Best leaf vacuum mulcher

Leaf vacuums are sold on two incompatible numbers. One maker publishes a mulch ratio — 16 to 1. The other publishes a percentage — up to 97% reduction. Those describe the same physical thing, and until you put them in the same units you cannot tell which machine shreds harder.

The short answer

Two claims, one unit

Now turn the ratio into something you can picture, using the one bag capacity that is published.

That is the practical figure the ratio is really telling you: how often you stop. Toro publishes no bag capacity, so the same calculation cannot be run on the UltraPlus.

The two, on published figures

1. WORX WG512 TRIVAC — best to actually hold

Eight point six pounds, a metal impeller, a published 16:1 ratio and a 1.2 bushel bag, switching between blow, mulch and vacuum by turning a knob rather than swapping tubes. Six hundred CFM in blow mode is more air than the Toro moves in either mode.

The metal impeller is the specification to notice. Shredding is what destroys these machines, and a plastic impeller is where a budget unit fails first — Toro does not publish what its shred ring is made from.

Two honest marks against it. The same page states 75 mph in the specification table and "up to 70 mph" in the marketing copy, which is careless. And the 16:1 ratio is half the shredding Toro claims, so you will empty the bag more often per pile.

#ad Check the WORX WG512 TRIVAC 12A Blower / Mulcher / Vacuum price on Amazon — how we're funded.

2. Toro 51621 UltraPlus — best shredding

Up to 97% volume reduction — about 33:1 — with 405 CFM in vacuum mode and 260 mph at the nozzle. Publishing separate airflow figures for blow and vacuum is unusually careful; most makers publish one number and let you assume it applies to both.

Two hundred and sixty miles per hour is the highest nozzle speed of the two by a wide margin, which is what lifts leaves that have been rained on and stuck to a driveway. Air volume clears open ground; air speed unsticks things.

The costs are weight and disclosure: 13 lb against 8.6, no published amperage, no published bag capacity, no impeller material, and a two-year warranty against three.

#ad Check the Toro 51621 UltraPlus Leaf Blower / Vac price on Amazon — how we're funded.

Where a vacuum beats a blower or a mower

• Beds and gravel. A blower scatters mulch and stone; a vacuum lifts leaves out of them.
• Small paved areas. Porches, steps and paths, where blowing simply moves the problem somewhere you will have to deal with later.
• Filling bags. A 16:1 or 33:1 ratio is the whole reason to vacuum rather than rake, if the leaves genuinely have to leave the property.
• Not open lawn. That is a mower's job — see best mowers for leaf mulching, which handles the same volume in a fraction of the time.

Who should skip both

• Anyone with a big lawn under big trees. Handheld vacuums are detail tools. A mower with a bagger or a mulching deck moves volume an order of magnitude faster.
• Wet-leaf duty. Neither maker publishes a wet-leaf rating, and wet leaves clump in the tube. See best blowers for wet leaves for what does work.
• Cordless-only households. Both of these are corded, which means an extension cord and a working radius around an outlet.

What we cannot tell you

We have not filled a bag with either machine. Toro publishes no amperage, no bag capacity and no impeller material; WORX contradicts itself on air speed within a single page. Neither publishes a decibel rating, a wet-leaf capability, or the leaf type its shredding claim was measured on — and dry oak, wet maple and pine needles are not the same job. The ratio conversion above is arithmetic on their claims, not a test of them.