How to clean a mistblower after use?

With a backpack mistblower you can spray products for treating plants, including anti-parasitics, foliar fertilisers and more. The liquid product is drawn from the tank and transformed into fine droplets by a powerful airstream generated by a fan, before being dispersed evenly over the vegetation. In the hot season you can also use a mistblower in the garden to distribute repellent substances and insecticides that keep mosquitoes away. After every treatment it is important to clean your mistblower: in this article we explain how.

Why clean a mistblower

Cleaning is an essential part of the routine maintenance of gardening tools. The same applies to mistblowers, because cleaning helps to:

• Keep them working efficiently for a long time, including by protecting them from aggressive substances and preventing the pipes and nozzles from becoming clogged.

• Avoid mixing chemically incompatible products (which might produce toxic vapours, for example).

• Prevent potential damage to plants from phytotoxicity, which can occur when switching between different treatments.

• Protect you and others from unintentionally coming into contact with the sprayed substances.

How to clean a mistblower

So how do you clean a mistblower? We will provide some general pointers on cleaning, which mainly apply to engine-driven backpack mistblowers like the Efco AT 8000 and AT 2063. However, we recommend that you follow the instructions in your model’s user manual.

When cleaning a mistblower, you should focus particularly on the liquid tank and the tubes in which the liquids circulate before being atomised by air pressure and ejected outwards via the nozzles. To avoid leaving any liquid treatment residues, or at least minimise them, we recommend that you prepare only the quantity as much as you need.

The mistblower circuit should definitely be cleaned out when you finish a treatment, when you switch to another treatment on different plants, when you know you won’t be using the mistblower again for a while, and before storing it over the winter:

• Dilute the residue in the liquid tank with clean water (to at least 10 times the residue volume).

• Dispose of the diluted mixture by spraying it onto the previously treated vegetation until it runs out: don’t cause pollution by dumping it on the ground, in a ditch or down a drain.

• Operate the mistblower with clean water in order to wash the tank circuit, pipes and nozzles.

• Clean the machine exterior in order to eliminate traces of pesticides from the surfaces of the mistblower.

• Dry everything carefully.

If you use a ULV kit to carry out targeted treatments, you should clean the calibrated holes of the ULV filter with compressed air and wash the liquid filter with soapy water, which is essential to avoid clogging the holes of the ULV filter. While you are cleaning, inspect the mistblower for leaks from the fluid and fuel tanks, breakages and worn or deteriorated components (bear in mind that the substances used for treatments tend to degrade the gasket material, potentially compromising their sealing ability).

Not just cleaning, but maintenance too

Then carry out maintenance on your mistblower. Before doing any work on the machine, turn it off and let the hot parts – engine and muffler – cool down, then remove the spark plug cap to prevent it from starting accidentally:

• Air filter: check it and wash it with water, blow through it with compressed air and if necessary replace it with an original spare part.

• Fuel filter: check it and wash it with soapy water. Replace it if necessary.

• Engine cylinder fins: clean using a brush or compressed air.

• Spark plug: clean it and check the gap between the electrodes. Replace if necessary.

• Fan protective grille: clean it regularly so that it is free from debris.

If you want to prepare your mistblower for storage over winter or an extended period of disuse:

• Empty and clean the fuel tank.

• Drain all mixture from the carburettor: start the mistblower and leave the engine running until it turns off by itself.

• Do a thorough clean, as we suggested in the paragraph above.

• Protect the gaskets by lubricating them with liquid silicone.

For storage, we recommend placing the mistblower in a dry, sheltered environment, raised off the ground and away from heat sources.

For any doubts or interventions other than cleaning or routine maintenance on the mistblower, contact the technicians at your preferred Efco service centre. Furthermore, every couple of years or – if you use it intensively – at the end of each season, we recommend having a general check-up done at one of our service centres.

In addition to liquid treatments, by fitting the appropriate dusting kit you can also use our AT 8000 and AT 2063 backpack mistblowers to carry out dry treatments, i.e. applying products in powder form.

Mistblowers are a great help in the countryside both in the growing season – for example to combat powdery mildew and mealy bugs in the vineyard – as well as in winter, for preventive treatments in the orchard. Furthermore, as we were saying before, in the garden you can use a mistblower to get rid of mosquitoes, but also to eliminate fleas and clear hornet infestations.

To conclude, in this video you will find a summary on how to use a mistblower correctly.