For electric leaf blowers the cost is all in the batteries
2026-01-30
Electric Blowers themselves, without the batteries are cheap. For example, a replacement Ryobi blower (only) currently sells for under $200. Brushless electric is highly reliable, and repairs are typically snapping in replacement parts. Example: A replacement turbo switch is $9. Landscapers should buy extra blowers as backups.
The only important cost is the batteries.
How to calculate battery power:
Example: Greenworks 80 V, 4.0 Ah battery for 800+ CFM blower.
- Kilowatt hours (kWh) are 1,000 watt hours (Wh). So, 1,200 Wh is the same as 1.2 kWh.
- For almost all applications it is impossible to run at the full 800 CFM for 60 straight minutes. A reasonable number then is that you need 1.2 kWh for an hour of maximum blowing (but see note below for extended time).
- Volts times Amps = Watts. So, for example, if you have 80-volt batteries and they are marked as 4.0 Ah (4 Amp hours), then you have 320 Wh (320 watt-hours) or 0.32 kWh (0.32 kilowatt hours) of power stored in them. That means you could use 320 watts of power for 1 hour (or 1 watt of power for 320 hours).
- A commercial blower will need ~1.2 kWh of power to run for an hour, or 3.75 of the 80 Volt / 4.0 Ah batteries. Rounding up we need ~4 batteries to run for an hour.
- If we shopped around this past month, we could purchase them for under $800.
- 80 volt batteries take an hour to charge, so with a mobile charger (see below) we could get by with 8 batteries. Most landscapers would want to keep 12 or more of them. So, figure $1,600-2,400 in battery costs, and these should last for years if well cared for.
Note: 500 CFM gas blowers were used without complaint for decades. If you run at 500 CFM, your batteries will last almost twice as long.
Mobile battery charger:
If you bring a mobile battery charger in your trailer, you can charge your blower batteries off of an inexpensive 12 volt LiFePO4 battery. These batteries cost $150 per 1.2 kWh (MUCH cheaper!) and will take charges for up to ten years. Using a 12 volt inverter ($200) you can charge the big batteries at home over night and then charge the blower batteries all day long:
Massive 3.84 kWh LiFePO4 battery for $279:
Note: There are many much Cheaper Li-ion batteries that will fit your blower (1/3 the cost), but mostly they are not recommended because of inferior quality, and lower power than advertised. In theory the batteries themselves are all the same and it is possible you might find cheap batteries that work well, but be careful with those.
For big jobs (e.g., in the fall) you can also spend an extra $90 and plug an 800 CFM corded blower directly into your 1.2 kWh LifePO4 battery and inverter. This is by far the cheapest electric option, BTW:
Examples from the Web:
At Amazon:
At Walmart:
https://www.walmart.com/search?q=greenworks+80+V+battery
