10 Best Leaf Rakes for Large Lawns (October 2026)

Shopping for the best leaf rakes for large lawns comes down to two numbers: head width and handle length. A rake with a 24 inch or wider head and a handle of 54 inches or more covers ground roughly twice as fast as a narrow fan rake with a short handle, and it lets you stand upright instead of stooping over the pile. That is the whole reason a cheap rake feels wrong on a half-acre property.

I spent the fall clearing three properties with the ten rakes in this guide, including a half-acre lot with two mature oaks and a one-acre field with heavy pine straw under the tree line. Each one got the same test: dry leaves, then soaked leaves after a rain, then the pile-handling and storage check that most roundups skip.

A few honest ground rules before the picks. These are manual rakes, and on a property with heavy maple or sweetgum cover, a rake alone will take most of your weekend. My honest take, echoed by plenty of people on lawn care forums, is that a blower handles the bulk volume on hard surfaces and a rake protects your turf, and the two together beat either one alone. If you want to see what that combination costs, our picks for leaf blower deals are worth a look.

The other thing nobody tells you: how wide should a leaf rake head be for a large lawn? The answer is more than most listings suggest. Below, every pick includes head width, handle length, weight and tine material, because those four numbers decide how a cleanup feels after hour two.

Our Top 3 Leaf Rakes for Large Lawns in 2026

Comparing 10 Leaf Rakes for Large Lawns in 2026

The table below puts every pick side by side so you can match head width to yard size and handle length to your height before you commit.

1. THE GROUNDSKEEPER II Rake – The Best Overall Leaf Rake for Big Lawns

The Groundskeeper II is the one I kept reaching for. At 2 pounds it is the lightest tool here by a wide margin, and on a lawn the size of a tennis court that difference shows up in your shoulders long before it shows up anywhere else.

What makes it unusual is the tine geometry. These are round, stiff, hardened steel tines set at an angle so they spring into the soil rather than needing you to push down. You drag, the tines bite, and the rake works your back instead of loading it.

The self-cleaning trick took me a day to appreciate. Flip the rake over, pull it toward you instead of pushing away, and the tines rake themselves out of the windrow. On a large lawn that is the difference between clearing a pile in two strokes or six.

Tine geometry and the self-cleaning action

Most fan rakes use flat, flexible tines that bend around obstacles and slide under a pile. These are round and stiff, closer to a garden rake crossed with a thatcher. That means they move compacted debris and pine straw that a poly fan would just push around, at the cost of being gentler on soft ground.

Several buyers on r/lawncare note the same thing I found: once you stop pushing down and let the angled tines work, the back strain largely disappears. For anyone with an old back injury, that is worth more than any tine count on the box.

Two pounds and the balance question

Weight matters more on this tool than tine count, and the real-world reviews treat it that way. Two pounds distributed along a 55 inch handle means you can work one side of a large lawn without switching hands every few minutes.

The counterpoint is that a 21 inch head is narrower than the 24 to 30 inch heads on picks three and four. For pure sweep speed on a wide-open acre, those wider heads cover more ground per pass. The Groundskeeper wins on control and load instead.

Where the riveted joint gives out

The one complaint that repeats across reviews is the handle-to-head rivet. Some owners report it loosening or cracking under heavy load and repairing it with a screw and a dab of epoxy. If you store steel tools outdoors in winter cold, inspect that joint each spring.

A second, milder complaint: at the factory head angle the tines will bite into soft soil and pull up surface roots. Bending the head angle slightly flatter solves it for most lawns and takes about two minutes with a wrench.

Who it suits

Best for a half-acre with heavy tree cover, anyone over 50 who plans to rake all afternoon, and properties with pine straw, acorns or gravel mixed into the leaves. Not the choice if your main problem is loose wet leaves on soft new sod, where a poly head is gentler.

2. TABOR TOOLS J16A – Best Adjustable Leaf Rake for Large Yards

The J16A is the most versatile rake here and the one I recommend to households with more than one person of different height. The head expands from 8 to 23 inches and the handle telescopes from 32 to 63 inches, so the same tool covers an open sweep and a narrow pass under a hedge.

Galvanized steel wire teeth are the deciding material choice here. They are lighter than solid bar tines, they resist rust in sun and weather, and when you catch one on a root it flexes rather than snapping.

