Factors to consider with leaf blowers

• Sound level

  Some units can get quite loud, and even though electric units are quieter than their gas-predecessors, most still require hearing protection for long-term use.

• CFM, mph

  Short for cubic feet per minute and miles per hour, respectively, most manufacturers use these metrics to convey the overall strength and power of their leaf blowers. While not an exact comparison, it’s a good place to start as you’re shopping between models.

• Brand

  Most of the manufacturers in the outdoor tool space also offer other outdoor/indoor tools that can all run off of the same battery. That means it’s worth checking to see if your leaf blower’s battery could swap in as a power source for any of the tools you already own, or any that you plan to purchase later.

• Battery voltage

  Even within a single brand, there are often multiple battery voltage platforms. Check to see if what you’re buying will work with the tools you already have.

How we test leaf blowers

We test lots of things here at the Louisville-based CNET Test Lab. Some tests are easy, some are more difficult. Some take a few minutes and some take days. Creating test protocols for new product categories is always exciting, but let me tell you that anytime the phrase “air cannon” comes up in our proposed test methodologies, there’s a bit of extra electricity in the air. 

We’ll get to the air cannon results in a bit, but we start our tests by actually using the leaf blowers as intended. We hold them, we push the buttons, we blow stuff around — you know, leaf blower-y stuff. As we go, we make sure to evaluate the balance and ergonomics of the overall design, including attachments. A product that performs well but is difficult to use — or one that’s literally painful to your person — well, that isn’t likely to score well.

Electric leaf blower noise levels

To do this, we built an air cannon mostly from 3-inch PVC. Amenities included are an air gate, so we can ramp up each unit and release all the air into the cannon instantly, and a restriction plate, to keep the projectile from entering the core of the apparatus. There’s also a base for balancing and a 5-foot barrel for launching the projectile. 

The projectile itself is a round plastic tube (similar to those pneumatic-driven tube containers at bank drive-throughs) containing a sand mixture and, in total, weighs 210 grams.

We load the projectile into the cannon, secure the leaf blower nozzle into the input port, ramp the leaf blower up to full strength in the selected mode, open the air gate and foomp. We measure the distance the projectile travels from its resting location within the cannon to the spot of initial impact on the floor. We average this distance over multiple attempts. Voila!

We tested each leaf blower at both normal and turbo settings, noting that the DeWalt Max Flexvolt 3 only offers a single setting. The colorful visualization above shows the maximum average distance achieved by each brand, and makes it clear that our top pick from Greenworks blew the competition away as far as air power is concerned. You can find the full results from both rounds of tests in the graph below.

Leaf blower FAQs

As with most product categories, the answer depends partially on your intended use. Do you have a small yard with light occasional debris? Or do you have a large yard with many deciduous trees or lots of other debris?

Read more

Are electric leaf blowers worth it?

The answer really is, “It depends,” but let me give you a little context for that.

Read more
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