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Reel Push mower or Weed Eater?
MagicToaster
JapanRegistered User regular
JapanRegistered User regular
My house has a tiny front yard. I'm looking into buying something to cut the grass in the next couple of weeks. I've narrowed my options down to a weed eater or a reel push mower. I've had gas powered and electric weed eaters before and they do a fantastic job. But I'm curious about these push mowers are they any good?
I always managed to get a really low cut with my weed eater, I'm worried about buying a reel push mower and having tall grass, even at it's lowest setting, but the idea of not having to buy and mix gas sounds great.
Does anyone have any experience with reel push mowers?
I always managed to get a really low cut with my weed eater, I'm worried about buying a reel push mower and having tall grass, even at it's lowest setting, but the idea of not having to buy and mix gas sounds great.
Does anyone have any experience with reel push mowers?
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But there are a lot of pluses! It's good exercise, it's better for the environment, and it's really quiet. I can mow my lawn first thing in the morning and not worry about bugging the neighbors!
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My front lawn is tiny, and there are no trees to drop twigs. I'll also cut my brother-in-law's grass, but he has a small hill, I wonder if it's hard work to push it up.
Overall, the land is really flat, no bumps.
When my wife and I moved in to our house I hesitantly bought a Fiskars Reel Mower on the basis that our yard is also really small (And, literally, singular) and it'd be good for the environment. But I was worried it would be like my friend's old push mower.
Now I love that fucker.
It moves smoothly and cuts down to at least an inch. Maybe shorter but that's what I have it set to. The biggest obstacle a hill would provide is that it works best with a constant, relatively brisk speed which can be tiring if you go directly up and down it but not too bad if you cut across it horizontally.
Its one major drawback is it can't handle anything over six inches. But between it and my electric weed whacker yard care isn't nearly as much of a hassle as it was for me growing up with gas tools. And like pirateluigi said because of the relative silence you don't have to worry about what time it is when you mow. And since I'm an early riser I like being able to mow my lawn at six thirty in the morning while it's still cool out.
Though to be honest, I can't imagine trying to get an even cut over a yard of any size with a weed eater. Just sounds like an exercise in futility.
I used a lawn mower to get a low cut, but when I saw what some people did with a weed eater, I was amazed. It took me a couple of tries, but after messing up most of the lawn, you get pretty good at it. It's also faster than a lawn mower.
1. It was the only one Lowe's had at the time
2. It looked nice
3. Most importantly of all, dual income no kids
You need to keep up momentum to keep the reel mower going, and I've found vegetable material has a tendency to gum up the wheels, especially if you're mowing tall grass.
Make sure to run it til it dies or empty the gas when you're done.
Upsides:
No noise
No gas
Lightweight
Easy to store
Downsides:
You have to mow regularly
Takes practice to know the best speed to mow
Takes more effort to actual mow -- move sticks and junk out of the yard first, then mow, and be tired afterward
The downsides didn't bother me except when I was selling the house and not living in it, since I wasn't around to mow every week. It sucks to mow 6"+ grass with a reel mower because the grass is long enough to just get pushed over instead of cut. Other than that, it's just an issue of doing it regularly and not just finishing and walking away. You can get a nice mow with a reel mower but it takes a little more effort, since you don't have a spinning disk of grass doom to help out.
But the biggest advantage for reel mowers, for me, is that they're easy to store. You can shove them in a shed and they are much less hassle to move about compared to a gas mower. Compared to a weed whacker, though, it's a hard comparison. Weed whackers are also small, easy to store, and lightweight, and they work better for edging (obviously). The main downside to a weed whacker is that it's harder to get an even lawn, and they're loud.
In Baltimore, where most people in the city have small yards, it seemed like it was about 70/30 in favor of weed whackers simply due to the fact that you didn't really need any muscle or effort behind it. Reel mowers were for people with relatively open, but small, yards, and the people with weed whackers usually had extra junk in theirs (shrubs, art, flamingos).
Reel mowers are not kid-friendly. Obviously a big gas mower is not kid-friendly to use, but reel mowers are a hazard even when stationary, in case that's something that factors into your buying decisions.
And you get none of the disadvantages of reel mowers. Grass too high? Twigs on the ground? Stubborn weeds? Not pushing at the right pace? Not a problem.
No. I'd say it's actually easier because it doesn't weigh as much because there is no motor. The only time a reel mower is hard to push is when the blade is set incorrectly. If you lower the blade too far into the crossbar, you're going to have metal on metal action. It's easy to fix and, since you never want your mower set that way, not something you'll have to endure.
I have a Scotts 20" and I couldn't be happier with it. To address your hill question: My house sits on a hill. Probably 8 or so feet high, maybe 35-40 degree grade. A significant hill in other words. I don't have a problem mowing it with the reel mower. In fact, since it's lighter, it's actually easier to mow than with my old gas powered mower. I tend to mow it just up and down for exercise, but mowing across the hill is easier and works just as well.
The only downside to the Reel Mower is that long grass is a problem. It doesn't get more difficult to push, it just pushes the grass down instead of cutting it. You can raise the cutting area by adjusting the wheels, and that helps with the tall stuff. I don't have a large yard, so I tend to just cut the grass every week or 2 weeks and everything works out great.
I don't think I'll ever go back to gas powered mowing. It just annoys me to have to deal with the gas, and after using a reel mower, it's just completely unnecessary.
Bump and swing. I found it way easier to figure out the technique on a gas weed wacker (not electric, balance is fucked, and cord suck) than a reel mower. But there are always caveats. I tend to let my grass grow high between mows mainly cause that is what is recommended in my climate (hot and not much water, I should go xeric but cannot right now).
IMO reel mowers are harder to push than any gas mower. A drive gas mower (one where the wheels are energized and push the mower for you) is by far the easiest effort option to mow a yard, but has the most maintenance overhead of all options. Even a non-drive gas mower is going to be easier to push than a reel cause your pushing effort isn't used to cut grass (the motor does that). Main upside to reel is it's pretty much maintenance-free and is quite easy to store. If you leave anything out in the elements it's going to cause you problems down the line.
I have to disagree. Obviously, yes, a self-propelled lawnmower is easier to 'push' (because you're really just guiding it, not pushing it), but I used to have a Hell of a time mowing lawns when I was using gas powered push mowers. The weight of the motor & associated mechanical parts is not compensated for by the powered action of cutting the grass, in my experience. Unless you need to eat through long grass, a reel mower is less work to move along.
Also, there are apparently robot mowers these days. Hella expensive, and probably not the best idea if your last name happens to be Connor, but damn. Cool stuff.