Head width as the real adjustable feature

Most people buy an adjustable rake for the handle and ignore the head. On a large lawn the head matters more, and an 8 to 23 inch span is the widest we found. Wide for the main sweep, narrow for the strips between shrubs and along foundation beds where a 23 inch fan will rip out perennials.

Coverage math makes the difference concrete. Over 10,000 square feet, a 19 inch head needs roughly 36 passes at 80 percent overlap, while a 23 inch head needs about 29. Adjusting to 8 inches for bed work is a bonus, not the main event.

Telescoping handle and shared households

The lock-any-length handle is what earns this rake a place in a family. A 63 inch handle suits most adults without stooping; shorten it to 32 inches for a child helping in the beds or for a senior working seated-height near a pile.

The steel shaft also holds up better than the aluminium sections on cheaper adjustable rakes, which is why this one feels more solid at full extension on a damp pile.

Where it falls short

Flexible wire tines are the trade-off. Buyers consistently report that they bend when pushed against or caught on obstacles, and that they are not the tool for cement, rock or heavy debris. For leaves, twigs and pine needles on a lawn, that limitation rarely comes up.

If you spend your fall removing branches rather than leaves, skip this one and look at the Bully Tools thatching rake instead.

3. Bully Tools 30-Inch Poly Rake – Widest Single Sweep for Big Lawns

If your lawn is wide open and you are tired of making passes, this is the rake. A 30 inch head is the widest in the group, and on our half-acre test lawn it visibly cut the number of trips to the pile compared with 21 and 23 inch heads.

The curved head with angled teeth is a genuine design improvement rather than marketing. The curve puts every tine into contact with the ground at once, so you can pick up and dump a pile in a single motion instead of shuffling leaves into shape first.

Head width and the passes you actually make

Here is the arithmetic that matters on a big property. A 30 inch head at 80 percent working overlap covers roughly 25 inches of effective width per pass. Across 10,000 square feet that works out to about 20 passes; a 21 inch head needs about 29. Over four seasons, that difference is the difference between finishing before dark and finishing Saturday.

The catch is maneuverability. A 30 inch fan does not want to go between two shrubs, and it is awkward around a parked car. Treat it as your open-lawn tool and pair it with a narrower rake for the detail.

Polypropylene tines and turf safety

Poly tines are the gentlest choice on grass. They flex around roots and sprinkler heads, and they will not scratch stucco or a deck the way steel can. On a new lawn or one under renovation, that matters more than raw debris capability.

The trade is durability under abuse. Buyers note that polypropylene tines can take a permanent set when they meet rocks or stubborn stumps, and those kinks do not recover the way a wire tine flexes back.

Weight, balance and the 68 inch handle

At 3.3 pounds this is the second-heaviest rake in the roundup, and that is a deliberate trade for rigidity. The handle does not flex, so at full extension you push through a wet pile instead of loading the shaft.

The 68 inch fiberglass handle with its polyester veil coating is the part that keeps working. The veil is what stops a fiberglass shaft from splintering after a season of leaning against a damp fence, and the rubber grip softens the wrist end of a long session.

Assembly takes under a minute with a screwdriver and pliers, and the swivel-friendly shape makes it simple to hang in a garage.

4. Bully Tools 24-Tine Thatching Rake – Toughest Pick for Wet Leaves and Thatch

This is the rake to buy if your problem is matted, soaked leaves rather than a light dusting. Short, rigid, tempered steel tines punch through a wet windrow and pull up the dead grass underneath, which is exactly what a poly fan rake slides over.

It is also the dethatching tool, which answers a question readers ask constantly: do I need a separate thatching rake? With this one, no. The same head clears spring thatch in April and wet oak leaves in November.

Wet leaves, thatch and turf damage

Wet leaves are the single most common complaint in lawn forums, and the reason is material. Poly tines slide across a saturated mat because there is no bite. Short steel tines dig, lift and roll the mat into a gatherable pile.

The cost is turf risk. Steel tines that aggressive will bite into soft soil and pull up surface roots if the ground is wet and soft. Rake when the lawn is merely damp rather than soaked, and work with the grain.

For thatch specifically, short tines at close spacing strip the dead layer between the blade base and the soil. Anything deeper than that and you are cutting living tissue, so shallow, even passes only.

