Blowers and Vacs Reviews

This is a well made machine. It has taken hours off my yardwork this fall.

Yardman advantages:

Fast and easy to use.

Large bagging capacity.

Easy to adjust.

Easy to store and clean.

Shortcomings with it are considerable such as....

The bag that the leaves go into is difficult to empty without spilling some of your work back onto the ground.

Sometimes it is hard to push it on uneven gradient.

It sometimes does not fare to well with twigs. Check often for jams when near twigs.

Small gas tank for big HP.

The vacuum hose jams with leaves often. Use it gingerly. It is also a little short when getting into hard to reach places.

Overall, a smart purchase!

hey...
so, here i am, in my modest (1 acre) yard surrounded by trees...
lots of trees, each tree blessed with thousands of leaves... every autumn, the aforementioned trees and their leaves decide to make their way to my lawn. Me, lazy times 10... i used to just rake a little, blow a little more, then just mow them over..
now, thanks to the yard man chipper/shredder vac/coffee grinder/espresso maker, my lawn work is reduced by a ratio of 8:1
that is thanks to the wolverine-style blades securely hidden within the demure exterior of the Yard-Man chipper/shredder vac..
overall, pretty awesome...

If you're not considering a riding mower with big honker bags in the back, but *almost* need something of that caliber, this will work okay. I've used the mulcher mower - ( not enough ), and a bigger mulcher/shredder ( made leaves and wrist-sized branches into dust but tore itself apart in four years ).

This moves moist leaves with the blower, and does a good job with its vacuum tube.

Really wet leaves - fugedaboutit, you have to stay ahead of wet, stuck-together leaves, or pray for dry weather. Moist leaves, Maple/Oak this handles well with the outlet.

Now the least positive news - the "yard vacuum" inlet, like everything below a riding mower capacity, is very easy to clog. Go into anything higher than a couple of inches - and, shazzam! your clogged. The tube vac is better, but still clogs. Remove the tube, pull out the clog, put the tube back in, start again.

And, it is nice to vacuum ( a bit at a time ) and have the leaves shredded and thrown where you want them.

Uh, vibration. As with the ..., bigger machines, there is a lot of vibration. It shuck two wimpy nuts and bolts off in a couple of hours. They were the ones that hold the handle. And a bolt and two bolts per side have served for dozens of hours. The design engineer either didn't give a ... or were nickle-and-dimed out of using adequate lock-nuts.

All-in-all, for ...this, along with a mulching, walk-behind mower; and a 2-stroke blower, are allowing me to stay ahead of the game, with a *lot* ( did I mention a *lot* ) of leaves from the forest of leaves I live ( and love to live ) in.

Compaired to other blowers currently available, this blower is equal to the best rated ones for a lesser price. At only 12 amps, it's blower output will remove debris from between sidewalk and driveway cracks on the high setting. The maximum mph is 165 as published in the manual. The two piece blower tube joint is weak and will come apart when hard contact is made with the ground. The tube to blower seal leaks around the red lock button preventing entire blower output to be discharged thru the tube. There is no motor torque to overcome during use and is well balanced while blowing to reduce arm stress. Vacuum operation not evaluated.

The weight and performance of the weedeater itself, is very good. However, the bag that is furnished for vacuum, is really bad. On second use, the zipper broke, the same problem I had with previous one I owned. They need to redesign zipper with making sure it is stronger and goes straight across. The bag throws out a lot of dirt, which is bad for your respiration and cleanup.

I've had this blower/vac for about six months now. Overall I am very impressed for the money I paid. This model was rated well by a leading consumer magazine and I understand why. It is very powerful and the ability to change from a blower to a vac is great and quick. The changing process is the only place I see a need for a slight improvement. You need a small screwdriver to make the change and the process could be tool free with a small redesign. This is still a great product and I would recommend it to anyone.

I mainly use the vac portion of this product. The bag's zipper got crossed teeth after about 8 uses. Called weedeater and they said go to a local dealer. I'll write back on how that goes. Otherwise is a good product.

This is a heavy duty machine and well built!! It operates very well but is somewhat difficult to move up or down curbs or steps.
This was a replacement for a non- self propelled Troy Bilt unit thatI had for over 10 years and was obviously lighter. Collection bag is large and relatively easy to empty!!

150mph apparently is not as powerful as it sounds. Unit started fine, is pretty light and works well, I just do not think it is powerful enought. Wish It had more power.

Powerful, lightweight, but noisy

This unit has enough power to get the work done (I use 50% throttle most of the time). If it seems underpowered-check the choke setting; it should be "Off" once the engine is warmed-up. The fuel tank is enough for 30-50 min depending on throttle position. The only negative comment is noise-I expected this unit to be quieter than competition (per MFG suggested 68 db noise); however, it's just as loud as any other blower on the market.

I am happy with the ease of starting and performance of this economical machine. No problems so far after one month of use.

I bought this specifically because I wanted to have a better way to mulch my leaves than my mulching mower. 10:1 sounded great. After an hour of use, I have to say the ratio is close to 10:9. It is going back tomorrow. My mulching mower does much better!

