leaf blowers that we’ve used.
For those reasons, we’d say it’s an effective yard care and construction site cleanup tool. It will easily handle dry leaves, tree bark fragments, small nuts, twigs, and dry pine cones when you’re working on normal-height, cool-season grass.
It has absolutely no problem blowing debris off of concrete or asphalt. Although we didn’t try it on construction debris, our hunch is that it’s a great fit for that, too, especially since it’s powered by the same 20-volt DeWalt battery that fits on many of the brand’s construction tools.
Two features that we particularly like are its large and comfortable variable speed trigger and the equally comfortable pivoting thumb latch immediately above it. We’re also fond of the nose cone that DeWalt calls a concentrator; snapping it on the end of the blower tube narrows the air stream, while removing it creates a more fan-shaped (but less powerful) burst.
If your overarching requirement is a quieter handheld blower, this Ryobi may be the best product. It’s right to ask whether that comes at the expense of its leaf-moving power. The bright yellow-green blower has enough power for dry leaf cover, removing grass clippings and leaves from paved surface and for garage or dryer vent cleanout.
It’s not the most powerful leaf blower we’ve used, but it’s certainly one of the most quiet and pleasant. Other features that contribute to its ease of use are a well-positioned latch to the left and above the adjustable-speed trigger, a booster button for more air output, and a detachable nose cone made out of rubber that concentrates the air speed up to 190 mph.
The cone’s circumference is marked with the air speeds that it will produce at three intervals (from base to the tip): 190, 175 and 160 mph. You could slice the cone at any of the two intervals (175 and 160) shortening it to provide less air speed.
The Echo ES-250 blew leaves completely out of the test rectangle, and it carved an oval-shaped area with a crisp edge out of the sawdust box, revealing a dense, productive, and well-shaped air stream. Echo uses a clever, offset blower tube, which aligns the tip with the handle, giving you better aim and somewhat better control over the machine’s recoil—any handheld blower with this much power can be tiring to use, and the Echo is no exception.
There are a couple improvements on this model that make starting a little easier. The two-position stop switch is marked more clearly, making it more difficult to try to start the machine with it in the off position. Also, the choke positions are now marked in contrasting colors so they’re easier to read. Finally, there is an added bonus with the ES-250—it can also be used as a leaf vacuum and shredder with included attachments.
For those concerned about the neighbor’s peace and quiet, the Stihl SH86E is one of the quieter gas-powered leaf blowers we tested. At 75 feet, we measured sound levels at 73dB, and near the operator’s ear, 98dB—significantly lower than other models we tested. Moving to our test area, it took just a few sweeps of the blower and a couple steps to dispatch the leaves.
We found that we actually had to throttle back a little for precision work as the turbulent zone in the air stream could send the leaves in every direction. This was verified when we performed our sawdust test, where it blew a rounder, broader bulb shape.
Air streams like this make for quick clearing in light to medium leaf coverage. In heavier leaf coverage, we had to get a little closer to keep the carpet of leaves from rolling back. When the leaf blowing is done, the Stihl SH86E does double duty, converting to a vacuum, with included parts.
If you want to consolidate the handheld tools in your shed, consider this combination leaf blower and vacuum from Craftsmen. Similar to the Stihl option but for $100 less, this blower is great for clearing away leaves and sucking them up for easy disposal.
As a vacuum, this device can hold up to 1.5 bushels of leaves and debris in the detachable leaf bag. As for the blowing power, you can expect over 200 mph of air speed, which should serves as more than enough to clear out large leaf buildup in your yard.
While this is not the most powerful device on our list, you can expect enough to work on your yard while the added vacuum design also cuts down on your overall yard cleanup time.
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