I have 20 deciduous trees, including 7 with trunks thicker than two feet at breast height. Autumn winds add leaves from across the street. I mulch: just run over the lawn and put the mower away. I can clear 400 square feet a minute with my walking mower. With the chute blocked, my riding mower will mulch 1100 square feet a minute. What’s more, the leaf particles help the soil. Pin oak used to give me messy results because the leaves resist fine chopping. I’ve done better since I discovered that a 1/2” belt sander gives blades a better edge than an angle grinder.
I wanted a vacuum for places that are hard to reach with a walking mower or a rake. When I saw that the Worx WG512 is also a high-volume, low-velocity blower, I bought it. (A landscaper suggests 600 cubic feet a minute, minimum, to blow leaves on a lawn.)
In the carport, it lets me remove leaves without removing what’s stored along the wall. It’s similarly convenient on steps, on the porch, behind shrubbery, and along fences and walls. It mulches most leaves almost like sawdust.
I had to stoop to get the vacuum nozzle down near the ground. Lengthening the bag’s shoulder strap fixed that. Changing it from a blower to a vacuum entails rotating the weight of the motor aft. That made it tiring to hold. The designer thought of that. To vacuum, you move your hand to the rear section of the handle.
It blew pin oak leaves off a driveway better than other blowers I’ve tried. Vacuuming the pile was slow, and the pieces in the bag were too big to call mulch. The next time, I bagged the pile with my walking mower, which was much quicker. I tossed the coarse contents on a patch of grass and mulched with the same mower. The sharp blade produced pieces small enough to disappear when I dispersed them with the blower.
The cord hook requires bending an extension cord sharply. That’s detrimental. A hole at the back of the handle looks as if it were made for a string. I was about to make a loop of cord with a cord lock to cinch an extension cord, but then I remembered the drawstring, with a cord lock, on a bag I intended to discard. The loop is 12” long, and the photo shows that it’s a good length.
The blower won’t plug into an extension cord unless the hots and neutrals are aligned. You have to look closely to see the difference. I made it easier with a piece of pink tape. The ground on the extension cord should be on that side.
Some years, autumn leaves may remain in valleys on my roof. By holding moisture, they can cause damage, especially during freezes. I don’t like pushing leaves off a roof with a broom. One year I used a borrowed blower from a ladder. It didn’t do the job and, with a velocity faster than a Category 5 hurricane, it could break seals on shingles.
I tried the Worx WG512 from a ladder. Its larger volume did the trick. The muzzle velocity is lower than a Category 1 hurricane, so it’s unlikely to cause trouble. I saw no flapping shingle tabs.
In one matter, my lack of knowledge kept the blower out of service overnight, and I almost broke it. A stick the size of a pencil jammed the impeller the first day. I couldn’t get the orange debris shield off. The 2x2” drawing in the manual seemed to say to push it forward, then lift. Even prying with a screwdriver didn’t work. I quit, slept on it, and checked the manual again in the morning. Then I risked breaking it by prying hard with two screwdrivers.
When it was off, I saw the latch and saw that it was operated by a sliding knob. Because the knob is flat and black like the handle, I hadn’t realized it was a moving part. If I’d known there was a knob, I would have interpreted drawing as the manufacturer intended. I used pink tape to show how conspicuous the knob would be if it were orange like the other moving parts. I’m glad I didn’t break my new blower!
T- bone 
