How to justify the cost of a Cyclone Rake?

[texas42]

Leaf cover is just too thick
Tried that - killed grass
It's hard to pickup a third of the leaves

 

[coobie]

How about this instead?They can be found on craigs list used for around $400 bucks plus they come in handy for many other things.

 

[IXLR8]

I have one, use it once or twice per year to pick up the leaves. I also use it several other times during the year when the grass just grows too fast between mowings and I end up with large clumps of grass around the lawn. Wife likes the leaves and the grass in her compost pile. Except for spring grass that is full of dandelions. I prefer to leave the grass clippings on the lawn for mulch/fertilizer, but sometimes the grass just gets too long and it needs to be collected. I mow/clean up about 1.25 acres. It seems well made, you need to cut and fit some pieces for your mower as what they send is a bit generic. I really didn't want to spend that much money, but after raking my lawn once or twice... suddenly it seamed cheap. Made my life much easier. It took my cleanup from 8-10 hrs to 2 hrs.

 

[Baby Grand]

We have an older CR that we inherited from my MIL. It works great. We use it several times throughout the year. Different trees drop their leaves at different times, so 2 or 3 times to get all the leaves in the Fall. We also use it in the Summer to pick up some of the clippings left by the brush hog. We use the leaf mulch on top of the garlic rows over the Winter. The field clippings go in and between the vegetable rows in the Summer and do a great job of reducing the need to weed. Shades our clay heavy soil so it doesn't bake into a brick, reduces water needed to irrigate and what weeds do sprout are much more loosely rooted & easier to pull out. After the garlic and veggies are done it all gets tilled under and the soil is slowly improving from the added organic material.

 

[/pine]

Quit fretting about the cost and just get the CR and a new log splitter...JMO...

 

[TXChinook]

How about this instead?

Is that a HANDLE on this thing? Seriously, great looking blower but kind of the opposite of the tool we need... that probably was your point

 

[TXChinook]

Made my life much easier. It took my cleanup from 8-10 hrs to 2 hrs.

You must have enough storage space to keep your CR assembled between uses. I would need to add a shed for that. Would your life still be much easier if you had to disassemble / reassemble for each use... or does the 2 hours include that effort? Thanks

 

[KennyG]

OK, I bought my Cyclone Rake last fall. As others have mentioned I wish I had done it years ago. I have 4 acres, about half lawn. Raking, picking up, composting in a leaf shredder basically took 2 to 4 weekends of hard work. This year I spent a couple of days of relatively easy work, shredding the leaves with the gator blades on the mower as I picked them up. My estimate is I picked up about 5000 gallons of leaves with no sore muscles.

You may say 1 day a year, but you will also probably use it for spring cleanup, especially if you get the manual pickup tube.

As far as storage, I have room in the pole barn to park mine between uses, but for the winter it's hanging on the wall. After you do it the first time, storing it is a 10 or 15 minute job, maximum. I looked at other collectors and concluded the big advantage of the cyclone rake is the storage space required and the quality of build. I am very impressed by the design and construction.

 

[IXLR8]

You must have enough storage space to keep your CR assembled between uses. I would need to add a shed for that. Would your life still be much easier if you had to disassemble / reassemble for each use... or does the 2 hours include that effort? Thanks

No shed to store it in, I store it in pieces throughout my shop. Takes me less than 20 minutes to gather everything up, put it together, unfold it and have it running, less if I get help from my wife. Breaking it down and storing takes about 15 minutes, again, less if the wife helps.

 

[two_bit_score]

OK, I bought my Cyclone Rake last fall. As others have mentioned I wish I had done it years ago. I have 4 acres, about half lawn. Raking, picking up, composting in a leaf shredder basically took 2 to 4 weekends of hard work. This year I spent a couple of days of relatively easy work, shredding the leaves with the gator blades on the mower as I picked them up. My estimate is I picked up about 5000 gallons of leaves with no sore muscles.

You may say 1 day a year, but you will also probably use it for spring cleanup, especially if you get the manual pickup tube.

As far as storage, I have room in the pole barn to park mine between uses, but for the winter it's hanging on the wall. After you do it the first time, storing it is a 10 or 15 minute job, maximum. I looked at other collectors and concluded the big advantage of the cyclone rake is the storage space required and the quality of build. I am very impressed by the design and construction.

Thanks for your comment on the manual pick up tube. I would like to hear more about your use/experience with that if you care to share it.

I have some areas where I get a lot of leaves but cannot be mowed.