Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect

Re:Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect by boringg on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @09:15AM (#46512516)

What I find interesting about this ban: probably mostly makes sense in the for city for low workloads however the electric blowers (even the good ones that I am sure the city isn't paying for) are underpowered for real work leaf workloads. They operate as a midlevel gas powered blower.

As someone who is on board with electrify as much as possible - I still see where there are limitations and chokepoints.

Though for noise pollution makes a lot of sense.

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Re:Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect by bryanlarsen on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @09:21AM (#46512593)

They shouldn't be underpowered. Small electric motors are way more powerful per mass/volume than small gas motors. You'd have to use a backpack mounted battery pack, but contractors are already doing that.

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Re:Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect by boringg on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @10:32AM (#46513550)

Have they started doing that? I haven't seen the backpack mounted version in use in the wild.

I haven't seen any electric blowers get to the same capability in the contractor market segment. Prosumer -- for sure no problems there.

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Re:Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect by bryanlarsen on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @11:30AM (#46514471)

Perhaps not. Businesses are way more conservative than consumers when adopting new tech, so there will be little demand at the beginning. And with little demand, there's little supply. Laws like the headline will break this chicken/egg problem.

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Re:Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect by quickthrowman on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @10:15AM (#46513306)

Leaf blowers with EC motors and backpack battery packs perform just as well as the gas versions.

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Re:Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect by iamnothere on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @05:15PM (#46519614)

Except that they require keeping lots of expensive extra batteries on hand—batteries with a limited lifespan—driving up overall operating costs. This is basically just a stealth tax on the already not very profitable landscaping industry.

Prices for landscaping services are already getting out of hand, at least in my area. This will make things worse.

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Re:Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect by joquarky on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @06:39PM (#46520504)

The more you have, the more you have to suffer from.

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Re:Portland's gas-powered leaf blower ban goes into effect by iamnothere on Tuesday January 06, 2026 @06:49PM (#46520597)

I guess I’m lucky I don’t have an HOA.

As usual, the very wealthy won’t care, and the middle class and small business owners will be crushed. I bet private equity will get some great deals on small landscaping companies.

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