If you can’t rake, go electric

For years I have complained about leaf blowers, especially gas-powered ones. They’re incredibly noisy--shattering the peace of many a weekend morning--and pollute the air with their exhaust. Give me a rake, I say, and let me return to the age when raking leaves was a family time, with kids jumping into piles and apple cider served on the back porch.

Perhaps it’s my age, but I’ve slowed in my crusade against leaf blowers. Yes, I’ve come to terms with my fellow Americans’ need for power tools, the bigger the better.

Let me just say this. If you must use a leaf blower, use an electric one. This way you won’t be emitting carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons into the air. And you won’t be driving your neighbors crazy with a gas-powered engine that screams at a head-clutching 90-plus decibels.

If it’s power you want, consider this. Looking online at electric leaf blowers, I found one that can propel the air to speeds of 180 miles an hour. That’s category-5 hurricane level. And if you don’t want the hassle of a 100-foot electrical cord, go cordless.

The new generation of cordless leaf blowers gives you a range of power and rechargeable battery options. They are also lighter than ever, from six to thirteen pounds, depending on the unit’s size and power specs. Battery times run from 15 to 45 minutes. A mid-size unit will blow at 130 mph, run for 25 minutes and sound at 65 decibels, irritating but not devastating. In any case, as with all power equipment, mowers to power saws, wear ear protectors.

While the sale of electric blowers has steadily increased in recent years, dozens of towns and cities from Massachusetts to California have banned or restricted gas-powered blowers. In Brookline, for example, you can’t use a gas-powered leaf blower between May 16 and Sept. 30, or between January 1 and March 14.

Besides the noise, the main reason to ban gas blowers is climate change. The culprit is the two-stroke gas engine, a messy, inefficient machine that can pollute as much as 19 automobiles, according to one study. The U.S. Transportation Department equates using one gas-powered blower for an hour with driving a Toyota Camry 1,100 miles.

Similar levels of pollution are emitted from your gas-powered lawn mower, chain saw, and other two-stroke engines. According to the Department of Transportation, lawn and garden power tools in 2018 consumed nearly three billion gallons of gasoline. This is the same as the annual greenhouse gas emissions from 3.2 million homes.

As we face the disastrous effects of climate change, caused by our atmospheric pollutants, it makes sense to do all we can to lesson our carbon footprint. Perhaps you, like me, can’t afford a new electric F-150 pickup truck. But perhaps you can, as the autumn leaves are floating down around us, switch to an electric leaf blower.

While you’re going green with your electric blower, think about next summer and the benefits of getting a cordless electric lawn mower. Here’s from Consumer Reports: “Simply put, the best battery mowers we evaluated easily rival the best gas ones.” My son-in-law has one, and loves not having to mess with gasoline, carburators and fouled spark plugs. The mower is also much quieter, which makes it neighborhood friendly.

It’s what I want for Christmas.