We're heading into the thick of fall, and soon the trees will turn vivid hues of red and orange. But while the trees look great, those leaves will soon be all over your yard, and there are few more essential gardening tools for cleaning them up than a leaf blower.
Yet many of us think of leaf blowers as one-note appliances. It can seem a little profligate to buy an expensive tool you only need for a couple of months a year. The clue is in the name - surely the only point of a leaf blower is to, well, blow leaves.
However, that isn't the case. I've found five leaf blower hacks that make them much more versatile tools. Whether you need to dry a car, clean up your shop, or blast the lint out of a dryer vent, these expert hacks will help you get more out of your leaf blower.
1. Cleaning gutters
The most common alternative use for a leaf blower is to use it to clean out gutters. The same leaves that are covering up your patio are also probably clogging up your gutters. This can be a messy job, and without a leaf blower, it means getting up on your roof and scooping out all that leaf gunk by hand. A leaf blower makes it much easier.
There are two methods for cleaning out your gutters. The first is very straightforward. You need to get up on the roof with a leaf blower and aim it along the gutters, cleaning out all the leaves.
However, this method can be dangerous. Roofs are dangerous places, and we don't recommend climbing up on your roof. It's much easier to get a leaf blower gutter attachment. You need to make sure that it fits your brand of leaf blower, but they're pretty easy to find. Greenworks, Black + Decker, and Ego all sell gutter cleaning kits at Amazon, and many other brands offer these kits too.
You can also prevent the issue from happening in the future with some inexpensive gutter guards, like these $1.33 gutter guards at Menards.
This EGO blower is one of my favorite leaf blowers. Because it's cordless, it's lightweight, but the battery is surprisingly powerful.
A backpack leaf blower like this is perfect for the biggest cleaning jobs, particularly getting snow off a driveway.
Leaf vacuums like this are perfect for a wood shops. You can suck all the sawdust up into the bag and reuse it as brown matter in your compost.
2. Clearing snow
You can also use a leaf blower to remove snow from your driveway and paths. Like cleaning the gutters, this is a very simple process. Just use your leaf blowers to blast away the snow - the force of the air will turn the snow into mist.
However, it won't work every time. It needs to be light, loosely-packed snow no more than a few inches thick. If the snow is too wet and slushy, it will be too wet to move.
3. Drying a car
Leaf blowers can also help you dry off a car. If you hate the little watermarks you get after you've washed your car, or toweling off your car leaves little scuff marks, try a leaf blower.
A leaf blower offers a contactless way to get all the water off your car, blasting it out of nooks and crannies in side mirrors and bumpers.
The only thing to bear in mind is that lead blowers get pretty dusty, so you need to clean your blower before you use it on your car. If you don't, your blower will blast dust and leaf debris onto your wet car and set you back to square one.
To mitigate this, you can use a car drying attachment like this Ego car drying nozzle at Amazon. If you always use this to detail your car, it won't pick up any dust. Some of these attachments have built-in filters, reducing the likelihood of spreading dust.
4. Cleaning a wood shop
If you have a wood shop in your shed or garage, a leaf blower is your new best friend. You don't need to buy a shop vac - you can use a leaf blower or a leaf vacuum to tidy up the dust.
Leaf blowers are great for tacking sawdust because they can blast it out of areas that that shop vacs and indoor vacuums can't reach. The air from the leaf blower can reach behind work benches and under tool stations to help you keep on top of the dust.
5. Cleaning a dryer vent
You can also use a leaf blower to clean out a dryer vent. Like all of these alternative uses, it's pretty simple.
If you have a clogged dryer vent - or just a dusty one - all you need to do is place a bucket under the dryer vent, place your leaf blower in the foil duct, then switch it on. This should dislodge whatever lint is blocking your dryer.
FAQs
Can you use a leaf blower to clean a PC?
Technically, you can use a leaf blower to clean a PC, but it's unwieldy and there's the chance you blow leaf fragments into your PC. A can of compressed air like this from Amazon is cheaper, easier to use, and more effective.
While all these hacks can be great, they won't be useful for everyone. If you live in the southwest and hardly ever see snow, a leaf blower might not be the solution you need. It's worth weighing up leaf blowers vs rakes to see if you really need a leaf blower.
