In article ,
"Ben Short" wrote:

I want to get one of these garden blowers, the ones that suck too. I intend
on doing the leaves in the garden but also down the side of the house there
is a tarmmac area where all the leaves and debris fall. If I were to put the
machine on suck to gather it all up, would the small stones from the tarmac
knacker the motor in the machine?...

I had the opportunity of having a go with one of these a few weeks ago:
I found it disappointingly weak on the sucking, but more importantly I
found the whole thing extremely bulky and awkward to handle. (Never
mind it being Yet Another Gizmo to find storage for.) So I was relieved
to be able to think "No, I do NOT need one of those!"

Without wishing to cause any offence Ben, I've always though garden vacs
to be a bit "anal" ... after all, outdoors is outdoors ... leaves 'n'
stuff is what it's all about.

Having said that ...

I use my pressure washer for blowing leaves off our (3/4") gravel: I use
the normal wide-angle fixing at high pressure, and I keep well back, so
that the main thing hitting them is the airwave: you can blow them into
piles. You need practice in order to avoid ricocheting gravel all over
the place,but it does work [well enough for me].

Cheers
John