Hand held battery leaf blower.

[coppice cutter]

Haven't had a hand held blower before, and haven't had any battery powered garden equipment before so I'm well out on a limb with this one.

 

In my spare time I maintain a privately owned kart track, it's not in constant use so keeping the tarmac clean is an ongoing battle. I have a Makita backpack blower and a tractor mounted tornado for the heavy lifting but I think something hand held and handy for a quick blast around the edges on a more regular basis would be beneficial as well.

 

So I suppose there's several issues, if going battery do you go garden equipment battery (echo, stihl, husky, etc) or power tool battery (makita, dewalt, milwaukee, etc)? Might consider a battery strimmer in future, but that would be about it. Equally, I've no particular need for any battery power tools at present either so probably best prioritising the blower?

 

The other option is just buy as powerful a hand held petrol blower as I can get, mixed petrol and Aspen are both always at hand and there's no issues with noise.

 

I'll spend a while this morning trawling spec sheets but practical experiences are always hard to beat so any input or similar experiences welcome.

Edited August 21, 2022 by coppice cutter

[Steve Bullman]

I treated myself to a battery stihl blower for the garden. Just as powerful as the petrol counterpart but with zero maintenance, minimal noise, and basically zero vibration. Not much else to say really!

[coppice cutter]

Had you Stihl batteries already or buy the whole outfit?

[rapalaman]

3 minutes ago, Steve Bullman said:

I treated myself to a battery stihl blower for the garden. Just as powerful as the petrol counterpart but with zero maintenance, minimal noise, and basically zero vibration. Not much else to say really!

This!

Got myself the Stihl BGA 86 and haven’t used the petrol handheld for nearly a year now. Still use the backpack Echo petrol for big clear ups though.

only downside is it’s quite power hungry so you’ll want two AP300 batteries so ones on charge when ones in use

[AHPP]

2 minutes ago, Steve Bullman said:

I treated myself to a battery stihl blower for the garden. Just as powerful as the petrol counterpart but with zero maintenance, minimal noise, and basically zero vibration. Not much else to say really!

Which model? I was scrambling to buy one to perk a fire up the other day but passed on an AK battery model. I’ve used an AP model before and was impressed enough but it was ages ago. 

[coppice cutter]

7 minutes ago, Steve Bullman said:

I treated myself to a battery stihl blower for the garden. Just as powerful as the petrol counterpart but with zero maintenance, minimal noise, and basically zero vibration. Not much else to say really!

Had you stihl batteries already or did you have to buy all from scratch?

 

Because on the latter basis, petrol looks considerably cheaper.

[coppice cutter]

4 minutes ago, rapalaman said:

This!

Got myself the Stihl BGA 86 and haven’t used the petrol handheld for nearly a year now. Still use the backpack Echo petrol for big clear ups though.

only downside is it’s quite power hungry so you’ll want two AP300 batteries so ones on charge when ones in use

How long does it run?, bearing in mind that a quick handy blast is it's purpose for me.

 

I've a stihl dealer less than 10minutes away, so it would be a handy option.

 

That having been said, I've also a Husky dealer and a Screwfix about 10 minutes away as well.

Edited August 21, 2022 by coppice cutter

[Steve Bullman]

14 minutes ago, coppice cutter said:

Had you Stihl batteries already or buy the whole outfit?

Yep already had them. I have a battery topper,, strimmer, and lawnmower, although I just sprayed off all my grass so the mower and strimmer will probably be up for sale soon.

[Steve Bullman]

14 minutes ago, AHPP said:

Which model? I was scrambling to buy one to perk a fire up the other day but passed on an AK battery model. I’ve used an AP model before and was impressed enough but it was ages ago. 

I have the BGA 86

[Steve Bullman]

12 minutes ago, coppice cutter said:

Had you stihl batteries already or did you have to buy all from scratch?

 

Because on the latter basis, petrol looks considerably cheaper.

This is the thing with the battery gear. Once you actually have the batteries the units are cheaper to buy than petrol, but if you are only purchasing one sort of tool without planning on more from the range then it does work out quite pricey.