I was - like many - a little skeptical when I seen this product, but decided to give it a try. Some context: I do have a full household of the sleep-all-day / turn-up-half-way-through-any-chore-and-offer-help adolescents, so its difficult to get help when it comes to things like raking and collecting leaves. I own two leaf blowers, a battery powered over the shoulder type as well as a B&D leaf hog. Both work well if you want to blow leaves into a big pile, or suck and mulch into a trash can (assuming you have the attachment). However: - if you're blowing leaves into piles you still have to scoop them into the trashbags, try getting that going on a slightly windy day. - if you're blowing leaves then mulching into a trash bag, on a dry day you'll get a LOT of dust from the shredding. So they kind of work, but they still have their disadvantages. The target yard is just over half an acre all told. One tree out front, three out back. All of course shedding leaves at slightly different times. I'll say 'average'. The lawn sweeper is easy enough to put together, some areas aren't too clear but nothing i couldn't work around. It does have a stopper on the front for raising and lowering the brush height, you might need to play with this a little to get what works for you. You can also play with the brush height a little as you push it round the yard to get the optimal height for scooping up the leaves. So I tried this on a lawn with a scattering of leaves, does work but it will pick up most leaves, but not all. Where it really comes into its own is with a denser coverage. However on really dense coverage you're likely to have to run a rake through to loosen up the leaves a little first. See the pictures for an idea of its effectiveness. It does fill up quite quickly and you'll find yourself reaching in to compress the leaves while you're going. One pass of the yard was enough to fill up the collection bag, but you're going to be stopping where the coverage gets denser, compressing the leaves, backtracking and pushing on. (I much prefer this minor inconvenience to stooping over and collecting leaves with a scoop) NOTE FOR MANUFACTURERS: a helpful design improvement for the collection bin would be a hinged flap with a cord or a pull-plate with a cord, to let the operator compress the leaves in the bag towards the back so you can collect more leaves in a single pass. Circling back to the product. Unloading the bag and tipping it into a trash bag works with the bigger backs and the medium sized ones. For the medium sized bags you'll see I take the collector out and hold it on its side and pull out the leaves by hand, which works just fine. But get yourself a bag stand to take the initial few deposits of leaves, then pull it out of the frame, compress and it'll be ready for a few more. Don't know if it makes sense for the manufacturer to provide one, but they might be missing out on an opportunity for a few more sales. Overall: - works well on medium coverage - collection bin can get filled easily, have to stop and compress - twigs will clog it, remove them first - unloading is straightforward, take out, tip it on its side above the bag and unload by hand. - will be defeated by dense coverage, loosen it up with a rake first to spread it out then collect it. - wet leaves are not your friend.. let them dry - use the adjustable stopper at the front if the holding height when operating isn't high or low enough All in all its a very good product that means one person can collect leaves (as long as you get a bag stand as well). I'm very happy with it and look forward to seeing some improvements in future versions, by which time I'll probably need a replacement or spare parts. A lot less stooping to load up oversized bags in the windy weather. No more dust from mulching. I can tackle the leaf-collection gradually on my own without much help. Its not for everyone, but if you can't afford a ride along mower with the leaf collector attachment and you have the same problems with leaf-collection that I do , this might be just the thing for you. Thanks guys!
