Leaf blowers are not for landscaping workers; they are for property owners, who mistakenly assume blowers are always faster/cheaper. Gas-powered leaf blowers are not necessary for plant care, and there are devestating impacts. They strip top soil and mulch, spread ground toxins, disrupt local habitat, and result in greater water and fertilizer needs.

Time and again, we see how leaf blowers destroy the landscape and blow away precious topsoil and damage plants. We also get asked by our customers why the fertilizer just put down seems to have disappeared…leaf blowers are often the culprit! 

How Leaf Blowers Destroy Top Soil, Soil Alive

Too many landscaping companies blow everything in sight, by default. Using hurricane-force winds, they kick up huge clouds of dust, pollen, animal feces, and heavy metals into the air. They often blow debris into neighboring yards and streets. They create work for themselves by spreading the mess before cleaning it up.

For many jobs, rakes and brooms do the job nearly as fast. Where power tools are necessary, using electric-powered tools (along with hand tools) often does not have any negative effect on productivity. If a particular job does take more time, the landscaper will still make more money without the gas-powered leaf blower because time is cheaper than gasoline, 2-stroke engine oil and engine maintenance.

The City of Oakland banned not only gas-powered leaf blowers, but also gas-powered string trimmers. Both tools use a primitive, dangerous 2-stroke engine, so it makes sense that both tools were banned. The City of San Mateo should follow Oakland’s lead and stop using all 2-stroke engine powered tools in city operations to best protect city employees. Better still, the City of San Mateo should be the first San Mateo County city to eliminate fossil-fuel powered tools (chainsaws, mowers, etc) from its maintenance operations.

Ditch Leaf Blowers

Take the pledge not to use gas-powered leaf blowers and ask your neighbors to do the same. It’s for your neighbors’ health and the entire San Mateo community’s safety.

Greening Your Landscape Company

Remember, you are hiring your landscaper, so you are responsible for what they do on your property, and what they spread around your neighborhood. Customer demand helps incentivize landscapers to make the switch. Please ask your landscaper to use manual or electric-powered tools.

We’ve made this easy! We’ve written a letter you can customize and send to the owner or manager of your landscape company in both English and Spanish. Many landscaping workers are multi-lingual, and communication can be challenging. We’ve taken care of that! Download our “Letter to Our Landscaper”

Superior Lawn Care

Here’s a secret–a lot of what passes for clean-up work can be skipped:

• First, leave the leaves around shrubs and plants. They act as a natural mulch, providing critical nutrients to the soil, helping suppress weeds, and providing cover for beneficial critters and insects. A natural leaf cover fertilizes the soil and holds moisture, reducing the need for fertilizer and watering.
  
• Second, mulch leaves into your lawn. This provides all the benefits of leaving leaves where they are, but speeds the process. This is perfect for lawns for a “tidier” look without using a leaf blower.
  
• Third, consider asking your landscaper to clear just the paths and driveway each visit and the lawn/plantings every other visit. 

Electric-Power “Costs”

Proposed gas-powered leaf blower bans raise understandable concerns about the cost of switching to electric-powered tools. However, most landscaper employers have long known that cities are moving to curb gas-powered landscape equipment and have had time to plan for it. Gas-powered leaf blowers are banned in San Mateo’s neighbors Hillsborough and Burlingame. In the wider area, Menlo Park and Palo Alto have also banned gas-powered leaf blowers. So, many San Mateo landscaper employers should already have the cleaner alternative tools.

The electric-powered investment pays off quickly and handsomely. Gas, two-stroke oil and engine maintenance are expensive, and electric-powered tools eliminate those costs. Operating costs for an electric-powered leaf blower are about 30X less than a comparable gas-powered model, and electric-powered equipment can fully pay for itself in about 10 months. Every day after that brings higher profits, not to mention longer, healthier lives, for the landscapers who have switched. 

In addition, many tool manufacturers have electric-powered tool product lines that all use the same batteries. So, you can easily drop the same battery into a leaf blower, string trimmer, edger, even a chain saw, making it easier than ever for landscapers to upgrade their entire line of power tools.

Stihl is helping businesses see how electric-powered tools benefit their businesses. Just enter a few variables and see how fast the investment is recovered and the greater profits start rolling in! Visit the Stihl Battery Savings Calculator.

Ways to Save

The new tools’ upfront cost can be significant, but there are many ways to handle that.

There are also many ways businesses can finance equipment investments.

Small business loans, for example, are perfectly suited for investments in equipment that is expected to lower costs or increase profits. Even a loan with terms of 13% interest (the upper end of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s interest rates for micro-loans) could be easily repaid, with interest, within a year, and all the savings after the loan repayment are essentially free money.

There are also financing options for companies unable or unwilling to apply for a loan. For example, large retailers like Home Depot commonly offer interest-free financing on new purchases for short periods, such as six months. The savings at the end of six months would amount to more than half of the cost of the new equipment, so the landscaper would already have about 60% of the cost of new battery equipment in hand.

There are numerous other ways to smooth the transition for landscaping companies: manufacturer incentives; rent-to-own, low-interest offers, and other retail purchase incentives; and battery equipment rental, which allows the savings on gasoline to build until it reaches the purchase price of new equipment.

Landscapers can also add a temporary surcharge to customers’ bills, and remove it when it has paid for the new equipment. Many businesses already add a temporary “gas surcharge” when gas prices are high, which customers are accustomed to and understand. And businesses are much more amenable to charging a temporary surcharge when there is a level playing field among their competitors, as there is when a policy applies city-wide. This also advances equity as it ensures that the people who are chipping in for the transition—the customers—are the ones who are benefiting from the landscaping service.

Many professional landscapers already use clean alternatives to gas-powered leaf blowers. They know they’re cultivating thriving landscapes with not only as much curb appeal, but also richer soil, healthier ecology, and less need for watering and fertilizer.

Bottom line–these clean alternatives produce better results and healthier neighborhoods.