It looks strange and it sucks... what more do you want ? (Flymo GardenVac 1500 Plus)

Member Name: blissman70

Product:	Flymo GardenVac 1500 Plus
Date:	24/09/09 (103 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, saves many man hours and nice price

Disadvantages: The strap can be a little uncomfortable when bag is filling

For all those people lucky enough to have a garden, but maybe unlucky enough for it to surrounded by deciduous trees, then you more than likely know just how depressingly horrible the thought of autumn can be, what with all that raking up of those soggy leaves which constantly flutter down onto your freshly cut lawn... I for one am amazed by how many leaves are actually on a tree as they seem to be falling but the trees take forever to look bare.
Anyway, keeping the discoloured fallen leaves off you grass seems like a constant battle between you, with your rake, and mother nature with her wicked sense of humour, and you know that the lady always wins in the end as she waits for you to finish raking those last few fallen leaves into a pile, then, with sudden gust of wind, she strips hundreds more leaves from the trees above your head, leaving you disheartened as you watch them fall gently to the ground.

But now, thanks to Mother Nature worst enemy, the boffins in the inventing labs have come up with some rather splendid tools to replace the hand blistering rake, one of them being a vacuum cleaner for the garden.

"What?" I here you shout in confusion, "a vacuum cleaner you can use in the garden? Surely using a vacuum cleaner outside will either get you electrocuted or get you locked up in one of those places with padded walls and jackets that zip up from behind"
But no, it's true, a vacuum cleaner that you use outside, in and around the garden, and apparently, they have been on the market for years now and have been improving in 'suckability' ever since.
And some of those vacuum cleaner actually blow as well... what ever next.??

Any how... I am one of those lucky people who has a garden, which I do like to spend time pampering, but unfortunately it is surrounded by those once a year leaf dropping wooden skeletons (trees), and for years I, together with my trusty rake, was stupid enough to continuously have that battle with Mother Nature and her leaf dropping weeks of fun. That was until I was introduced to one of the many 'Garden' Vacuum cleaners on the market... the one in question being from the well established Flymo range....

This rather strange looking and very bright orange device has saved me many many hours in raking time and has kept me from falling from the tree of sanity with my battle against the dreaded brown leaves from hell.


** What is this vacuum cleaner which can be used outside..?

* It has a small engine with a lot of power, being 2700w and an air speed of 212km/h
* It has a detachable collection bag which can hold up to 40 litres of debris such as leaves and small twigs, the contents having been turned into what can only be described as 'mush'
*It has a shredding ratio of 3 to 1, which means that for every 3 bins you would have normally filled then the contents from this bag will now fill one bin, basically mashing everything up into a third of its original volume.
* It has a cable length of 12 metres, which isn't the longest of cables but a good extension lead will soon overcome this little problem
* finally, it weighs in at around the 8 kilo mark, when the bag is empty of course, so is quite easy to manoeuvre around.

* Plus, it comes wit a very handy shoulder strap to take some support from the arms when the bag is filling up and adding those few extra kilos.

* And, it not only sucks but it actually blows as well so you can push any unwanted stuff onto your neighbours property instead, letting them deal with the myriads of leaves which are constantly falling. (Not that I ever do that to my neighbours, honestly).

** IN CONCLUSION...

What a god send these devices really are and how brilliantly designed this flymo version is, even if it look like a pelicans head with a deranged orange beak and a floppy gullet sack, but as your only intending to clean your garden, and not strut your stuff down a catwalk, then the looks shouldn't matter at all.

What used to take me a good hour and a bit, and many disgruntled words to the sky gods, now takes me a matter of ten, maybe fifteen minutes with the knowledge that Mother Nature can't blow the leaves I have collected all over the garden every few minutes.
It is so easy to use, with the sturdy black handle on the top giving you a great grip from above, allowing full manoeuvrability as the little nozzle skims just above the grass, picking up those leaves.

It states on the box which it came in that 'It is designed for use with wet and stubborn leaves', and believe me it certainly doesn't lie about that, in fact I was amazed just how easy it sucked up all the damp leaves around my garden, crunched them up into pulp and still left masses of room in the 40 litre bag for me to do some more. In fact I was tempted to offer my services to my neighbours, but soon changed my mind when the wife offered me a nice cup of tea.
It also states that it allows larger objects to pass through into the bag without damaging the 'blades' but I have not tested this theory out as yet so I couldn't really comment on that part, but when I suck up a hedgehog or a field mouse I will tell you the results.

As the leaves and stuff are pulverised into a gooey pulp as they make there way to the bag there is less need to keep emptying it, giving you more time to clear your garden. But even emptying the bag is as easy as taking off your coat, you simply unzip it and empty the contents into a bin, preferably a recycling bin, just to make it up to Mother Nature for ruining her leafy game.

The blowing part of this machine is just as impressive, although I tend not to use this as much as the 'sucker', and is very useful in case of blockages of some sort inside the long orange tube. It is a simple matter of shifting the black, gear like stick which lies just in front of the handle and the vacuum then becomes a blower, and vice versa.

So for those with a leaf covered garden, and a definite hatred of rakes, then this little orange genius is certainly for you, coming in at around the £60 region, but you will definitely feel that it is money well spent as you suck up all those gutter clogging, never ending leaves from your garden.

A couple of tiny negatives, (and I do mean tiny... as in miniscule)

* The supplied shoulder strap is a useful aid for those using this for lengthy times but it does have that digging in feeling as the bag becomes heavier, so I do recommend using some form of cushioning between the strap and your shoulder as nothing of that kind is supplied.
Plus...
* Flymo also offer the choice of optional wheel attachments for easier working, but these are at a bit of a hefty extra price.

Summary: A vacuum cleaned for out doors..??? what ever will they think of next?