Lawn mower options for 0.75 acres?
 

I'm closing on a house next month and will have around 0.75 acres of cleared land to mow for 6-7 months of the year. It's been years since I've needed to mow a lawn and a lot seems to have changed.

Looked at battery-powered mowers and unsurprisingly they have narrow tracks and look like Fisher Price toys. I doubt there are any which would be appropriate for a lawn as large as this.

Looked at corded. Some inexpensive models are as wide as 18-20". I could deal with a cord so long as the mower is reliable, but reviews on them tend to be pretty bad. Really, how do you mess up an electric mower?

I could do what people have been doing for decades - a small gasoline 2 stroke, mix oil and maintain. This isn't an attractive idea to me but the technology is solid.

Oooor I could get a couple of goats.

Anyone tried and have any recommendations for electric models? Is there an option I've missed?

I have not tried electric goats. I'd go with the grass powered ones.

I'd go with a riding lawn mower for that much lawn. I mean, that's a lot of lawn for even the biggest push mower, and electrics have even smaller blades and are less powerful in case you let the grass get too tall and then try to cut it.

I've never been much for bagging, but it's a nice feature if you have deciduous trees and need to clear leaves in the fall. All other times I either side discharge or mulch.

I used a 120v plug in mower to mow my half acre yard in Langley from 2006 to 2011.
The only way to mess one up is to hit a stump, large rock or solid piece of metal.

I've never had much trouble with gassers. My preference would certainly be electric for a smaller yard, but it's the wrong tool to mow a small field if you value your time.

Everytime I had to use a lawn mower it was a corded one, and now I avoid them if I can. If you feel uncomfortable with the emissions, simply run the lawn mower on Everclear and Castor oil :D

BTW, I don't know where in the USA you're finding 2-stroke mowers. That's common for handheld tools (weedeater), but extremely rare for mowers. I've even got a 4-stroke chainsaw.

BTW- congrats on the home. I hope to have a decent amount of land one day too.

Even flathead mowers became uncommon now, so 2-strokes might've become unobtainium unless it's an used one.

Good to know about 2 strokes - you can see it really has been a while.

I'm going to be budget-constrained this first year, so the investment of a large riding mower might or might not have to wait. Would be nice to get something that can double plow duty though.

Just buy a used rider. You can pick them up cheap compared with new on craigs.

https://vermont.craigslist.org/for/d...825325939.html

https://vermont.craigslist.org/grd/d...828597069.html

Last time I saw a 2 stroke push mower was thr mid 90s.

I use a corded mower. They're pretty cheap on Craigslist. No batteries, very little to maintain.

On a budget, a used push mower is hard to beat. Also, since it is .75 acres, you might want to find the widest cutting path you can. A cheap rider would work also if you can find a decent one.

I would say ideally, an electric converted rider with a reel mower would use the least energy.

I don't know how powered reel mowers perform, but the push type are unforgiving if you let the grass get even a little too tall. Even then, it tends to look like a bad haircut.

Push mowers can be had for free, or next to nothing. Heck, if you lived by me I'd give you mine that was purchased new for something like $100. It's a hunk of junk, but at least it starts every time without much effort.

Probably some deals on used riding mowers, especially the ones with gears rather than hydrostatic drive. Another nice thing is you can hook a trailer up and haul around yard debris, mulch, etc.

They do require more frequent mowing but it will provide a healthier lawn since the grass is being sheared off and not hit with a machete.

I don't know how valuable mulching is compared to just trimming, but reel mowers don't mulch.

I usually just side discharge anyhow.

LOL

http://gardentractortalk.com/forums/...2893612798.jpg
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=crosley+farm-a-road


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...FarmallCub.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmall_Cub

I'll be honest, I've considered a mowing trailer hitched to my car. Probably not a good idea with narrow tires.

I bought an 80v (max, sure most of us know about that) Kobalt on clearance in the fall, so I got to use it a few times. IIRC it was 'up to an acre' and I'm mowing half an acre. That was on the two small batteries it came with. Have a huge to me Cub Cadet riding mower that mostly sat because I have a huge self propelled 6.75 horse push one as well.

It did ok, in nearly the worst part of the year. The bag is really small, I couldn't believe how many times I had to empty it. Again, the tail end of having to mow anything, it went through two full charges plus a partial. Yikes.

Appears to have two speeds, if it gets bogged down enough it has a high speed.


I really wanted to like it but might have to give it up during peak growing seasons. I don't have time to mow twice a week.