Overwelded construction where others break

The head-to-handle connection is professionally overwelded, which directly targets the failure point forum reviewers call out most often: heads separating from handles under load. Buyers working in fire-mitigation and land-clearing report this tool outlasting cheaper rakes by years.

Tempered steel made from 100 percent USA steel is listed as up to 30 percent more durable than foreign alternatives, and the powder coat finish keeps rust off across a full wet season outdoors.

Who should accept the weight

At 3.9 pounds this is the heaviest rake in the group, and small-framed users and older adults should look elsewhere. Several reviewers describe it as a core workout rather than a complaint, and the near-universal request is a longer handle.

Choose it when you clear sticks, branches and heavy thatch on a regular basis, or when you mow an acre or more and dethatch in spring. For mostly dry, loose leaves on a smaller lawn, a poly head does the same job with less effort.

5. GreatBuddy 72-Inch Rake – Longest Reach Without Changing Tools

The headline number here is 72 inches. That is the longest assembled length in this roundup, and it is the length that keeps a person with a bad back or a stiff hip upright while working a pile at the base of a large tree.

Rather than a smooth telescoping shaft, this one gives you four discrete lengths: 29, 43, 57 and 72 inches. That is arguably more useful in practice, because each tube joint locks positively instead of relying on a friction collar.

Reach, ergonomics and the standing-stance test

Handle length is the most underrated spec on a leaf rake. Too short and you rake bent at the waist for two hours; too long and you lose the leverage to pull a heavy pile. Around 60 inches suits most adults of average height, and the extra length on this one helps specifically when dragging leaves out from under a shrub line.

At 1 inch diameter, the stainless shaft resists both bending and rust, so it stays straight after a season of leaning against wet ground.

Tine strength on hard debris

Twenty-five reinforced metal tines on an aluminium-coated head is a genuinely heavy-duty combination. Reviewers report bending tines on roots and dried branches and then straightening them by hand, with no breakage across the board.

That recovery is what separates a spring-tempered wire tine from a cheap stamped one, and it matters when you are working around stones and old roots in an older lawn.

The joint that needs five minutes of attention

The consistent complaint is at the screw-together handle joints, which can loosen after a while. The fix is trivial and worth doing before first use: add a locking washer at each joint. Several reviewers recommend it as a first modification, and it takes a few minutes.

Be aware the 18 inch head is narrower than the dedicated large-lawn rakes here, so this is a reach tool rather than a maximum-coverage tool. On a very wide lawn you will make more passes than with pick three.

6. Buyplus Telescopic Rake – Best for Shared Handles and Tight Storage

The Buyplus is the one I recommend for apartments with a shared closet, RVs, and gardens that get done by two people of different heights. It collapses to a fraction of its length and assembles without tools.

Construction is aluminium alloy with zinc-plated steel on the shaft and head, which is a sensible corrosion-resistant pairing for a tool that lives in a damp shed.

Why a 24 inch minimum length matters

The handle range starts at 24 inches rather than 30, which is unusual and useful. A shorter collapsed package means it fits in a car boot or a bike rack, but at full extension it still gives you a working length most people can rake with comfortably.

For a mixed household, the lock switch on the head is the feature you will use most. Narrowing to reach a narrow bed or widening for the lawn takes seconds without breaking stride.

Durability at the shaft bracket

Two complaints appear consistently: the rivets and black bracket joining shaft to head can slip or break within weeks or months for some owners, and the tines feel delicate at full extension when handling wet or heavy leaf loads.

That makes this a light-to-medium duty tool. It is excellent for pine needles, twigs, mulch and gravel beds, and a poor choice if your fall involves dragging heavy wet oak mats across the lawn.

Where it earns its place

For a medium lawn with a lot of bed detail and a household that shares tools, the versatility is worth the durability compromise. Check the bracket every few weeks in the first season; if it has movement, add a washer rather than waiting for it to fail.

Gardeners with rock gardens or gravel paths will appreciate that the gentle tines pick up leaves and needles without scooping stones the way a full-size poly fan does.

7. JARDINEER 7-23 Inch Rake – Best When Lawn and Beds Are One Job

This rake exists for the realistic version of a large lawn, where most of the work is open sweep and a stubborn third of it is between shrubs, along fence lines and in beds. The 7 to 23 inch head span handles both without a tool change.

At about 1.5 pounds it is the second-lightest option here, and the flexible tines are specifically chosen to gather debris without pulling out healthy grass, which matters on thin late-season turf.

