Toro51621 UltraPlus Leaf Blower Vacuum, Variable-Speed (up to 250 mph) with Metal Impeller, 12 amp,Red

Last year I had to pay someone $350 to collect the leaves in my yard. This was in December when they were eager for work, and after heavy negotiating. This year I wanted to find a more sustainable solution. I decided to use a blower/vac in combination with the LeafPro by Worx. Question was, which blower/vac and can I actually get this system to work? After a lot of research and video watching, it became clear the Toro UltraPlus was the best option. The CFM and MPH balance was best of available blower/vacs. I was very concerned there would be enough suction to collect all the leaves easily, but that needed to be balanced with the blowing aspect. The trivacs have higher CFM but the MPH are low. So would it blow well enough at a distance? The Sunjoe had slightly better CFM than the Toro but much worse MPH. The Toro impeller design looked way better than the Sunjoe too at grinding. I was thinking about the Worx Turbine Fusion but people said the impeller grinded too much and the dust was terrible. The other issue was connecting this thing to the LeafPro. I read the "universal adapter" could slip off and I should try to get the older version which had plastic connections specifically for other brand models (which turned out to be totally unavailable). Maybe it was just better to get a Worx blower instead? In the end, the reviews of the Toro were all so strong I decided to go for it and risk the LeafPro not working with it. Thankfully, the connection worked perfectly and was really tight with no real risk of coming off! The next issue was what to use on the other end to collect the leaf mulch. Most people were connecting the LeafPro to a garbage can. I didn't have one right sized for use with 55 gallon trash bags and didn't want to buy one unnecessarily. I saw someone had used this system with a Leafmate paper bag funnel and it worked for them, so I decided to try with the Leafmate designed for varying sized plastic trash bags. It also worked brilliantly! I was able to keep it on its side at first to collect the mulch and then after it was nearly full I turned it upright to collect the rest. The Leafmate just slides up the bag to hold the opening and connection to the LeafPro. This system was able to reduce a 20-30 bag job to less than 5, and what took 3 people half a day of tiring work took me 1.5hrs of blowing and 2 hours of vacuuming and I was not tired at all. These three items cost me $140... a total win!Tips:-Dont try to suck up too much, the vac will clog-The Toro can handle sticks and other non-leaf debris you may encounter (see photo), but it's better to remove them from the pile by hand as they can create clogs-When you do get a clog, try turning off the vac and just tap the tube against the ground the dislodge whatever is in there. Turn it back on and half the time it'll be able to suck whatever was in there out-Point the exit hose of the LeafPro away from you and downwind. A moderate amount of dust comes out of the mesh cover.-The weak point in the system if the LeafPro mesh cover. It will stay on the Leafmate pretty well because it has a good rim it can wrap itself around, but mulch will collect in the mesh around the rim and it can get pulled off. Collect your leaves close enough to the bag and you won't pull it off by mistake (happened to me on the last bag, luckily it's easy to just revacuum up the debris).

I've used several gas-powered blowers around my property (three acres with over 200 trees and bushes), but my overall go-to favorite over the past several years was my Toro Ultra 51599 for the area directly around my house--40+ trees and bushes all dropping leaves in my gutters, rock borders, deck and patio. That beast got some hard duty--cubic yard after cubic of leaves, dropped onto rocks and down window wells, used as a blower for bonfires--and never failed until the day I accidentally smacked it against one of my stone pillars on my porch and shorted out the motor. Dang! Now to find another one. Well, the 51599 is no longer around, but here's this 51621 UltraPlus. Well, you and I know that a new model does not necessarily mean a better model. A lot of times it just means built cheaper. Never fear. This 51621 is better than my old 51599, and I'm sure you can tell, I loved my old Ultra.What I like in my new UltraPlus is that it still has a metal impeller--critical when you're vacuuming leaves out of 3/4" rock, like I do. However the vanes on the impeller are a different design, and it appears to me the both the blowing and the vacuuming functions are enhanced. You can really tell when using the variable speed control. The air movement is more precise throughout the range than it was in my Ultra.The Shredz-All shred ring. Right. Just another gimmick. Wrong! It actually works. The vacuum tube fits tighter onto the power unit for a better vacuum, and that little blue toothed ring does shred leaves finer, so I can get more into the bag before I have to dump it. Speaking of dumping, the zipper is on the bottom, now, rather than in the back, so it's easier to dump, too. Wow!Another feature I really, really appreciate is the new cord lock that's molded in as part of the power unit's body. We all overextend our reach, or get the power cord wrapped around a bush, or something. When that happened to my old 51599, the cord would come unplugged, no matter how I had the cord and unit knotted together. That doesn't happen with this cord lock. And it's big enough to fit a large diameter 14-gauge extension cord (which I highly recommend, so you can keep your 12 amps supplied out to a 100 feet).I didn't use the oscillating nozzle, because I wasn't blowing leaves off a wide area (like my driveway) this Fall. I plan to use that next Summer, though, cleaning grass clipping and debris off my drive. I can't wait to see if it's a cool as the rest of this blower. I also didn't use the concentrator nozzle for my corners. It's a little time-consuming installing it (I think) for the few corners I have. All I did was adjust the speed control while using the regular blowing tube, and it worked just fine for not over-blowing the leaves. As a matter of fact, the control is precise enough, you can adjust for different sizes and shapes of corners.One final note, the decorative rock I have around my house is mostly 3/4" Mountain Gravel. Mountain Gravel, looks great because of all the different shapes and textures, but the same thing that makes for great decoration makes it miserable to clean. Leaves and stuff really work their way into all those nooks and crannies. They vacuum works great on this. For the most part, full vacuum sucked out the debris without dislodging my rock. And in some of the few places where it was beginning to move the rock (3/4" also means 1/2" or less at times), all I needed to do was adjust the speed down a bit. Again, precise control.I'm really happy with my UltraPlus and the improvements Toro made to their already excellent Ultra. They must have employed a legitimate focus group when they designed their changes.