Blower Me.

TreeSmithAK

TreeSmithAK

New member
Location
Alaska
New gig this spring/summer, show up to work first day & get handed a Ryobi rechargeable hand held leaf blower. Cute I thought, a little something to blow out my pockets at the end of a work day. Now where's the one I use to clean up the jobsite? 4 months, tennis elbow from holding that 5lb brick of a hair dryer in my hand cursing the boss for not hearing what I mean about a blower being an important tool in residential tree care.

This morning, snagged up my landlords brand new Stihl BG600 & brought it to work today while the boss was there the whole day too. Him watching what would have taken 33 minutes of raking turn into 1.5 minutes of me tidying up while dragging on a smoke. Then telling him wait til he sees how fast it can blow a foot of fresh powdery snow off a walkway right quick.

My BG600 will be here Friday.
 
BR600 - great piece of equipment.
It takes velocity to pick up debris; then Volume to move it.
BR600 - 199 mph; 677 cjm
BR700 - 165 mph; 912 cfm
 
As much as I like the power of a backpack over handheld, I won’t buy a backpack blower due to employees donning them and spending too much time playing Peter Venkman on the jobsite. Blowing at a pile of sticks not moving anywhere when they could just pick the goddamn pile up.
 
Gorman said:
As much as I like the power of a backpack over handheld, I won’t buy a backpack blower due to employees donning them and spending too much time playing Peter Venkman on the jobsite. Blowing at a pile of sticks not moving anywhere when they could just pick the goddamn pile up.
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the only thing worse than using a rake when a blower is better, is using a blower when a rake is better. Much like planting a small tree where a big one is best is worse than planting a big one where a small one is best.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk
 
Gorman said:
As much as I like the power of a backpack over handheld, I won’t buy a backpack blower due to employees donning them and spending too much time playing Peter Venkman on the jobsite. Blowing at a pile of sticks not moving anywhere when they could just pick the goddamn pile up.
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That has always been a "thing" for my crews too... crew members that run to grab the blower when there is still chippable material piles scattered everywhere... but I've always used that as a gauge of if that's a good person to keep on a crew or not... it's a clear indicator that if there is ever an easy task, that is the type of person who is going to seek that path of least resistance quickly, and screw the other crew members with the heavier lifting. Priming a blower motor while others are dragging limbs still is a damn near fireable offense on my crews. :) But to me its also kind of the climbers/foreman role to show the greenies the whole process of reduction of mass in the materials we're working with.... from stacking limbs to drag, to tarping the twiggy stuff to when the blower gets put to use..... because there certainly is that definitive point where raking becomes a waste of labor & high volume air makes short work of finishing up a work zone. And since it's been more decades than I'd like to admit since I was that greenie, its usually me fetching the blower from the truck anyway... cuz I've earned Venkman status & been the one in the saddle all day!

I've always held the notion that regardless of how professional job I do, no matter how difficult a job is or how perfectly we do a prune or safely disassemble a tree, the only thing the clients truly notice is is they see any signs of us as we pull away from their curb at the end of the day.. which puts a good blower as a top tool in residential tree care in my opinion...

And by the way, thanks for making me google Peter Venkman.. damn nearly pissed coffee out my nose when the google result came back lololol....
 
TreeSmithAK said:
Show up to work first day & get handed a Ryobi rechargeable hand held leaf blower.
Hahahahahaa! That's fucking hilarious! Oh God.. i can see it now. I tell ya, been there done that man.. Some ppl just don't understand mechanicals..

After playing that game for the first few days when i joined the industry, I decided from there on out I was going to bring my own shit with me & keep it "On Deck/Standby''.. There nothing like having to work harder because of penny pinchers, mechanical ignorance, or not having the right tools to do the job.
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Sgfinco said:
Only thing better than a good blower is 4 good blowers. I work with a company that essentially doesn't rake, 4 blowers working together cleans up fast.
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Welcome to the buzz, Sam!

Guys, we have a crack pruner in our midst. I'm excited.
 
Sgfinco said:
Thanks @colb crack pruner?
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I have seen no better structural whole crown reductions and retrenchments than yours on IG. You get it done at a high standard, over and over, with photos and vids to prove it. I'm not typically effusive, but sometimes I just have to call it like it is. Ask your boss for a raise, man.
 
colb said:
I have seen no better structural whole crown reductions and retrenchments than yours on IG. You get it done at a high standard, over and over, with photos and vids to prove it. I'm not typically effusive, but sometimes I just have to call it like it is. Ask your boss for a raise, man.
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Well thanks man! I love high end pruning. I'll ask the boss but he's a real pain, probably just tell me to work harder. (The boss is me for the majority of my pruning work) I've made the switch to self employment and a lot of contract climbing.
 
I try to explain it to new guys as the hierarchy of tool types. Each tool is associated with a size of debris.
Start with dragging / carrying piles.
If there are still sticks big enough to carry, keep carrying
Once it’s more efficient to haul out small sticks with buckets or tarps, start raking. Keep raking until all the rakeable bits are gone.
Then finally pick up the blower when it becomes the most efficient tool ; try and time it so the when the blowing ends, the whole jobsite is done and no one is standing around waiting

Ps I don’t think I could ever work without a backpack blower


TreeSmithAK said:
New gig this spring/summer, show up to work first day & get handed a Ryobi rechargeable hand held leaf blower. Cute I thought, a little something to blow out my pockets at the end of a work day. Now where's the one I use to clean up the jobsite? 4 months, tennis elbow from holding that 5lb brick of a hair dryer in my hand cursing the boss for not hearing what I mean about a blower being an important tool in residential tree care.

This morning, snagged up my landlords brand new Stihl BG600 & brought it to work today while the boss was there the whole day too. Him watching what would have taken 33 minutes of raking turn into 1.5 minutes of me tidying up while dragging on a smoke. Then telling him wait til he sees how fast it can blow a foot of fresh powdery snow off a walkway right quick.

My BG600 will be here Friday.
Click to expand...
 
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