Toro 51609 Ultra 12 amp Variable-Speed (up to 235) Electric Blower/Vacuum with Metal Impeller

For 2 years my wife and I raked leaves at our new home, which was a real chore and source of stress/procrastination -- one year we let the snow cover all the leaves in the yard. When spring came, it was even more of a mess to rake up as the leaves were waterlogged, and we had to remove them before they suffocated the new season's grass.I also wanted to compost my leaves. Before I got this, I had purchased an electric leaf mulcher. The mulcher was more effective at, well, mulching... but you had to move the device thing to each pile.. what a pain.This Toro blower/vacuum just blows everything off the yard and into the treeline. When the yard is clear, you can use the vacuum mode to chip away at the "wall of leaves" (places where the leaves would pile up due to small scrub growth). The Tori vacuum does mulch, but without a blade which has plusses and minuses (it really just crushes and shreds the leaves... good for composting but not fine enough to mix directly into garden soil like I was doing with the standalone mulch-only appliance I bought).A word about POWER... I bought the 235mph model. This thing has NO PROBLEM with worst case scenarios like blowing wet leaves off of wet grass. As you can imagine, driveway clearing is fast and easy. The handy dial allows you to control the blower force, which you probably need lower when blowing wet leaves off of mulch. On max speed this thing has no trouble blowing away mulch, actually.Not it's intended use, but I used this to remove some ground moss when the soil was wet. The moss just rolled off the soil and now I have a bare spot to seed (which is good... too much damn moss creeping into the shady part of the yard).NOISE... not too too bad -- it's FAR quieter than my neighbor's gas backpack model. I've used it without ear protection, but really you want some safety/shooter ear covers. What works almost as well are some headphones which completely surround the ear; then you can at least plug it into your phone or MP3 player.As this thing pulls 12 amps, you really want a heavy-duty extension capable of handling the current. Note that if you use a weak extension cord (or one that's too long) you will actually draw MORE amps out of your outlet (I'm simplifying things, but you'll lose power to resistance in the extension, and the motor will struggle to pull the power it needs). When shopping for an extension, be sure to "round up" and buy the beefier cable.I need 125 feet of extension to cover my yard, so I got two 12 gauge extensions here on Amazon (the extensions cost as much as this blower/vacuum, but everything I plug into that extension will potentially last longer). With a beefy extension, I have not tripped the garage circuit yet (being an older home, the garage sadly is equipped with 15A circuits so this is a concern). (and just to add WAY more detail than this review needs... don't go crazy and get the 10 gauge extension Amazon sells... I mean it would work more efficiently, but reeling or coiling it in will be like handling a garden hose filled with sand... a good workout I suppose). If you are 50 foot or less, 16 gauge is a little lighter to carry.OK, enough ADD banter. This is the blower you want. I don't care if you don't have outside outlets - just run it from the garage (I do!). Electric is far cleaner for the environment (which is important to folks with children), and you never have to mix gas/oil or run out of gas. No tuneups.

This is the second leafblower I have ever owned. First one was a Poulon Pro gas blower which did the job nicely but died on me this year. Enter the Toro. At first I was very unimpressed with it and thought it a little lacking in power. But due to the size of my yard and my lack of long power cords I took a trip to the Home Depot to get a 100ft plus cable and it was then I thought maybe I was using the wrong size cord. I looked at their chart and saw that the lower the gauge, the higher the amps coming through, which is especially important if getting a longer extension cable. I knew that the cable I had at home was thinner so a higher gauge. I wanted a 150ft cable that allowed a higher amperage. Based on the chart, I went with the 14 gauge I believe. I took it home and hooked it up to my toro. Queue the castanets!! The bull was released and I found out how powerful the Toro really was. It definitely matched the power of my Poor Passed-on Poulon Pro.Conss of owning the Toro:It is electrical, so I find myself constantly standing on the cable and unplugging it and having to move the cable. However, this is probably just a learning curve for me.It is electrical, so if you have an older electrical system that needs upgrading, ie. when you have the heater on in the bedroom and someone turns on the toaster the switch trips OR your wife is drying your hair and you are using your leafblower the switch trips, then you may need to shell out some money on upgrading your electrical system. Then again, that is just me, I can't afford to shell out mucho dinero on new wiring, etc. to the house. Maybe I should set up something on a crowd sourcing website. Would that work? Who amongst you wants to give me money to upgrade my electrical system. I am thinking about $3,000 should do the job nicely.Now where was I???Oh yes, the Pros:It is electrical. No more reading the label on your gas blower EVERY. SINGLE. FRIGGING. TIME because you never bother to remember the steps on how to start the thing from the last time you blew leaves (yesterday). Press the fuel pump three times. Press CTRL-ALT-DEL. Set throttle to full (I think). Pull cord 3 times. Verify your phone is in 3G mode, not wireless. Set throttle to half. Keep pulling your wire (giggle) until it starts. Pull out your hair if it does not. GAS! It needs GAS! Crap, container is empty. Head to your nearest gas station but it closed at midnight (what moron is out blowing his leaves at midnight? - don't ask). Finally fill your container but get home to realize that you have no oil to mix it with. But you know you have some somewhere in the garage. I tell ya, getting stuck into a garage cleaning project at 1am is not fun. But hey, nothing like the satisfaction of finding your iddy biddy little container of oil at 3:30 in the morning. "But" as Billy Connolly would say "I digress". Never mind. Review over.Fade to black....