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Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect

oregonlive.com

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Re: Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect

#31

Post by Zigurd »

andy99 wrote: post #26
johnebgd wrote: post #17

I bought a corded electric snow blower this year for my driveway. My neighbor has a gas powered one. I sold mine after two uses because it was so ineffective it mostly just clogged. It is a highly rated unit on Amazon. My neighbor has used his for years. I hope this kind of environmentalism never comes for winter gear. At least not until we have fuel cell technology that far exceeds what batteries can offer.

I don’t think it’s environmentalism, I think that’s unfortunate just the pretense because it gets traction. At least what I’ve found, now with more people working from home, there is more attention paid to intolerably noisy stuff that goes on when we used to be at work. I lived near a private school with a big grounds that had these idiots come and rev their leaf blowers for days every fall and spring, and it was bas…

Noise is environmental pollution and detrimental to health.

Re: Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect

#32

Post by sarchertech »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #7
lm28469 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've witness two municipal employees using gas powered blowers on bushes for like an hour right in front of my building. It's completely useless because no one ever goes in the bushes (duh), and it's depleting the ground from nutrients for no reasons. We really have to stop acting like gas is free and unlimited, burning fossil fuels used for legitimate reasons is bad enough, but burning them for such dumb tasks is an…

I don't find gas leaf blowers exceptionally annoying. They aren't really anymore annoying that anything else going on in my area. It's what leaf blowers are used for that bother me. I see people just using them to blow leaves either into the street or into neighbors yards. What is the utility in this? Do they think leaves disappear?

They’re much louder than other common lawn equipment. People also tend to use them more frequently. Most of my neighbors will only run a lawnmower once a week or every 2 weeks. But they’ll be out there every day with a leaf blower during parts of the year.

Re: Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect

#33

Post by gambiting »

johnebgd wrote: post #17

I bought a corded electric snow blower this year for my driveway. My neighbor has a gas powered one. I sold mine after two uses because it was so ineffective it mostly just clogged. It is a highly rated unit on Amazon. My neighbor has used his for years. I hope this kind of environmentalism never comes for winter gear. At least not until we have fuel cell technology that far exceeds what batteries can offer.

I wonder if you've accidentally purchased an inferior product by buying a corded one - and I guess that's just a problem of American outlets being limited to 110V and generally ~10 amps or so, because yeah, I can't imagine a 1000W blower being very powerful. Battery powered ones like this:

https://www.agrieuro.co.uk/snapper-esxd20s82k-battery-powere...

Are considered pretty much as good as petrol ones over here, but yeah, if you limited it to only 1000W I guess it would struggle too.

Re: Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect

#35

Post by throwway120385 »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #7
lm28469 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've witness two municipal employees using gas powered blowers on bushes for like an hour right in front of my building. It's completely useless because no one ever goes in the bushes (duh), and it's depleting the ground from nutrients for no reasons. We really have to stop acting like gas is free and unlimited, burning fossil fuels used for legitimate reasons is bad enough, but burning them for such dumb tasks is an…

I don't find gas leaf blowers exceptionally annoying. They aren't really anymore annoying that anything else going on in my area. It's what leaf blowers are used for that bother me. I see people just using them to blow leaves either into the street or into neighbors yards. What is the utility in this? Do they think leaves disappear?

The street sweeper sweeps all.

Re: Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect

#36

Post by Zigurd »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #13

Gas-powered leaf blowers could be fine, but 99% of the time they're awful, cheap, horribly-maintained hunks of junk that emit horrible clouds of smoke that just floats at ground level for 15+ minutes. Next up ban non-electric cars in the city limits.

Many big Chinese cities banned gas motorcycles and scooters long ago. Taipei did not. You can smell the obvious difference. Electric buses make a big difference too.

Re: Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect

#37

Post by mothballed »

yabones wrote: post #25

This is a good thing. It might inconvenience some old suburban men that have no hobbies other than making their lawn look like astroturf, but those of us that breathe air regularly should be asking for this in their own jurisdiction. Unlike your car, a four-stroke engine with a catalytic converter, a leaf blower is a two-stroke that burns oil by design. The amount of particulate emissions is hard to understate, and t…

A lot of 4-stroke don't have much emissions controls either although it does burn cleaner than a two stroke. If you buy heavy equipment like excavator or tractor under 25hp you can get it with no emissions controls which is highly sought after because they don't break down as often.

Re: Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect

#38

Post by phoronixrly »

noodlesUK wrote: post #19

Whilst I seriously doubt that this will be regularly or universally enforced, I think that gas powered gardening and construction equipment is incredibly loud and annoying, and that especially in built-up areas it's not really acceptable where good alternatives exist. Noise pollution is usually very avoidable, and it can be quite disruptive and sometimes damaging to health. Further, where I live (in the UK), there ne…

The notion of leafblowing is also mindboggling to me... You don't need a leafblower to clean up your driveway, and leaves on a lawn will turn into soil.

Re: Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect

#39

Post by burnt-resistor »

It's a quality-of-life issue (noise pollution), more than anything.

I recall that Palo Alto had this 10-15 years ago and it was somewhat enforced. Although I did see someone put a Honda gas generator on a furniture dolly connected to an electric blower with a 50 or 100 foot extension cord to blow their yard.

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