# Tow behind yard sweeper?



## Dustin (Sep 2, 2015)

Howdy folks, 

I just recently purchased a house with some more ground, as fall approaches, I'm looking at the trees surrounding my yard and dreading what's to come. 

I keep hearing about sweepers you tow behind your lawn tractor, the reviews online are decent. 

The issue is, I live in northwestern Oregon, and when the leaves start to fall, they'll be soaking wet until next summer. 

Anyone own one of these things? How does it work with wet leaves? Is it worthless on a gravel driveway? 

I would just go get one, but for 300 bucks, I wanna make sure I'm spot on.. 

Thanks!


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## DougA (Sep 2, 2015)

I bought one a decade ago, used it a few times and it's never been used since.  I've got 5 acres of grass that I cut and full of trees with tons of leaves.  I cut the lawn multiple times and keep pushing the chopped up leaves into a few areas, then use a pitchfork/rake to load them onto a trailer and dump them in one area.  I found the sweeper was filling up every 5 min and got very frustrating.


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## heat seeker (Sep 2, 2015)

I have loads of leaves every fall, so I broke down and bought a Cyclone Rake, and love it. Much more expensive than a tow-behind sweeper, but it will suck up anything the mower can get loose from the ground, including wet leaves. I had an area that I gave up on since my mower couldn't get the wet leaves up the chute to the bags. I tried the Cyclone in there, and it got them all. DR makes a competing model, too. You cry when you buy it, but thereafter it's "I'm glad I got it!"


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## DougA (Sep 2, 2015)

Forgot my #1 solution.  Cut the grass on a super windy day and someone half a mile away will have to rake your leaves. I have no neighbors, so works great!!


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## maple1 (Sep 2, 2015)

I have a sweeper, but I haven't used it for leaves, just grass clippings. Some areas of our yard grow grass a lot better than others, so I usually leave some windrows behind when mowing. The sweeper makes cleanup of that easy. If I didn't clean them up, they would make dead spots. And this thing is a lot easier than rake work. Most of it goes in the compost bin, what won't fit goes in a pile I've got going in some trees. I could likely change up my mowing methods & mow so I wouldn't need to do any cleanup, but I like having seasoned grass clippings for the compost bin - takes a lot of the messiness out of it.

I got a cheap one, no-name far eastern jobbie, think I only paid 150 for it at a building supply place. Had it about 4 years. Some rust showing in places - partly my fault for leaving it out too long well after mowing season is over.

I'm pretty sure it would do OK with leaves but I would likely chop them up with the mower first to get the bulk down some. Doesn't take many leaves to fill a bag up if you didn't. And the gravel driveway - if you get it adjusted just right, it should do OK there too.


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## begreen (Sep 2, 2015)

I try to time it when the leaves are at their driest and then mow them with a big bag over the collector instead of the bins. That mulches and hoovers up a lot of leaves at once. There are various items for sale. This is one:
www.LawnTractorLeafBag.com.


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## maple1 (Sep 3, 2015)

Just noticed you said wet leaves. I would expect a sweeper to leave some of those behind.


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## kennyp2339 (Sep 3, 2015)

Back pack leaf blower - I have a ready max and she get the job done all the time, I also cut the grass and chop the leaves up a few times, then once the big fall push comes in I'll attack the yard and gardens with the blower.


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## billb3 (Sep 15, 2015)

I just threw one out.
It was mostly useless for even damp leaves and not much better for just grass .

I bought a DR leaf vac that tows behind the mower and that actually worked rather well but the motor has seized and couldn't use it last year.
I just used the grass buckets on the riding mower even though they fill pretty quick and the pipe to the baskets will clog if the leaves are real wet and I go too fast for the wet weight.


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## begreen (Sep 15, 2015)

I usually do a first pass with the mower and mulch the leaves. That reduces volume and speeds drying of the leaves. Then, the next windy dry spell of 2-3 days I will go out with the huge lawn bag attached and suck up the mulched leaves. Our mower has 3 buckets and they fill up in about 5 minutes of mowing. With the lawn bag I can go about 15 minutes between dumping.


