Flymo GardenVac 2700 - 4-in-1 Electric Vacuum / Blower / Shredder - 40L Collection Bag -Orange

This was bought as a replacement for a 750w Flymo Garden Vac Plus which had finally given up the ghost after what must be 40 years or so service. I used it mainly for collecting up leaves although it had plenty of other uses such as collecting hedge clippings or grass clippings when edging and it served its purpose for cleaning up after using a chain saw or shredding branches.Too many of the models available these days are just blowers which I don’t want – I have never understood the logic of blowing leaves on to the pavement or into the road – and machines that do also have a vacuum function are usually not that powerful when it comes to sucking.This new Flymo machine is basically the same machine, outwardly, as my 40 year old model but with a more powerful motor, 2700w, which makes it more powerful without much difference in weight – and this is not the lightest machine on the market at 5 kilos or so and, to be honest, it is fairly bulky.The collection bag is the same design as the original but the original, which is a bit battered these days, feels a more substantial affair but we, or at least my heirs, can judge that more accurately around 2060 or so. The same goes for the strap; the original is broader and has a shoulder pad, so has been transferred to the new machine.It is understandable in many ways to shave costs to keep prices down but a broader strap is much more comfortable.In operation the vac is a big improvement on the original model with more powerful suction and blowing. This machine, like the old machine, has three settings operated by a simple lever – blow, suck and then blow and suck combined, the last of which seems a bit of a contradiction – blowing and sucking at the same time?Blowing allows you to blow leaves off a lawn, out of flower beds or from among winter veg, suck is self-explanatory but blowing and sucking is brilliant for loosening and collecting wet leaves and sucking up leaves from behind pots in corners or against walls. The blowing loosens them but before they can fly off they are sucked up.The bag is 40 litres and the strimmer affair at the top of the suction tube breaks the leaves down on a 3:1 ratio which means they are finely shredded and will break down into valuable leaf mould much quicker. The nozzle has a wide opening and I have had no problem with any gravel being picked up from the drive, not that that would be a problem as there is no visible grille or inlet to the motor inside the machine so no damage would ensue.Indeed, the original was advertised as being able to pick up drink cans after parties, and, to be fair, I did try it and it could, so no doubt this later model can manage the same trick – if you just happen to have a problem with both fallen leaves and cans.It is not the lightest machine on the market, nor is it the sleekest or most modern looking, after all the design is old, but it is a design that has stood the test of time, a design which works and works well. It is also worth remembering that this was originally designed as a garden vac, not a leaf or snow blower, the blower feature just there to aid the vacuuming and, from memory, it was the first on the market.There is a newer, Flymo model, the 3000w PowerVac, but it does not have the same sucking power as the GardenVac, 168 litres per second against 250 l/s.So, if you are looking for essentially a garden vacuum to pick up and shred leaves efficiently, without fuss, and a blowing option when it is needed, this is a good choice. It is fairly heavy to use so the optional extra of a Flymo wheel that clips on the end might be useful to take some of the strain.

I had an original GardenVac which worked very well, - until it fell over and smashed the case beyond repair. To replace it I bought a Flymo Sirocco 3000 which turned out to be absolutely useless as a vacuum cleaner. It was better as a blower but I have a petrol leaf blower and so the blower function was unimportant to me.Firstly, the vacuum effect of the Sirocco is not very strong certainly not as strong as the old GardenVac. What was even worse - as soon as you stop the motor all the shredded debris is dumped back onto the gourd making an even worse mess than what you were trying to clean up in the first place. It is quite simply not fit for purpose as a vacuum. The Sirocco works on a completely different principal to the GardenVac. The GardenVac worked on a “venturi air mover” principle, whereas the Sirocco just uses a fast axial fan to move the air. All the current garden combined vac/blowers work on the same principal – using a simple fan. They may blow in a reasonable way but their vacuum power is useless.The Sirocco went to the tip! In desperation I tried to find a replacement using the venture air mover principal – but could not find one. Eventually I found this Flymo GardenVac 2700 here at a grossly inflated price and rather reluctantly I bought one. It works far better than even the original GardenVac. Again I don’t use the blower function, and it is very poor anyway. As a vacuum It picks up any amount of wet leaves and even drink-cans. It also shreds the leaves, but this is of dubious benefit because it just means that the device is even heavier when full, and if you drop any it makes an even worse mess.Unfortunately the Flymo GardenVac 2700 was discontinued by the manufacturer some time ago, and because it is the only good vacuum device the law of supply and demand drive up the price.If you are buying a garden vac or a garden blower my conclusions are:• Combined electric blower/Vacs are good at one function only – mostly only for blowing• Electric blower/vacs using an axial fan to move the air are useless as vacs• Venturi air mover blower/vacs are very good for vacuum but useless as blowers.• Although electric blower/vacs using axial fans are useless as vacs they are also not very powerful as blowers - only petrol blowers are effective with lots of very wet leaves!Unfortunately most or perhaps all manufactures are only supplying devices powered directly by fans. No manufacturer any longer makes a venturi air mover vacuum device.I strongly recommend the Flymo GardenVac 2700 as a vacuum but only if you accept the exorbitant cost – I believe when they were still in production they were around only £70!

Over the years I've owned a few of these - and there's the point. In my view this is an excellent piece of kit - it does the job as a blower and a vac excellently but do not expect it to last for too long. I don't know where the problem sits - maybe it's inbuilt obsolescence - but none of mine have lasted much beyond two or three seasons. So why do I keep buying them? They are better than anything else I've tried. So I swallow the cost. One other point though, I cannot believe how few shredder lines are supplied with the product or the exorbitant cost of the spares. I assume the manufacture has taken a leave out of the book written by the producers of inkjet printers and ink cartridges - bleed the customer dry!

I had one of these products for five years and liked it because the bag does not have a zip and lasts much longer without needing to replace it. However the difficulty is fastening the bag to its frame - there are small pieces of plastic which need to be inserted into a narrow gap on the frame. None are easy to insert but I struggled for an hour and could not get the final one in at the risk of breaking it. Based on my experience with my previous bag, if you don't do this properly air is expelled when you are vacuuming so is having the opposite effect to what you want. Other buyers of this product have had similar issues with fastening the bag. Flymo ought to sell the bag already attached to the frame.