They asked the contractor not to make noise before 7 am. This works somewhat, as they don’t come before 6 am anymore. Sundays, they typically blow us out of our beds at 8 am.

Since the school has >400 m of walkways, it takes them up to 1 hour, put to 1.5 hours. Independent of time of day and night, this can be annoying.

No real discussions. The Community Association came up with the same old excuse – in support of the blowing company: safety of children. The logical flaw here is that the safety does not rely on leaf blowers (kids would have been unsafe in the 2010s and before…).

The school hesitantly wanted to shift blowing to after 7 am, which didn’t really happen.

Blowing company is worried about ice formation in the wee morning hours, hence they even blow during snowfall. But they never remove snow outside of night hours, which makes their worries not credible.

Blowing company at least acknowledges that 420 m of clearing paths in a mature residential neighbourhood is a very special case.

City is working on a new bylaw.

Summary: as always, Alberta is 20 years behind. See also seat belts, distracted driving (cell phones) etc.

Leaf blowers emit lots of carbon monoxide:

When carbon monoxide is emitted into the atmosphere it effects the amount of greenhouse gases, which are linked to climate change and global warming. This means that land and sea temperature increases changing to ecosystems, increasing storm activity and causing other extreme weather events

https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/protection/npi/resource/student/carbon-monoxide

Fair enough, Mr Junk Conrad. The speed of removal depends on the amount and kind of snow. Little powder is probably fast removed with a blower…and into the street only (can’t be piled up), which is also against the bylaws.

My neighbour has a removal service. Their blower is faster on stairs. But it comes at a price.

As to pollution of any kind: Calgary Arts Academy pride themselves for being progressive and innovative, and to educate spirited citizens. The reality is a bad fit.

The underlying issue is sleep and noise nuisance. Sleep is not a human right, it is more: a necessity. But even at midday I find these things utterly annoying and uncivilized. It is like opening a nut with a hammer.

In the end, it comes down to common sense.

On a more humorous note, companies and the city are advised to purchase Elon Musk’s new electric blower.

Also funny: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/01/are-leaf-blowers-bad-for-us/

P.S. Yesterday, I cleaned my driveway much faster with a shovel than two guys with a leaf blower. I was slower with a broom on the stairs.

P.P.S. Had a bad day yesterday: leaf blowers between 6:20 and 6:50 am, then another 5-10 minutes next door, while the neighbour’s hot tube was emitting a low-frequency “tinnitus” in my home office for hours. Seriously not acceptable – especially with daily repeats.

It is very problematic that these are allowed at night, especially if your interpretation of the actual bylaw is correct and they shouldn’t be.

One nit: you keep making references to the climate emergency and the climate impact of these small engines, citing that study comparing pollutants emitted by a leaf blower operated for 30 minutes to the amount emitted by a Ford F-150 pickup truck driving from Texas to Alaska. Note that the pollutants in question are things like VOCs, not CO2 or other greenhouse gasses. The pollution from these things is certainly bad, and probably the worst for the health of the operator and others close by. But they probably have a negligible impact on climate change.

The problem is that—contrary to some of your statements—these are actually very effective and efficient at removing small amounts of snow, and battery-powered equivalents don’t yet seem to be good enough for professional use (especially in −20° – −30° weather, in which the batteries die very quickly).

Maybe you’re right and we should just make people bear the costs of going back to older methods. But at the very least they shouldn’t be allowed at night in residential areas.