Leaf it to me
Posted by jimNov 16
As I mentioned a little while ago, it’s leaf season again. My sweeper came in on Friday - I got the smallest one that Cyclone Rake had and so far it’s a good system. I made a mistake in my ordering, though. I decided to order a custom-made adaptor to fit my mower from another company. Mistake.
They were very helpful and knowledgeable, but I’ve dealt with companies like this before. They’re engineers and technical types and they assume you are too. Everything they sell or create is made to higher-than-necessary standards (I have relatives like this too) of better quality steel, it’s thicker, it exceeds ANSI and ISO standards that aren’t even official ones yet, etc., and fully capable of holding off Godzilla and Mothra both in a pinch. However, they all seem to have customer skills slightly lower than computer programmers, that is to say, none. The parts (there were two) arrived in a box (unpadded, they’re so sturdy it wasn’t necessary, of course), with absolutely no instructions whatsoever. Zip, Zero, Nada.
The sweeper, on the other hand, came in eight separate boxes. Each one was conspicuously labeled with what was in it and one was labeled “Instructions.” It had a small three-ring binder in there with a tool kit containing everything you’d need to put the sweeper together (except a drill and a hammer) and the most complete, well-detailed, and almost flawless set of instructions (there was a DVD as well). Everything went together like it was supposed to with no glitches. Until I got to the part where I attach my (more expensive) custom-made super-high quality mower adaptor. It was supremely well-made, just not well-made for my mower. It wouldn’t fit even with three rolls of duct tape.
However, I’d ordered an extension hose with the sweeper that allows you to reach under bushes and in flower beds and other places the mower can’t go. So I spent the remainder of my weekend using the mower to move and shred leaves, blowing them into piles about 15′ in diameter around the back yard. Then I’d hook up the sweeper and hand vacuum the leaves up and go dump them. The sweeper holds 200 gallons of leaves. I filled it and emptied it a dozen times (2400 gallons) but didn’t finish the back yard. I’ve returned the adaptor that didn’t fit and ordered one that does. Next week, I’ll be sweeping up leaves the way nature intended.
So to sum it up, good customer service from Cyclone Rake and bad from Trac-Vac.
5 comments
Comment by democommie on November 17, 2009 at 8:28 am
jim:
Were the assemble piles of leafy detritus EXACTLY 15″ in diameter? Were they within one standard deviation of that measurement? How tall were they? Is that 2400 bushels of leafy detritus tightly compacted or loosely compacted? Do you have an analysis of what, precisely, said leafy detritus was composed of? And, finally, is said leafy detritus going to be naturally composted or energetically oxidized?
I’ll think of more questions, later
Comment by jim on November 17, 2009 at 8:52 am
Naah, they weren’t 15′ (well maybe one was close) but the hose is 17′ long plus it has a hard extension nozzle. They were tightly compacted, about half-shredded and half whole. If it had all been shredded I might think about composting them and adding grass clippings in the spring, but right now I have a pile of leaves in a pile about 30′ in diameter and ranging from 1′ to 3′ tall to deal with. Some are from last year, but most this year. If the wind ever dies down, we’ll probably burn them.
Comment by democommie on November 18, 2009 at 7:43 am
jim:
Another feature of living in the dountry, you can burn your leaves and brush. Up here in Central NY outdoor burning is prohibited in most municipalities and even a lot of rural areas. There were a few too many fires that got away from their owners and wound up burning stuff folks would rather they hadn’t. There were also instances of folks going out and throwing tires and oil soaked pallets and the like on “yard waste”. The FD frowns on that sort of thing.
Comment by JimF on November 20, 2009 at 2:39 pm
jim – how can you plan such an attack on the environment? Can you imagine how much carbon you will be releasing into the atmosphere if you burn those leaves?
Comment by jim on November 20, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Both our cars are ultra low emission vehicles so even if I burn the leaves- and that’s no sure thing here there’s too much wind usually-I figure I’m still polluting less than somebody in an SUV.