This is the second one of these I've owned. The first one leaked gas out of the carb, not sure what the problem was. The second one worked fine. I dislike the "spring assist" pull mechanism. It has a weird feeling to it, and eliminates the quicker "snap-pull" that helps two strokes start up when it's really cold. I don't agree with the other complaints I've read. Control placement is fine and everything is quite accessible, even with one hand. The 10-1 mulcher works decently, and I don't think I would want the bag to be too much bigger. It would be nice to have more capacity, but weight would get to be a factor. It is loud, but I wear headphones that double as earplugs, so I'm not bothered by this. My only complaint is the zipper on the bag. Gave up before the end of the first season.

Even still, if it blew up today, I'd probably buy the same one tomorrow.

Arrived when expected, though took a long time to ship. Price and delivery were excellent. Good value.

I agree with the other reviews. Its light, quiet, and cordless. Unfortunately, it doesn't get the job done. Bought it for 50 bucks at home depot thinking it was a deal. Its good for about 3 minutes, and then the battery dies out so you'd be better off using a fan on a stick. Think I'll hire the big bad wolf instead.

Save your money. Buy a corded or gas blower with a metal impeller.

We have had two of these and live in a rural city and cannot locate replacement batteries... B&D should list the battery and price with the tool...If you read the fine print and let the machine run completely down and then recharge, you can sometimes improve the battery time/life

The cordless sweeper has lots of power and the great part is that you don't have to worry about plugging it in. You can use it anywhere..

It is good for about 15 minutes and then needs to be recharged.

We are happy with the purchase.

I bought this blower at Sam's club less than 2 yrs ago. It stopped working after 1.5 yrs and was found to be unrepairable. Warranty claim(the 2 yr warantee is a joke) was denied even though the engine had imploded. I would never buy a MTD product again. They make Ryobi, Club Cadet, Troy Built and some Craftsman products. Stay away!

I also purchased this one to work on my rental property.I generally happy with it,but once again,When I called Customer service for my blower,they sent it to a place to get it serviced under company policy and I discovered the service company doesnt accept Ryobi.Once again.Why?Plus the throddle get in the way a little which can be annoying.But it blowers very fast and is light weight.But Ryobi you can do better.So,When you buy this you still get a Good blower,but hope nothing goes wrong with it.

I should admit right off that I am somewhat partial to Ryobi products... Every Ryobi power tool that I've owned has been a good and reliable machine - not the "best of its type", necessarily, but always a "best buy".

The Ryobi gas blower I use was made after 1999 and was at least a couple of years old when I got it - for $11 in a thrift store. It started up easily and blew strongly then (Strongly enough, most of the time! This is a relative thing...) and it still does.

What more could you ask for?

It gets five stars when it's quieter and blows the bark off trees!

I bought this so i could use it with a toro rake and vac.model # 51573 It doesnt fit!!!! If anybody reads this and can get it to fit a toro of any type, please let us know. Im sure it works well with something, but the ad says it will fit ALL gas and electric blowers. Im a sucker!!!

This is in response to Mark Horton. Not sure how to get the comments to him. Maybe he will read this. I went to Lowes and they had my Model Toro Blower. They also have the Weedeater Blowers and the Gutter attachment sold separately. They had the gutter attachment pieces laying out on the display shelf and so I experimented in the store with how to hook it up to the Toro. It hooks up fine if you go to the area where they sell PVC pipe and look for a rubber 3" X 3" coupling with the metal screw clamps on each end. I brought it home, hooked it up directly to the straight lengths not using the lower elbow and adapters. I hooked it up directly to the Blower body and positioned the screw clamp on the underside where the Toro plastic safety and electric housing lines up. I connected the housing and then held it tightly in place with cord wrapped around and tied to the handle. But the rubber coupling holds the blower elements very firm and no way it will come loose if screws are tightened. Works great !!

Larry Raphael

HAVE YOU HEARD OF MODEL NUMBERS. DUH I GOT ME A TRIMMING MECHINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I found an online site to get bags at outdoordistributors.com. Better to call 1-877-70Parts and order to make sure you get the right connection shape. One bag costs $24.01. We have had 2 bags break in the past 4 years. Very poorly constructed. Both the zipper and the actual bag material have broken.

The bag on this vac is nice and large, and well designed to hold a lot of mulched leaves, but the zipper lost its hold after about 2-3 years. You can't realistically replace the zipper and even trying to close the zipper "gently" doesn't do the trick. I really liked its mulching capability - I don't understand the logic of blowing leaves around, makes much more sense to vacuum them up and get them off my property - but the bag zipper doesn't last. In desperation I duct-taped over the zipper but that only lasted about 3 uses and the tape starts to peel off, and unless you vaccum up small particles or very dry leaves that break up small, it's next to impossible to empty the bag out of the top opening. Based on the other reviews I am not going to bother hunting up a replacement bag - at first I thought I just had the bad luck to have a bag with a defective zipper but too many reviewers indicate the zipper is a design defect.

If anyone knows of another mulching vacuum please leave a review note here. My 3 stars are strictly for the mulching ability of this vac.

this machine is very easy to use and cleans up leaves quickly. after two years of occasional use, the zipper broke on the dust bag. i think the bag zipper should have lasted more than two years.