Finish Your Fall Chores Faster With The Best Leaf Blowers

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We love watching the foliage transform from green to brilliant gold and yellow every fall. But after that peaceful moment when the leaves turn, it’s time to get to work. You can gather the leaves on your lawn with a rake, but that takes awhile and involves a lot of effort. Alternatively, you can make your life a lot easier and invest in a good leaf blower.

These powerful lawn machines can produce wind speeds upwards of 200 mph, giving you the power to herd all those leaves into a pile so you can run them through a mulcher, or pack them up and put them on the curb for pick-up. There are relatively quiet, low-maintenance electric handheld blowers that make it easy to clear debris off paved surfaces and clean up smaller yards with light tree cover.

For larger leaf-clearing efforts, powerful (but higher maintenance) gas-powered handheld and backpack leaf blowers can turn an ankle-high layer of leaves into a giant pile before you know it. After putting the latest and greatest models through a rigorous series of tests year after year to find the best leaf blowers, these are our recommendations.

The Best Leaf Blowers

• Best Overall: Stihl BR800 C-E Magnum Gas-Engine Backpack Leaf Blower

• Best Electric: DeWalt DCBL772X1 60V Max Flexvolt Electric Handheld Leaf Blower
  Best Value Electric: Ryobi RY40440 40-Volt Whisper Series Electric Backpack Leaf Blower

• Best Value Gas: Husqvarna 125BVx Gas-Engine Leaf Blower

• Best for Pro Duty: Echo PB-7910T X Series Gas-Engine Leaf Blower

What to Consider in a Leaf Blower

Gas Vs. Electric

Battery powered cordless electric leaf blowers make clearing leaves as convenient as possible. They’re easy to operate, with a simple power switch to turn on and off. Their motors run more quietly than a gas engine, and don’t produce exhaust, so you won’t smell like burnt fuel after the job’s done.

That said, electric motors are generally less powerful than gas engines, so an electric leaf blower won’t get the same level of power as a gas-powered option. Additionally, the air output of a cordless blower sometimes declines as the battery loses charge, preserving run time at the expense of leaf moving power. Lastly, run time can also be an issue for extended leaf-blowing sessions: You may require more than one battery to get the job done, and recharging can take time. (Though you can always buy a spare.)

A gas-powered leaf blower sacrifices those conveniences for the sake of wind speed. They run longer than their electric counterparts, and can be refueled instantly. The thicker and wetter your leaf cover, and the more debris–twigs, conifer needles, and nuts–gathers among it, which in turn requires more power to move. In such cases, gas machines have the leg up in terms of power and can peel up wet leaves and push them farther—and from farther away.

But while gas engines give your leaf blower more blowing power, they also require more maintenance. You’ll need to clean the air filter regularly to keep the engine running smoothly and add fuel stabilizer to prevent the gas from going stale if you don’t plan on using it for a couple of months. Gas blowers also produce exhaust fumes, and they’re much louder than their battery-powered counterparts.

Although we don’t review them here, a gas-powered walk-behind leaf blower is the best tool for clearing really large properties, such as a half acre of lawn or a big parking lot.

So which one do you need at home? We’d recommend going for a cordless electric leaf blower to clear light-to-moderate leaf fall from the average quarter-acre yard, or if you primarily use your blower to clear off patios and clean out garages. If you expect a thicker blanket of leaves, or have a large yard that takes time to clear, then you’ll need the power and longer running time of a gas leaf blower.

Backpack Vs. Handheld

Along with fuel type, leaf blowers also come in two different forms–handheld leaf blowers fit the entire leaf blowing apparatus in a handheld unit you can carry, and larger backpack leaf blowers that offload the blower’s engine or motor into a large backpack. As with choosing between electric and gas, picking between the two is a balancing act between convenience and power, while managing price: Handheld models tend to be more nimble and affordable, while pricier backpack leaf blowers offer more leaf-clearing power. That said, Manufacturers make both types with electric motors and gas engines.

Handheld leaf blowers are the more compact and affordable option. They often lack the air speed and volume you need to clear heavy, debris-laden foliage from larger areas, but work well for lighter loads, like clearing paved surfaces. Their unibody design also makes them more maneuverable, so they work especially well for clearing corners and other tight spaces.

By contrast, backpack leaf blowers deliver more power, which frees up your time to focus in on deeper leaf piles, wet leaves, or even leaves that are semi-frozen. Most are designed with the engine or battery on your back and a tube for channeling the blower that wraps around to your arm. That makes them more comfortable for longer jobs: It’s easier to shoulder the weight of the electric motor or gas engine on your back, rather than carry it with your arm. They also usually have pistol-grip-style triggers attached to the blower tube that lets you stop blowing leaves to move a gas grill or yard furniture out of the way without having to set the blower down. Of course, having a large backpack makes these blowers harder to store, and they’re much more expensive.

Air Speed and Volume

Air speed, measured in miles per hour (mph), indicates how strong an air stream your blower can generate. Blowers with a higher air speed will push leaves farther. Air volume, measured in cubic feet per minute (cfm), tells you how much air the stream moves. With more volume, your blower will push more leaves.

