I am curious about this dumping issue I have seen about Trac Vacs. I wonder if they changed the design at some point.
Dunno .....
I have a very old model 560 and I just remove the blower hose, remove the back door and tilt the trailer. Then I either back up to push the leaves over the hill and pull forward and the leaves just slide right out. Leaves a kinda tapered square bale of leaves. Never had to drag or dig them out even a little wet.
Green - and therefore very wet/moist (and heavy) -
grass is generally more of a problem than are leaves ..... all the individual cut blades become intertwined and matted - and it's worse the longer the grass is ....
Occasionally, for one reason or another, my lawn won't get cut regularly .... this year was one of those times .... it didn't get cut for
the first time until sometime around
the beginning of June .... it was close to 3' tall :confused2:
Ease of dumping isn't a very big issue if, when you are using your TracVac, you only have to empty it
once when you mow your yard .....
I mow probably around 4 or 5 acres ...... at 3' tall, I think I stopped counting and keeping track after emptying the 15th load or so ....
One thing I did do was make the initial cut as tall as I could, without using the TracVac, and then let the grass dry for 8 to 12 hours in the sun, before running over it again, cutting lower and picking it up with the TracVac - that probably reduced the weight of the loads by at least 50%.
On mine, which is one of the largest ones (model 1080 I think) there just isn't enough angle to get the thing to dump
easily ......
I think it's largely a matter of poor design on the part of Palmor Products (makers of the TracVac) - they probably figure that the majority of their customers will only be dumping the unit once or twice per mowing, or just using it occasionally - like for fall leaf pickup ....
so they can get away with not coming up with something better ...
The units are certainly not commercial grade equipment - homeowner quality at best ..... and depending on your home, maybe not even that ....