City considers changing sound bylaw to restrict use of gas-powered lawn equipment

If you use gas-guzzling leaf blowers or mowers to perfect your lawn, you might have to start shutting them down around dinner time, if proposed changes to London's sound bylaw takes effect.

A city committee is trying to tackle what to do about gas-powered lawn and garden equipment — typically louder than their electric counterparts and often the target of ire in the springtime as people start sprucing up their greenery. 

Politicians on the civic works committee are considering a proposal to London's sound bylaw that would require people to wait an extra hour before starting up their gas-powered blowers and mowers, and to shut them down much earlier than under the current bylaw. 

"In the (current) sound bylaw there's no differentiation between the power source, but it's generally known that gas-powered equipment is louder than battery-powered or electric lawn equipment," said Orest Katolyk, the city's head of bylaw whose officers are tasked with enforcing the sound bylaw when a complaint comes in. 

Right now, London's sound bylaw limits the use of all power equipment to between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. most days (starting at 9 a.m. on Sundays). City golf courses are exempt from the sound bylaw. One suggestion is to restrict gas-powered equipment to betwen the hours of 8 a.m.and 6 p.m.

The fact remains that gas-powered equipment works better and is much cheaper than batter-powered counterparts, said Jeremy Kamp, the owner of Nicola's Garden Art, a landscaping and lawn care company based in London. 

He tried five years ago to go fully electric, but equipment such as leaf blowers just didn't stand up to the gas-powered alternatives, he said. "The blowers use quite a lot of energy to push the air around, and the battery would die well before we were done the property. We'd only be done half the front lawn and the battery was dead." 

Kamp thought of equipping his trucks with inverters so they can charge batteries while driving, or putting solar panels on top, but it would have been expensive, he said. Several landscaping companies in London use electric equipment, but do most of their work with gas-powered equipment. 

"The arborist we use, he has an inverter in his truck for hedge trimmers, but not for his chain saws. You can imagine having the battery die when you're up in a tree, or having to lug 50 pounds of batteries up in a tree," Kamp said.

"It's just not doable." 

Most battery-powered machines are quieter, but even electric-powered blowers make noise because air is being moved around. "Blowing is 100 per cent required for every single aspect of maintenance and landscape installation," Kamp said. "If we don't use a blower, cleanup takes an hour and a half instead of 15 minutes." 

Powering one piece of equipment on a can of gas is equal to about 50 batteries, he said. "We're super conscious of people around us," he said. "We know people don't like the noise."

There are no financial incentives from the federal or provincial government for the replacement of gasoline-powered lawn and garden equipment with electric equipment, members of the civic works committee were told Wednesday. 

Politicians will continue to mull changes to the bylaw, with input from environmental and industry groups. One suggestion, made by Coun. Skylar Franke, would change the noise bylaw to allow gas-powered equipment from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., limiting the amount of time the noisiness is allowed to happen. 

City staffers will look at that proposal and circle back with politicians at a later date.