Fall is kind of like a guest you invite to your business firm party: You savour his visitor until you're stuck picking up his mess when he leaves.

If y'all want to get rid of the crunchy, unruly chaos piling upward in your backyard, you have three options.

ane. You can get a big riding lawn mower and just mulch the leaves a way.
two. You tin utilize a leaf blower.
iii. You can rake.

If you've got a riding backyard mower, only do that. But otherwise, keep reading for tips on how to buy the world's best foliage blower as well as the smartest, near efficient method for raking upwardly your tree droppings the former-fashioned way, courtest of a NASA engineer.

(And for thousands more DIY tips, bits of communication, how-to articles, and other crucial life skills, bank check out The Big Book of Uncommon Cognition. It'south the ultimate insider'due south guide to everything!)

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Find the Perfect Leafage Blower

Nosotros like battery-powered models, since you lot don't have to deal with a deafening drone from a gas-powered motor, or the extension-cord trip hazard that trails an electrical blower.

The newest rechargable types have the juice to compete with the blowhards, minus the noise, pollution, and booby-trap cord. Here's how to draft a winner.

A. Ability Source
Lithium-ion batteries are smaller and lighter than NiCads and won't lose their charge between uses, says Marissa Munoz of Power Equipment Direct. A bombardment labeled "4Ah" (4 amp-hours) should yield 40-plus minutes of run time. Become with a 24-volt minimum for full-throttle musculus.

B. Wind Speed and Control
Those mph claims may be a lot of hot air. Instead, spec out cubic feet per minute (cfm), which tells you the volume of air existence moved, Munoz says. A minimum of 120 cfm is practiced for most lawns. And skip push controls; a dial or pressure level trigger is far more precise.

C. Weight and Length
Your rig should exist under 10 pounds before the battery is attached, says Chris Lambton, host of DIY Network'south Yard Crashers. For fit, attempt this test: Hold the blower at your side similar a suitcase. The nozzle should exist 2 to iii inches to a higher place the basis to avoid wrist or elbow strain.

D. Mulch Mode
Suck-and-grind settings may bleed a charge twice as fast as shooting air, says Munoz. And then buy a backup battery or blower that allows swap-ins from other tools. Bag capacity? Shoot for a bushel, max. Compressed leaves add weight fast, and only your yard should stop upward winded.

Our favorites:Black+Decker LSWV36, $150 (for a small yard), Greenworks Digipro M-MAX, $350 (for major acreage)

Learn the Smartest Way to Rake Leaves

Your usual method may be to make several piles to divide into backyard bags, merely that wastes fourth dimension, says former NASA engineer Marking Rober, who hosts his ain Science and Creativity channelon Youtube.You're retracing steps over areas you've already cleared!

Instead, kickoff at one side of the yard and work your way to the other in a zigzag design. As you lot move downward your first cavalcade of lawn, rake the leaves sideways into the withal-leafage-strewn zone you lot've yet to uncover.

Then turn the corner, moving back into that at present-slightly-more-congested area. Now rake your little ridge of refuse over a few feet more than, opening up backyard infinite.

Repeat until the long strip of pushed-over leaves is tough to motility, or about 2 anxiety high. Scoop the big berm into bags and restart your sweep system.

For a 3-bag job, this is 1.three times as fast equally making mounds. For a five-bagger, information technology's 1.6 times every bit fast. So if the chore once took 45 minutes, it'll be done in less than 30. The hard work is in the bag.

(And remember, find a cool hack for everything inThe Big Volume of Uncommon Noesis.)

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