Leaf Blowers Annoy Residents and Town Officials. But Is Going Electric An Option?
By Johan Schwind, Head of Engineering, Sust
I live in a small New England town called Westport that passed a leaf blower ban earlier this year. A season later, the local town blog reflected on how successful the ordinance was. The bottom line: Not very. Most landscapers continued to use gas blowers in spite of the rule. Commenters on the blog (mostly homeowners) complained about the fact that gas equipment was still in use, some reporting incidents to the town’s Conversation Department or confronting landscapers or neighbors directly. Who’s to blame?
The ban certainly makes sense from a resident and environmental standpoint: Electric blowers are significantly less noisy and don’t emit fumes and greenhouse gasses. However, from a landscaper’s perspective, gas blowers are hard to replace. Especially backpack blowers with enough power to move debris and large amounts of leaves are power hungry. The average gas-powered blower may run up to 2 hours on a tank of gas, and when empty can be refueled in a matter of minutes. The runtime of a comparable electric blower may be as little as 20 minutes before requiring a recharge. As a result, to get through a day, a crew might need to carry a dozen or more batteries into the field–a costly endeavor, considering that a typical equipment battery retails around $250. After work, all of those extra batteries need to go into the shop for recharging–a lot of extra legwork. Some shops may require additional electrical upgrades to even handle this amount of charging.
There are benefits to going electric, for landscapers. With ever-increasing gas prices, running an electric blower can be up to 10 times cheaper on electricity cost alone. Considering that an electric tool has less moving parts, maintenance costs are lower, too. Not inhaling toxic fumes or having to wear hearing protection on the work site is a plus for the crews. The charging hurdles remain.
We started Sust to solve precisely this conundrum: Electric equipment is often a good choice, both from an environmental and economic standpoint. But charging is a hassle and battery costs or shop upgrades are a barrier to entrance. With our first product, ChargeBot, we aim to solve both issues by providing an on-the-go power source for closed vans and trailers. We think of it as the “gas can” for electric equipment. In the field ChargeBot provides up to 20 full charges to equipment batteries, allowing crews to work longer, with less batteries on the vehicle. A blower battery takes about 40-50 minutes to recharge, which means a crew can run with as few as three batteries for continuous operation of a blower when using ChargeBot. After work, instead of carrying batteries or equipment to the shop for charging, ChargeBot can simply be plugged into an outlet or extension cord, and will manage charging automatically overnight. As a bonus, you can connect solar panels installed on your van or trailer, which will further offset your electricity cost and need to plug in. To make sure ChargeBot works for everyone, we designed it so that it is fully compatible with any existing equipment and equipment charger, offering 8 standard 120V outlets to plug in whatever equipment you prefer or already own.
Questions or comments about going electric? Let us know at hello@sust.pro
Interested in getting your own ChargeBot? Learn more here.