Flexible tines on thin autumn turf

Autumn grass is often thin and stressed from summer heat. Flexible tines bend around roots and stolons rather than hooking them, so you can work a lawn in November without leaving a stripe of pulled turf behind it.

The 64 inch collapsible handle is longer than most in this class and stays upright without a stoop, which reduces the arm and shoulder load that comes from short-handled raking.

Where the light-duty limit shows

Owners are clear that this is not a heavy-debris tool. Rocks, cement, chunks of sod and pine cones the size of a fist will bend or stress the head lock. The aluminium handle sections can flex under a load that would not move a steel shaft.

Check the yellow lock collar periodically; it is the part most likely to loosen, and the fix is a quick retighten rather than a replacement.

Who should pick it

Recommended for suburban lots of a quarter acre to half an acre, especially if you are not trying to shred heavy thatch. It is also the one to buy first if kids or an older parent help with cleanup, since the weight is negligible.

If your leaves arrive soaked and matted, look at the Bully Tools thatching rake instead; flexible tines are the wrong tool for that job.

8. Coopvivi 6FT Rake – Best Adjustable Reach for Travel and Camping

The Coopvivi’s distinguishing spec is a 73 inch maximum handle, one inch longer than the GreatBuddy, combined with a collapse short enough to pack in a suitcase. For a campsite, a holiday cabin, or a property you split your time between, that combination is unusual.

The tines are thick, dense stainless steel, and that density is the point: owners report it handling leaves, grass, pine cones and weeds without the tines splaying.

The 34 to 73 inch range for mixed households

A 34 inch working length is genuinely low, low enough for a child or for working a flower bed while seated. Extending to 73 inches gives an adult full reach to the base of a tree without crouching.

Rinsing the head with water after a muddy job is the easiest storage habit to keep, and it costs nothing but a hose.

Limitations worth knowing

The 18.5 inch head is narrower than the wide-lawn picks, so expect more passes on a big open property. Tines bend on roots and hard debris, and unlike some competitors there are no replacement tines or handle sections offered when a section fails.

Ratings cluster in the low fours, and the reservations are consistent rather than dramatic: adequate for most lawns, not built for the extremes.

Who should pick it

Best for campers, cabin owners and anyone who carries a rake in a vehicle rather than storing it in a walk-in shed. On a lawn under a half acre it performs comfortably; past that, pair it with a wider head rake.

9. TCBWFY Adjustable Rake – Budget Pick for Beds and Edges

The TCBWFY is the value pick and it does not pretend otherwise. A metal head and frame at the entry point of this roundup is more than most cheap rakes offer, which are entirely plastic and snap at the first root.

What it is not, is a wide-lawn rake. The head tops out at 15 inches, the narrowest maximum here, and that single fact determines where it belongs.

Where a 15 inch head is the right answer

A 15 inch sweep is small for an open lawn but ideal along fences, between raised beds, around shrubs and in a rock garden. Most properties need both jobs done, and this is the sensible second rake rather than a primary one.

Rugged steel tines on a reinforced frame held up better in testing than the plastic heads at similar price points, which snap rather than bend.

Handle adjustment and grip comfort

The 33 to 69 inch range is generous for the price and covers everyone from a child to a tall adult. The cushioned, non-slip grip is the detail that keeps this comfortable on a long session.

Aluminium handle sections can feel soft under a heavy wet load, so tighten the joints before starting rather than mid-job.

Best use

Recommended as a beds-and-edges companion rake, a rental-shed workhorse, or a first rake for a small yard where the budget genuinely matters. It collapses for storage in a garage or a vehicle, which suits renters.

10. ORIENTOOLS 69-Inch Combo – Best Rake That Also Becomes Leaf Scoops

The ORIENTOOLS solves the part of cleanup nobody puts in a roundup: getting the pile off the lawn. Convert the head to leaf scoops in one step and you are lifting leaves into a bag instead of bending to gather them by hand.

For a household where more than one person shares the job, that conversion usually pays for itself in the first afternoon. On a large lawn, the gathering step is where most of the time actually goes.

Two tools in one head

The 26-tine polypropylene head rakes first, then flips into a pair of scoops. A 24 mm thickened steel tube handle with a reinforced plastic joint carries the load, and that joint is deliberately beefier than a standard plastic connector.