So which is more important, air speed or air volume? You need both, because they work together. Being able to move a lot of leaves is an advantage, but it doesn’t matter that much if you can’t move them very far. Likewise, being able to move leaves far is great, but you’ll spend clearing your yard if you can only move a small amount at one time.

That said, if you’re specifically looking for a small handheld to clear leaves off of a small patio each morning, you can get away with prioritizing air speed.

Why Trust Us?

Since its inception in 1902, Popular Mechanics has offered tips and advice on home improvement, technology and virtually every kind of DIY topic. We’ve also spent decades testing tools and gear, making us a go-to source of advice for the most important equipment you use to get things done, from lawn mowers and snowblowers, to chainsaws and garden hoses.

Our largest, most important testing projects are handled by the Popular Mechanics test team, which designed specialized testing regimens to find the best gear. The test editors are long-time tool users and reviewers, journalists, former bike and auto mechanics, and ever-curious DIYers. Together, they have tested hundreds of tools and yard machines, giving them unparalleled insight into what’s a quality product and what isn’t.

In addition to the test team, this guide has been updated by Tom Price, an Associate reviews editor at Popular Mechanics; and Tony Carrick a freelancer specializing in home improvement equipment.

All of the products were carefully selected by our test team. Most of them went through a rigorous testing process. Those we haven’t tested were vetted through extensive research that involved comparing specifications and poring over customer reviews.

How We Selected The Best Leaf Blowers

All of the products in this guide were recommended by the Popular Mechanics test team. Most of them, including the Stihl BR800 C-E Magnum and the DeWalt DCBL772X1, were selected based on real-world use-testing and their performance in an extensive battery of performance tests, which were designed to help us better understand and evaluate these machines.

We marked out a 6- by 14-foot trapezoid of pavement to run a sawdust erosion test. We covered the pavement with a thin layer of sawdust and lowered a blower’s tube parallel to the surface for just a second, blasting away the area where the air is most turbulent. The result showed the shape of the leaf blower’s effective area, as well as its length and width.

Next, we marked out a 6- by 12-foot rectangle of grass and timed how long it took to clear the area. To measure the run time for battery leaf blowers on their highest settings, we built custom timers. Then, we strapped each leaf blower into the apparatus and tested the batteries longevity with the machine running nonstop.

We also constructed an instrument using an MGL Avionics Stratomaster Vega air speed indicator (called an anemometer). The anemometer measures a blower’s air speed 6 inches from the tip of the tube. Finally, we took sound-level readings at the operator’s position and from 75 feet away—for the sake of your neighbors.

In addition to the leaf blowers we’ve tested, some of the test team’s recommendations are based on reviewing the leaf blowers’ specifications and features. One of our picks, the CAT DG651, hasn’t been tested in person yet. We picked it based on its estimated blowing power, run time, and price. We also checked customer reviews for all of our picks, tested and untested, for additional insights into long-term wear and performance.

Our Full Leaf Blower Reviews

There’s a reason you’ll find the Stihl BR800 C-E Magnum leaf blower in the arsenal of many professional yard maintenance crews. It packs serious power, blowing air at speeds approaching 200 mph. That’s more than enough power to blast a thick carpet of leaves across any yard. In fact, we found that it could slide a 4.5 pound brick across a driveway.

Along with massive power, the BR800 offers lots of user-friendly features, including an ergonomic harness that helps distribute its hefty 26-pound weight, an anti-vibration system, and a handle that puts all the blower controls in the palm of your hand.

Though it features a recoil rope to start, it’s easy to get the blower going thanks to Stihl’s spring-loaded “Easy2Start” mechanism, which reduces the amount of force needed to get it running. Plus, the recoil is positioned such that you can reach and pull the rope with the pack already on your back.

The Stihl BR800 C-E Magnum is made and priced for pros, but it’s a worthy investment if you find yourself swimming in leaves year after year.

With just over 12 minutes of run time, the DeWalt DCBL772X1 isn’t going to help you clear leaves from a large area. That said, its ability to reach air speeds of more than 100 mph over a broad area makes it one of the most powerful electric leaf blowers we’ve seen. It’s also lightweight, so it’s easy to wield, and built to take a beating with a large oversized skid plate on the base.

Because of the limited run time, it’s best suited for small jobs, like blasting pockets of leaves out of tighter corners of your yard, cleaning dirt and sawdust out of a garage, or blowing debris off a deck or a porch. That said, if you’ve already invested in the DeWalt universe of power tools and have a few spare batteries, you may have enough power on hand to move some leaves.

Ryobi’s 40-volt backpack leaf blower is a powerful battery-operated machine that falls on the affordable side of the price spectrum. It produced wind speeds of nearly 130 miles per hour during testing, with a symmetrical air flow that efficiently moves leaves and debris. Its 47-minute run time gives you enough juice to clear and collect leaves from across a standard quarter-acre yard.

At 87 decibels, it’s also one of the quieter leaf blowers you can strap to your back (though you should still wear hearing protection when you use it). The harness is amply padded, with straps that allow you to get a comfortable fit on your back, though we took some issue with the length of the blower tube and a difficult to operate cruise control level. Gripes aside, though, this is a great price for a strong backpack leaf blower.