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## Dr.Faustus (Sep 15, 2015)

I have the tow behind sweeper for about 10 years. I use it all the time. I don't have gravel to test it out on but it does a great job at collecting the leaves from the paved driveway and all the lawn. I garden so I use It to collect all my leaves, all my neighbors leaves (they cheerfully let me make a few passes with the sweeper). I then run them through a leaf shredder and work into the garden soil. tomato plants 10 feet high. Back to the sweeper - Mine is Agri-Fab and has been pretty good. Once in a while things get tangled on the brushes and I have to clean them up. like long weeds. Its also great if you let the lawn go too long, then mow but instead of leaving piles of clippings, you can just pick them up with the sweeper.

Regarding wet leaves... It picks up most of them. the smaller the collection the better, so it pays to do it frequently. I wish It also chopped up the leaves and would save me a step. It still beats raking. Mowing the leaves is also a good idea but only if you want to leave them where they are. I need them chopped and in the garden so this works for me.

my only complaint is that the wheels drive the brushes and they never seem to have enough traction. This year I got the bright idea to stud the wheels with screws. now its a beast!


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## Bret Chase (Sep 19, 2015)

Dr.Faustus said:


> I
> 
> my only complaint is that the wheels drive the brushes and they never seem to have enough traction. This year I got the bright idea to stud the wheels with screws. now its a beast!



I also have an agrifab 42".. that I got off the side of the road for free.... it works good for somethings... other things it completely sucks.....  I never thought of studding the tires....  I will have to try that, as the skidding tires drives me nuts.


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## Dr.Faustus (Oct 9, 2015)

Bret Chase said:


> I also have an agrifab 42".. that I got off the side of the road for free.... it works good for somethings... other things it completely sucks.....  I never thought of studding the tires....  I will have to try that, as the skidding tires drives me nuts.




I used it again with the studded tires. it performs *way* better. did you try it?


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## sweets (Oct 9, 2015)

Dustin said:


> Howdy folks,
> 
> I just recently purchased a house with some more ground, as fall approaches, I'm looking at the trees surrounding my yard and dreading what's to come.
> 
> ...


There no good for wet leaves. There a waste of munnys..


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## maple1 (Oct 10, 2015)

Dr.Faustus said:


> I used it again with the studded tires. it performs *way* better. did you try it?


 

What size & type screws did you use? Our lawn is pretty side hilly, and mine sometimes likes to slide down hill sideways or the wheels break traction to make that happen.


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## Bret Chase (Oct 10, 2015)

Dr.Faustus said:


> I used it again with the studded tires. it performs *way* better. did you try it?



no, not yet


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## Jags (Oct 12, 2015)

maple1 said:


> What size & type screws did you use?



I did this with little hex head 7/16" long screws.  It helped...some (for grass, I don't bother with leaves). I also added about 100 pounds of weight to the back end of the sweeper to help with traction. Its gonna wear out the wheels faster, but I don't care.  It will give me an excuse to throw the sucker out.  I let mother nature take care of the leaves.  I live in a windy area surrounded by farm land.


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## Dr.Faustus (Oct 13, 2015)

I just used whatever was around. I think it was 1.5" drywall screws. I have a ton of those. I also had 1.5" deckmate screws but those are expensive so I used the drywall ones. Didn't need to add any weight. I put a screw every 1 inch or so (not measured) on alternating sides of the wheel and left a bit sticking up for bite. looks like this when looking down at wheel kinda [ ' , ]   Used a lot of screws but those are cheap.
I didn't have a problem with side hills. I do have those but the leaves tend to blow down onto the flat parts. My main issues would be that I was towing the thing, but the wheels would be stopped and unit would be dragging along. Stopped wheels = no brush rotating.

This had fixed it and I've since used it to pick up grass clippings twice and now leaves once. I had a brief thought too that the screws might be aerating the soil but I doubt it because they don't stick up enough.


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## Dr.Faustus (Oct 18, 2015)

Ok so now that the leaf dropping is in full swing and I've used the thing 4 times this weekend alone, my drywall screw idea while worked temporarily isn't long term. the screwed flushed themselves with the tire after a few trips with full weight. I'm about to head out to HD to pick up some hex head screws that cant flush themselves.
At least I can recover and re-use the old screws and also saw that this will work so i'm not picking up a pack of hex heads for no reason.

From looking out the window at the steady leaf drop going on this morning I can tell i'll be using this thing a lot within the next 2 weeks.


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