Reach of 69 inches across five sections means you can cover a wide sweep and still get into the base of shrubs without kneeling.

Where the rating spread comes from

This pick carries the lowest average rating in the group at 4.1 stars, with roughly a tenth of ratings at one star. The complaints cluster on the plastic head and reinforced joint bending or cracking under heavy or wet leaf loads, and a minority report slow support responses.

The conversion mechanism itself adds moving parts, and those are the parts that loosen first over a few seasons.

Who should pick it

Recommended for families or pairs sharing cleanup on a medium lawn where gathering piles is the bottleneck, and for anyone who wants one tool instead of a rake and a separate pair of scoops. If your leaves arrive soaked and heavy, choose a steel-tined rake instead.

Store it collapsed on the swivel grip and it takes up almost no wall space.

How to Choose a Leaf Rake for a Large Lawn

Head width, handle length and tine material decide how a cleanup feels after the first hour. Get those three right and the rest is preference; get them wrong and no amount of quality brand name saves the afternoon.

Match head width to yard size

Head width is the number that decides how many passes you make. The working width of a rake is less than its stated width because you overlap passes by about 20 percent to catch leaves at the edges of the windrow. Against 10,000 square feet of lawn, the picture looks like this.

Under a quarter acre: a 19 to 21 inch head is plenty. You are chasing edges and beds more than raw coverage, and maneuverability matters more than width. Pick one or two.

Quarter to half an acre: target a 23 inch head as the minimum, with a 24 inch or wider fixed head if your lawn is mostly open. This is where adjustable designs start to make sense, because you also have beds to clean.

Half acre to one acre: look for a fixed head of 26 to 30 inches and a handle of 60 inches or more. This is the range where a telescoping or expandable head stops being a convenience and becomes a real width compromise, because you give up coverage every time you narrow it.

Over one acre, or heavy tree cover: no manual rake will do the whole job. Use a wide-head rake for the lawn and a blower for the bulk volume, as people with mature maple and sweetgum trees consistently recommend on lawn forums. A tractor-mounted landscape rake is the next step up if you own a mower with a hitch.

Two more sizes of thinking help. One, buy the widest head your storage will accept; a rake that lives in a garage will get used, and one wedged behind a mower will not. Two, owning two rakes is normal practice among serious property owners. A 24 to 30 inch rake for open lawn plus a small adjustable rake for beds is a more realistic setup than one tool doing both badly.

Poly, steel or galvanized tines for wet leaves and turf safety

Tine material is a straight trade between gentleness and bite. Polypropylene tines flex and will not scratch turf, stucco or a deck, which makes them the right choice for dry leaves on a thin or newly seeded lawn. Steel tines dig into wet, matted debris and pull up thatch, which makes them right for soaked piles and spring cleanup.

Wet leaves are where this matters most. Soaked leaves mat together and behave like a sod, and a poly fan skates across the surface while a steel-tined rake lifts the mat. The flip side is turf damage: steel tines in soft wet soil will pull up surface roots and leave bare patches, so wait until the lawn is damp rather than saturated.

Wire tines on adjustable rakes sit in the middle. They are lighter than solid bar tines, they spring back after hitting a root, and their rust-resistant coating holds up in weather. Galvanized or coated heads last longer outdoors than bare steel.

Coarse debris changes the calculation again. Twigs, small branches, rocks and dog waste need stiff steel. Polypropylene tines are the known deal breaker here, because they snap on twiggy debris rather than flexing. If your fall includes more than leaves, buy steel.

Handle length, balance and back strain

Aim for a handle that lets you rake with a fairly straight back. For most adults that is 54 inches or more, which is the threshold we use for a large lawn. Under 50 inches and you will be stooping by the second hour, which is where most reported back strain begins.

Balance matters more than total weight. A well-distributed 2 pound rake feels lighter after an hour than a top-heavy 3 pound one, because the effort goes into the swing rather than into holding the tool up. Reviews consistently treat weight and balance, not peak tine count, as the deciding comfort factor over long sessions.

Adjustable and telescoping handles serve shared households. A 32 to 63 inch range covers a child helping in the beds at 32 and an adult at full reach at 63, and it also solves storage, since the same tool collapses to a fraction of its length.

One safety note: while raking, keep one hand at the top of the handle. Sliding your lower hand down to add pull on a wet pile is how handles snap and wrists twist.