The Husqvarna 125BVx offers tremendous performance for a handheld leaf blower at this price point. It didn’t produce a top-ranking air speed in our tests, but made up for it with overwhelming air volume to clear leaves nearly as fast as pricer handheld gas handheld blowers we tested.

The 125BVx has several user-friendly features. A handle positioned in line with the blower tube reduces the pressure on your wrist from blower recoil as the force of the air pushes back against you. Similar to other Husqvarna gas leaf blowers, it features the brand’s easy-pulling SmartStart starter. Plus, it comes with a kit that allows it to double as a leaf vacuum. Relatively cheap with professional-grade build quality, the 125BVx may offer more bang for your buck than any other leaf blower.

You’d be hard pressed to find a leaf blower with more raw power than the Echo PB-7910T. It earned a place in our 2024 Yard and Garden Awards for producing air speeds approaching 200 mph with a volume of 785 CFM. That’s powerful enough to blast away thick clumps of wet leaves that most blowers couldn’t. And while its price tag is comparable with that pro-grade power, other brands will charge more for less effective machines.

Echo also gets points for pairing power with comfort. An adjustable harness with ample padding and a vented back frame help to make its hefty 26-pound weight manageable on long jobs. There’s also a discharge tube and controls you can adjust to suit your size. It’s a heavy duty blower, so it comes with a heavy duty price tag, but you will get what you pay for.

While the test team usually prefers backpack leaf blowers to handhelds, the Stihl BGA 60 made a strong impression during our 2024 Yard and Garden Awards testing. With a manufacturer-listed max air speed of 154 mph, we found it was powerful enough to rapidly move leaf piles that would normally require a gas-powered blower. We also liked the extendable nozzle, which allowed us to peel matted down wet leaves off payment with relative ease.

The BGA 60 is a joy to operate. It runs at a very quiet 56 decibels, weighs a scant 8 pounds, and doesn’t produce the hand-numbing vibration you get from comparably powerful gas-powered handheld blowers. Its short run time–about 15 minutes–puts a cap on how much ground it can cover, but if trees drop a lot of debris in your relatively compact yard, this is the quickest, most comfortable way to clean it up.

The CAT DG651 weighs just 11.3 pounds, including the battery, making it one of the lighter handheld leaf blowers you can buy. It features an adjustable nozzle, which you can move forward or back to change the diameter of the airstream. Pull it back to go wide and move a broad swath of leaves, or push it forward to concentrate the stream into a narrow blast that can move large piles and heavy debris. That concentrated blast can reach a manufacturer-estimated maximum airspeed of 170 mph, which is faster than the already impressive Stihl BGA 60.

Its 60-volt, 5.0Ah battery and brushless motor also boast a far longer run time than most battery-powered leaf blowers, granting you nearly two hours of run time on a single charge. With its long run time and powerful output, the CAT DG651 is a rare cordless model that can take on large jobs.

If you hate the ear-splitting whine that comes out of most leaf blowers, consider the “whisper”-quiet Ryobi PBLLBO1K. Even at max speed, it only gets up to low hum, which both you and your neighbors will appreciate. It only weighs 5 pounds without the battery, so it’s very easy to handle comfortably for the full length of its one-hour run time.

That said, its limited air speed and volume mean it's only suitable for light duty jobs. In our Yard and Garden Awards testing, we found it worked well for clearing leaves and dirt from patios, walks, and other paved areas or for chasing leaves out of gardens and landscaping. Anything more than that, though, and we recommend seeking out something more powerful.

Leaf Blower FAQs, Answered by Our Experts

How do you maintain a leaf blower?

That depends on whether you have a gas or electric leaf blower. Electric models require very little maintenance. Simply wipe off the leaf blower periodically and make sure there’s no debris blocking the air intake vent.

With a gas blower, you need to put in a little more work. Remove and clean the air filter after every 10 hours of use. If you plan on putting the blower in storage for more than 60 days, add fuel stabilizer to the tank to prevent the gas from going bad.

Are gas-powered leaf blowers banned in some states?

Some cities have banned gas-powered leaf blowers over their disruptive noise pollution and environmental impact. Earlier this year, the state of California banned the sale of gas-powered yard machines, including leaf blowers. Some cities, such as Washington D.C. and Burlington, VT have banned the use of gas-powered leaf blowers outright. Still more, such as Portland, OR, have passed a ban, though it won’t fully kick in year-round for residents until 2028.

With more and more cities and states considering banning gas-powered blowers, we highly recommend checking to see if your city or state has banned or may be planning to phase out gas-powered yard machines before purchasing one.

Beyond moving leaves, what else can I do with my leaf blower?

You can use a leaf blower for a variety of jobs that have nothing to do with leaves. It’s a great tool for clearing dirt, sawdust and other debris out of your garage or off your driveway. In a pinch, you can even use a powerful leaf blower as a makeshift snowblower.

Contributor Tony Carrick says he’s used a leaf blower to blow mulch back into landscaping beds after a heavy rain and blow standing water off his patio.

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