Founded in 2008. The Landscape Juice Network (LJN) is the largest and fastest growing professional landscaping and horticultural association in the United Kingdom.
LJN's professional business forum is unrivalled and open to anyone within within the UK landscape industry
LJN's Business Objectives Group (BOG) is for any Pro serious about building their business.
For the researching visitor there's a wealth of landscaping ideas, garden design ideas, lawn advice tips and advice about garden maintenance.
Replies
hi tony, i am a big fan of the stihl battery kit myself and have the BGA100 blower, which is a good machine and quiet in operation, but in day to day use I find the Ego 5800 blower has the edge on power and am not tied to a power cable with the Ego, so in practice the Stihl rarely gets used
the backpack battery pack will set you back £600=£800 so you want to be using it a lot
There is a holster available for the AP batteries with a cable attached, with a belt and harness, which allows you to utilise your existing battery packs, costs about 170 for the full item. In fact i have just ordered one, mainly for use with my HSA94T hedge trimmer as i find the back pack cumbersome when squeezing behind sheds etc to trim a hedge. And tend to keep taking it off when doing a bit of clearing up etc. But if was using the BGA100 blower for a long period eg. clearing a large garden of leaves the back pack would be better as all battery blowers use a lot more power than hedge trimmers, so on full blast you would soon deplete an AP300 battery, in the holster. The HSA94 is amazing by the way, quite an advance on the HSA86 hedge trimmer, but the HSA86 still gets used for certain jobs, or parts of jobs.
Hi Tony
The BGA 100 is not nearly as powerful as a BR600 backpack blower and it uses battery fast. I had one until it got stolen and haven't bothered to replace it because the BR600 it so much more useful. If I was getting another blower the BR800 would probably be first on my list.
Cheers Jim
Depends what application you need the blower for really. If it's just bits and bobs of clearing up on a domestic/small commercial premises then a good self contained battery one wins hands down for me. mainly due to rapid deployment, relative quietness, minimal running cost and ease of use. If it's for dedicated clearance of a park full of leaves for example then a top of the range backpack petrol one might be better. Horses for courses.
I've got the br700. Fantastic power. Very loud. Everytime you use it a client comes to talk to you and you have to shut it off . And then take it off to restart it. Pain in the .... The br800 had a side pull si you can stay out on your back. Brilliant. I also run the bga100 with a back pack battery. Love it. Only 140mph air speed vs 190mph for the petrol boot it is quiet and easy. With the gran nozzle which I don't have yet it should have more punch. I do only ever use it on boost. Well 99.9%of the time. As a result it does suck the battery. I would expect my ar3000 battery to go from full to empty on 2-2.5hrs. That's about the same as strimming thick heavy grass.
Like others have said for a quick clear up go battery. For shifting mountains of leaves off parkland go petrol. That's why I carry both :-)
Thanks for the replies, guys. Difficult choice really. I'll probably go with the backpack battery and BGA100 as I need the backpack for the other stihl gear I'm accumulating. I was hoping for the (probably impossible) scenario of having the equivalent of a petrol backpack blower. I've always got by with my petrol Stihl86 and it's only at leaf fall times I would want the extra power. I'm probably getting swayed by all the toys that were on show at Saltex!