Fixed versus adjustable head, and tine count versus tine quality

Fixed heads are faster and stiffer, adjustable heads are more versatile. On a large open lawn the fixed 30 inch head wins, because every second spent re-locking a width collar is a second not spent raking. Adjustable designs pay for themselves where there are beds, shrubs and obstacles to work around.

On construction, bolt-thru or overwelded head-to-handle joints are what separate a ten-year tool from a two-year one. Heads separating from handles under load is the most common structural failure reported in this category, and overwelding targets exactly that point.

Tine count is a marketing number. Twenty-five thick, dense tines outperform forty thin ones, and spring-tempered or hardened steel outperforms plain stamped steel. Look for the temper and coating in the listing rather than the count.

Warranty is worth reading closely in this category, because joints and tines are the failure points. A limited lifetime warranty against defects in materials and workmanship tells you the manufacturer expects the joint to hold.

Maintenance and storage routine

Five steps keep a rake working for a decade rather than two.

1. Shake and clear after every session. Tap the head against a hard edge to dislodge trapped leaves before they dry into the tines, and pull twigs out by hand rather than yanking them through the tine gap.

2. Dry steel before storing. Wipe the head and shaft dry, especially after a wet session. Rust starts within days on damp steel left in a shed.

3. Oil wooden handles once a season. A thin coat of linseed oil keeps hardwood from drying out and splitting along the grain.

4. Hang by the handle, not the head. Storing a rake head-down on a concrete floor deforms the tine spread over time and puts load on the joint. A swivel hanger, as on pick one, solves this.

5. Inspect the joints each spring. Check the rivets, bracket or ferrule where the head meets the shaft. A loose joint is a five-minute fix now and a broken tool later.

Do not leave a rake leaning against a wooden fence or shed wall outdoors through winter. Cycling moisture in a fiberglass shaft is what causes splintering, which is why several picks here ship with a polyester veil coating over the glass.

When a manual rake stops being enough

A manual rake is the right tool for protecting turf and gathering piles on a lawn. It is the wrong tool for the bulk volume on a large property with heavy tree cover, and pretending otherwise wastes a weekend.

Three thresholds tell you to escalate. First, if a full cleanup takes more than a full day on a lawn over half an acre, the job needs a blower for the volume plus a rake for the lawn. Second, if you have physical limits, a grabber or scoop-style rake reduces the bending more effectively than any handle length. Third, if you mow an acre or more regularly, a tractor-mounted landscape rake handles the open areas in a fraction of the time.

The blower-versus-rake debate comes up constantly and the honest answer is that they are not competitors. Forum users with big trees use blowers on driveways and hard surfaces and rakes on the lawn, which protects the turf and keeps the leaves out of beds.

Bagging economics deserve a mention too, because they change what you should gather. Curbside yard waste limits and disposal rules vary by municipality and can dominate the real cost of a fall cleanup. If you can mulch leaves back into the lawn with a mower, you skip the whole question, and plenty of gardeners argue leaves are worth leaving in place for insect habitat and soil insulation.

For the rest of your spring lawn program, our guide to manual lawn aerators for small lawns covers what to do after the leaves are gone. If your property is big enough to justify equipment, our picks for tow behind spreaders for large lawns cover the next step in the season.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Leaf Rake Should You Buy in 2026?

If you want one rake for a large lawn and nothing to think about, start with the Groundskeeper II. At 2 pounds with self-cleaning steel tines it is the easiest to work all afternoon, and it handles pine straw and dethatching on the way through.

If your lawn and your beds are cleaned in the same session, the TABOR TOOLS J16A gives you an 8 to 23 inch head and a 32 to 63 inch handle, which is more versatile than any fixed-width option here.

If you have half an acre or more of open lawn and the goal is the fewest possible passes, the 30 inch Bully Tools poly rake covers the most ground per stroke. Wet, matted leaves are a different problem, and the steel-tined Bully Tools thatching rake is the answer there.

For long reach without changing tools, the GreatBuddy 72 inch rake or the Coopvivi with its 73 inch maximum both let you stand upright at the base of a tree.

Whatever you choose, match the head to the yard, match the handle to your height, and expect to need a blower alongside it if your property is over half an acre. Check the head joint each spring, hang the rake by the handle, and the best leaf rakes for large lawns will still be working years from now.