ECHO ES-250 Shred and Vac: Unveiling Power and Efficiency in Yard Cleanup

"Hello there, friends. I'm Mark Thomas. I'm one of the members of the ECHO User Advisory Group. Today we're looking at the ES-250, the gas-powered shred and vac. We're going to start out by looking at the specs on the box. So the fuel capacity is 16.9 ounces, CFM is 392 cubic feet per minute, the rating is 165, and the dry weight is 12.6 pounds.

So, this is a 3-in-1 unit; it's a blower, it's a mulcher, and it's a vacuum. This item is ideal for yard cleanups. It has a 2-year commercial warranty, 5-year residential. It took me about 15 minutes to unbox it and assemble it. We have some tubes, the collection bag, the power unit, some two-stroke oil, and the manual.

Now, we're taking a closer look at the power head. It has a guard that rotates on a hinge off to the side, and you can see that impeller turns, that's where the leaves are shredded. So if it ever jams, you can open that up and pull out whatever is obstructing it so it will freely turn again. There's a thumb screw on there, so no tools are required.

On the other side, we have the air filter, the spark plug, the choke, primer bulb, and the fuel tank. And here's the large vacuum tube. You have to line that up when that cage part is flipped open, and then give it a twist so it locks in place. And then we have this curved tube that locks in place, and the other end is where the collection bag is hooked onto. There, it just snaps in place.

Here's the leaf collection bag. You open that end up all the way, and it has a piece of Velcro on there. Once you slide that over that curved tube, you just go ahead and snug it down, and then you can go ahead and start using it.

Now, we're going to start it up so you can hear how it sounds. It's going to take a minute to warm up.

So right here, I have a mess to clean up. There are a bunch of pine needles on the ground and some big round thin walnut pieces. We're going to clean up the pine needles.

It takes quite a bit to jam this. I noticed it really does well, but we're going to open this up so you can see what it was that stopped it. It says giant pine cone. We're going to take that out and start over.

So it just takes a minute to convert this over to the blower. You have to take that curved tube off and then snap these two tubes together. It has a little bend in it, and that goes right there on that end. Tighten that cage down, and we're ready to start blowing.

So you can see how it shredded them up. Now, when you're done, just zip it up, and you're ready to go.

Here's a situation where I really like having the blower and mulcher. It's picking up these leaves in that parking lot island. You can just see there's really no place to move them with the blower. It's just easier to vacuum them up. So that's what we're going to do right here with those leaves up against the curb.

So, I just show you these are what the leaves look like. They're nice and dry, and when they're shredded up, this is the 12:1 ratio. What it's going to look like, so it definitely shrinks them down.

Now that I've had a chance to use this for a while, how about I share some of my thoughts with you on the ECHO ES-250 Shred 'N' Vac? So, I've had the opportunity to test out both battery and electric, and one thing I have to say is this is definitely more powerful. I think this only jammed once on me, where the other ones would jam sometimes regularly and sometimes occasionally. So, this doesn't shred quite as fine, but one thing I noticed is when it shreds too much, then it's more likely to get jammed. The pieces from this, I don't think it's really that big of a deal that they're not as fine, but you know, one thing is you just keep working; you don't have to really worry about it jamming up.

So, I did have an opportunity to talk to somebody that said when it jams, sometimes you can just tap this tube up against something that might be enough to free it up, where some of the other brands of battery, you have to take the battery out; you have to completely disassemble it, which just takes a lot of time, where this is much more efficient.

So, one of the things to mention is this probably takes about a minute to a minute and a half for the engine to fully warm up once you start it from being cold, where battery or gas is right away. The other nice thing, though, is once this is up and running, it's going to last a long time. The running time compared to, like, battery, where this just requires a lot of power to mulch it up, so gas, I'd say, is definitely the way to go on this one.

The nice thing when using this is the exhaust goes out that way, so it's pointing completely away from you. This is one thing that I did that I recommend doing. So, I took a yellow paint marker, and I marked on the tube right there where those line up. Sometimes it's kind of difficult to see. So when you're installing this, that's just kind of like my quick guide right there, so it just helps you not have to look at or think. It's just very easy.

So, this is something that you're only going to use once in a while, but when you have it, you're going to be glad that you do. I definitely recommend it. I've gone a long time without using it, but it definitely did the trick, as you can see in this video. So if you enjoy this video and you want to see some other content in the lawn care and landscaping community, head on over to ECHOmanbus.com for more. Thanks for watching, friends. Hopefully, this was helpful. I'll see you next time."