I was asked to clean-up after a tree service company at a mobile home park – the vendor left a ****load of wood chips atop an awning attached to the home.
Perhaps you know the type – corrugated, no weight-bearing support, slight slope leading to an obstructed gutter.
The homeowner specified that they did not want the chips blown-off into their yard/garden. Besides, in my experience, the obstructed gutter doesn’t respond well to a blower – stuff typically gets caught/packed-in.
I picked up another Stihl product for my tool-kit to solve the problem: an SH 86 Easy2Start shredder vac. It’s a hand-held blower where one attaches an intake tube (there’s already a permanently attached impeller blade) and a collection bag (replacing the standard blower tube.)
Worked like a charm. I completed the job – from arriving to departing – of picking up >225 square feet of chips (and pine needles) covering the awning (that completely filled up two 45 gallon Rubbermaid Brute cans) in less than one hour, including ladder set-up to access the 10-foot high awning.
how much was it?..thats pretty cool…so it looks like it sucks up from where you hold it?..and shreds as it goes into the bag where the blower tube would be, correct?
Any problems with jamming or debris being too big lugging the motor? Im still confused as to the configuration with the intake…or do I have it backwards…which is entirely possible…
The intake tube serves as a vacuum; that is also where the impeller blade is located… There are two handles for one’s hands to hold the shredder vac.
There were times when I needed to feather my gathering of the chips (they were pretty thick in places.) No issues with small branches; I avoided greenish pine cones because they tend to just bounce around when they reach the blade.
The collection bag is actually where the blower tube would normally be located.
me likey…I have some roof top homes/gutter cleans where that would be perfect, is the draw tube narrow enough to suck the leaves out of gutters, or too wide and may get some but not all…
hmmm…ya know…maybe a slight mod to the suction tube, adding a narrower tube to get into the gutters…Stihl sells the tubes to put on their blowers, not sure of the id, but one end could be heated and flattened making it narrower as opposed to a smaller dia tube altogether…
I had asked a guy at a lawnmower shop about using a gas blower/vac for cleaning gutters he said that it would not work. Prove him wrong Larry, and let us know how things turn out.
I had the same idea about a mod with a Stihl accessory product; I even asked if there was a narrower intake tube prior to my purchase, but no…
Anyway, I brought the shredder vac to today’s gutter cleaning job. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the debris was composite shingle debris with a very steep roof pitch. I ended up using it as a blower atop a ladder.
The test as a direct vac will need to wait (for me at least.)
