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Lawn Mowers and the Cutting of Grass Thereof
Nohbody8
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Have a lawn for the first time and I could use some advice on purchasing our first lawn mower. It's a pretty small lawn compared to what I grew up with so a power mower is not a pre-requisite. I'm not looking for anything fancy. Just looking for a dependable, long lasting, and inexpensive mower brand if such a thing exists. Thanks for the help.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] "We're the middle children of history, man."
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From my experiences, I wouldn't go with a battery powered electric mower, just because you have to make sure it's charged, then it can run out, yadda yadda yadda... the other thing is I'd be concerned about it not being able to deliver enough power to cut longer grass. My mower actually does have a slight problem with that time to time if I've not mowed for a while, and I can guarantee you it has more power than any battery powered one.
Oh, it is a Scott's Elite 16 or something similar. Works really well as long as I don't let the lawn get crazy long.
Yes. All mowers are "push" mowers but only "push reel motors" are.... push reel motors. :?
Yes, because of how it works it doesn't seem as efficient as a powered mower, but I remedy that by simply pushing it over a spot twice while going around my yard. Which is very small -- 10x10 in the back, 10x8 in the front. Takes me about 20 minutes, and the space occupied by a reel mower is trivial compared to a powered mower.
The other nice thing about a reel mower is that it's quiet -- you can mow whenever you want and no neighbor will care. That also means you can simply listen to your iPod while mowing, using your normal headphones.
My lawn and mower both disagree with you. You've got to be willing to push instead of walk behind an auto-drive powered mower, but a push reel mower cuts just fine.
EDIT: Granted, theirs are usually pulled, but golf courses use reel mowers as well because they are supposed to be better for the grass than rotary mowers. You want your lawn to look like a golf course, right?
Golf courses use real mowers because rotary mowers can't cut grass to 1/2" for fairways and 1/8" for greens. I mean you could try but it would scalp the shit out of everything. Most courses use rotary mowers for the rough though, since powered reel mowers are awful in longer grass and hilariously expensive.
Push reel mowers are great if you have a small lawn and want to make it look nice, since you can cut it really short without scalping and reel mowers stripe better, in my formerly professional opinion.
I have never used any sort of electric mower. I would suspect they lack power and aren't as robust/reliable as gas powered since they aren't used professionally, but that may not be a big deal for normal use.
Don't waste money on self propelled mowers. In my experience they always want go faster than I want to walk.
The most obvious downside to an electric is the length of the cable, which limits your mowing range, so depending on the size of your garden and where the nearest power socket is you might need to also get an extension cord to reach the far corners.
I've been planning on buying a new mower. There are some really nice and fancy battery powered ones available now. I don't fancy petrol as it's just messy and a bit of a hassle. Having a battery run out is a bummer, sure, but so is grabbing the petrol can and discovering it's dry.
I like the idea of a push mower. It'd certainly save my eardrums from listening to my iPod at max volume while I mow and I guess would give me a bit of extra exercise.
they do make recharargable electric mowers that are pretty nice. that way you wouldn't have to deal with a power cord, which to me isa deal breaker of a normal electric mower
I've got one -- I think it's a Black and Decker. It's awesome. My lawn is pretty small, so the cord isn't a huge deal, and the one I've got is like 300 feet or something equally crazy.
Much easier to use than the gas powered ones I've had in the past.
Gas mowers don't use that much gas, either. It depends on your yard, but I've never had to fill up our 1 or 2 gallon gas can more than twice in a summer.
If you get a good gas mower, you won't ever need to upgrade if you move to a new lawn. I don't know how old ours is, but we got it from my father-in-law about 7 years ago. I'm willing to bet it's at least 15 years old and it still runs great. It's a John Deere.
Apart from being the more healthy option it's cheap, reliable and does not make you look lazy.
If' you're lazy then get a robot unit as getting anything but that is only going half of the way.
I'd say my electric mower is quieter than a gas powered leaf blower, or roughly on par. Either way I don't wear hearing protection while using the electric, like I do while using the gas mower. I'd describe it as a moderate "whir".
Briggs & Stratton make goot motors, but since it's what I know lasts forever and a day on a mower I'd keep looking around until I found one with a Honda motor on it if you have your heart set on a gas-powered mower.
As to the whole self-propelled versus manual argument - I liked the self-propel when I was growing up. Put it on the slowest setting, stroll behind the mower, and you've only got to worry about steering it in a straight line.