"Moe Jones" wrote in message
...
Bob F wrote:
"wgd" wrote in message
.net...
I do a lot of sweeping of my sidewalk and parking area in front of my
townhouse to remove leaves and other debris. In the fall I have to
repeatedly remove an accumulation of leaves from underneath the
outdoor condensor unit of my heat pump (an early 80's York
champion). The vacuum effect of the condensor fan sucks up every
leaf in range and plasters them beneath the condensor coil blocking
air flow through the coils.

Would a small wet/dry vac work well for this type of cleanup? They
are typically promoted for indoor shop use. But why couldn't you use
them outside (in dry weather of course). Home Depot has a 6 gallon
RIDGID unit model WD0635 for only $39.97. I'm thinking of picking
one up for this type of minor outdoor cleanup.

Has anyone used a wet/dry vac for this purpose? If so how well did it
work? Or is this a bad idea for some reason I'm not aware of?

Using it outdoors, but not in the rain, is no problem.

To suck up leaves, you will want the big (2"?) hose. You may find
that the leaves get sucked up against the inside hose wall and don't
always pass through easily or quickly, but it should do the job.

Bob

Would a leave blower work?

That was my first thought. I'm not really convinced you CAN suck leaves
through a small tube- my leaf blower works great as a blower, but when I
plugged it together in vacum mode, I found it would only pick up a dry leaf
or two at a time, and you had to shove the tube right down on it. After ten
minutes, I gave up and went back to blowing and a rake. Before I bought the
blower, I also tried using my shop vac as a blower- just didn't have the
oomph. One sucks well, the other blows well, and the overlap area where the
twain meet is rather small. Note that the tractor and truck mounted leaf
vacs have HUGE hoses, 6-8 inches and larger.

2nd benefit- I don't have a convenient place to keep a real snow blower (and
only need one 3-4 times a winter lately, knock on wood), but I find that for
dry snow less than 3-4 inches, the leaf blower does a good job of clearing
that, too. Not much faster than hand shoveling, but much easier on the back.
The neighbors point and laugh, but the hell with them. (With a flat
driveway, I would ignore light snowfalls and let the sun clear it, but with
the slope I have, if I don't clear it, I can't get back up it....) For the
fifty bucks I paid, I'm more than happy with the leaf blower.

I'd say an entry-level blower, plastic rake, pushbroom and scoop shovel,
would be the toolkit of choice for OP. I also got a nice wheelbarrow/garden
cart, but OP said townhouse, so I presume he has nowhere to dump leaves
other than trash can or communal dumspter. I have a back corner by the
fenceline where I pile the leaves and branches, to create a place for the
small animals to set up housekeeping over the winter.

aem sends...