Okay first off I'm not compensated in any way to write reviews. I'm not given any free products. I'm just a guy who was sitting on his couch not looking forward to a huge leaf raking job that I needed to do when this infomercial came on the TV. And I thought. . . .this might make my life a bit easier. So i purchased this Trivac. I have been a mechanical engineer for 20 years so I'm mechanical inclined but not a pro tool reviewer by any means.
It's an okay purchase. Not great, but okay. It does everything it's suppose to do.
It came in today and I put it to work right away. Took me 2 minutes to assemble and I was ready to go. So here's what I found
1. The blower works like any other leaf blower. Not stronger, just average. Check the power setting when it arrives as the blower power is adjustable. It arrives at the lowest setting. People who are claiming the blower is terrible probably did not switch it from the low power to full power. It works decent.
2. The vacuum setting works a little better than I expected. But again, average, not great. It will easily pick up leaves, both dry and wet. and small twigs no problem. I had piles of leaves along the fence that had been there for weeks and were a bit damp. Picked them up no problem. Took some time, but picked them up. Takes a lot of back and forth motion to keep the leaves flowing and to keep the vacuum from clogging. IT WILL CLOG PERIODICALLY. There's no getting past this.
The mulching function is non existent almost. Mostly full sized battered up leaves in the bag. Nowhere near the finely mulched look of the infomercial.
3. This thing is TOUGH. I did a big no no and that was to vacuum leaves straight out of my flower bed with mulch. And I'm talking fairly good sized mulch that caused the the rotary blade to jam several times I'm talking a full on jam that caused the motor to smoke a few times. From the time it jammed to the time I was able to turn off the motor was maybe 2-3 seconds. Enough for a little smoke to come out of the vents. Each time a piece of mulch was stuck between the blade and side wall. Jammed tight and it took a screwdriver to unlodge it. It cranked back up every time no problem. I don't recommend vacuuming over mulch but it fought through decent size twigs and piece of mulch with a few jams.
There's a distinct difference in the sound of a leaf jam and a propeller jam. A leaf jam simply creates a higher pitch sound, a propeller jam is a hard motor jam and loud. Don't panic. Just turn it off and clear the jam.
TRICKS
Everyone is saying how the leaf jam is pretty frequent and annoying that they have to disassemble the Trivac to clear the jam each time. What I found was that if i got a leaf jam, I simply switched from vacuum to blower and back to vacuum and 9 times out of 10 it cleared the jam each time. Try this first before turning it off and disassembling to clear a leaf jam. TRY THIS METHOD FOR LEAF JAMS ONLY. FOR A PROPELLER JAM TURN THE TRIVAC OFF AND UNPLUG TO CLEAR THE JAM
While the blower is okay and not great, i found a work around to get stronger blow force. I simply removed the bag and switched to vacuum and the positive air flow coming out of the bag port was maybe 5x stronger than the blower port. So I used that method to blow my leaves into piles. Worked like a champ. Not it's intended purpose but it worked great.
In closing, honestly, if you have a mulching mower and a leaf blower, you don't need this item. It's simply not as efficient as a mower and blower. It works okay and will make the chore of raking and picking up leaves and mowing debris a bit easier. But it's not something I would say is the best in it's category. But for the price, it's well worth it.
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