Now that it’s officially spring I’ve found myself using my chipper vac more than I ever thought I would. A few years ago I bought and reviewed my Troy-Bilt chipper vac just as the leaves were really starting to pile up. It wasn’t cheap, but the way it sucked and ground up leaves and the time it saved made it a worthwhile investment in my mind.
I’m mentioning this because now might be a good time to start looking for chipper vac. I fully intend to save some money this summer by buying a snow blower in July, and buying a chipper vac in the spring time seems like another good way to save some cash on a major piece of gardening equipment. Spring is an “off” season for chipper vacs so you might find some good deals on used or even new chippers and leaf vacuums as people clean out their garages and stores clean out last year’s unsold inventory.
With the warmer weather creeping into the forecasts, I’ve been spending some of my weekends working outside and trying to clean up the yard after a long storm-filled winter here. I haven’t even bothered to start my lawn mower yet but I’ve had to use my chipper vac for a number of different yard clean up jobs already. Here are some of the things I’ve been using it for:
Picking up Yard Debris: Every year I forget how many leaves and twigs and sticks fall from the trees around my house during winter time. My neighbor spent most of last weekend ragging and bagging all the debris, but it took me about an hour with my yard. I just started up the chipper vac and went around, picking up anything I could. There were obviously still some larger sticks and even a few big branches that had fallen during the winter, but that leads me to what I did next…
Chipping Branches: I made a big pile in my bag yard of all the larger branches and sticks that had fallen during the winter. Then I put on my goggles and gloves, started up the chipper vac and started feeding in the branches one by one. In about 40 minutes I had turned most of the branches into a bag or so of decent wood chip mulch and the few branches that I couldn’t grind into splinters I set aside for various gardening projects I might have during the summer. This lead me to my next yard project…
Vacuuming Out My Gutters: I admit, I’m a nerd. I like building things and I like tinkering. I live in a Ranch style home and most of my gutters are between 8 to 15 feet off the ground. Instead of climbing up on the roof and cleaning all the dead leaves and debris from winter out of my gutters I just made my own gutter vacuum with my chipper vac and a long piece of metal duct work. I use an elbow duct on the end and it does a fairly decent job of getting most of the things that rest on my gutter guards and clog them up.
So if you find yourself spending a lot of time cleaning up your yard from the winter over the next several weekends then you may want to think about looking for a chipper vac. There are lots of models and variations to choose from, and lots of people do sell them for discounts during the spring. If you don’t think you need to actually buy another piece of gardening equipment, but still need a little help cleaning up your yard this spring, you could always try using your lawn mower as a yard vacuum!