I wouldn't be bagging my yard. It's a rural area, nobody cares how it looks and letting the grass decompose back into the ground should help the health of the lawn.

I thought so too, but here it just started building up into thatch. Between not reseeding and barely fertilizing I started getting buildup.

Doesn't help that my soil is nasty red clay crap. In Ohio it was, dare I say, a nice brown.

I've never mulched with it, I'm sure it would do well on high speed but iffy on it's regular setting.


Pretty tempting to try and hack it for manual control. Maybe get some larger batteries.




Forgot to mention as far as fisher price build quality, it's really light! Doesn't need self propelling on my hilly front lawn.

Lest we forget:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oBZGzPNQoE

Mr3Tuf2 is Billy Yelverton. You might know him from the hard science.
__________________

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=lawn+thatcher&ia=products

Don't know your abilities,but,here is a video showing a conversion that will supposedly cut an acre or more on a charge.
I would look around for a section or 2 from an electric car battery,instead of 12V car type. I believe he used parts from a golf car.My volume was turned down.

Might give you info and ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YgUvCDsf7o

Else a Buick 20hp altermotor and 115v of Tesla battery modules?

I hear that here are varieties of clover that will take over your yard, and grow to about 3 inches. Might try that.

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/clover...ver-74639.html

Hah, I was tempted to tear out the few blades of grass in my front yard and just go with clover. It stays green during the dry summer months too, so it will look like I've been watering.

Once you have it, there's no getting rid of it. Some people say 2,4 D is an effective pesticide, but others say it's not.

But, why get rid of it? Green ground cover, "Don't never have to cut it, 'cause it stops by itself" (Sorry, a bit of "HAIR" reference). Only danger is it might invade your neighbor's yard, or your flower beds.

More than a few jobs ago I worked for a tier 1 supplier for lawn and garden tractors. At that time we had about 50% of the riding mower business and today they have almost 100% of the business (hyrdostatic / automatic models). Some things to know:

• There are dozens of brands but 99% of the riding mowers in the USA are made by 3 companies: MTD, Husqvarna, and John Deere.
• Any riding mower you find in a big box store like Home Depot is a disposable unit meant to outlast the monthly payment. You are looking at a design life of 250 hours and while they sell snow blades none are designed to plow or tow.
• Large diameter drive wheels are really hard on the hydraulics
• Zero-turns are great on flat lawns but dangerous on slopes.

I would personally buy a used quality unit instead of a cheap mower from a big box store

The HUSQVARNA R220T is better than most residential mowers. Get the HUSQVARNA R322T AWD if you need AWD for slopes or snow plowing. The articulating riders are fantastic, way better than a zero turn in my opinion.

In a traditional tractor I would go with a Simplicity Regent

For electric: I had a corded electric Black and Decker mow a 6000 sq ft city lot with a 2000 sq ft house on it. It worked fine with the small yard but died after 6 years.

Our Sears riding mowers had held up for decades with basic maintenance. I don't know what current mowers are like, but I would be surprised if they are much worse than mowers built 30 years ago. The last Sears/Honda rider we bought 10 years ago has had no issues other than a surging throttle, which was an easy fix.

Heck, I have a ($100 retail) push mower that I've run out of oil several times and keep outside in the rain and do nothing to preserve it, that starts every spring with new gasoline.

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x.../Cub-22c-1.jpg
http://www.farmallcub.com/phpBB2/vie...hp?f=1&t=52978

Not much bigger than a garden tractor. Better for towing. A good lawn ornament when your not using it.

The difference between mowers from 30 years ago and 10 years ago is night and day. I was in the industry from 2003 to 2008 and watched more than a hundred mowers driven on our test track. It was pretty shocking how many of the pressed steel frames cracked and we were driving them on smooth concrete. Manufacturers were very good a designing the parts to just meet the intended design life. The biggest complaint we got from the US market was that our transaxles lasted too long (and therefore cost too much) In Europe they complained that it should be easier to replace the filter.

For residential use a 250 hour life is estimated to be 10 years. They assume the average owner will cut their grass 25 times per year and it will take 1 hour.

Another tip. Anyone that tells you that a hydrostatic transaxle is sealed for life and doesn't require service is lying. The best thing you can do is change the oil after 10 hours, then again at 50 hours and then every 100 hours after that. Heat and dirty oil is what kills a hydrostatic transaxle. A certain green and yellow manufacturer had us remove the drain plugs from most models to save $0.25 per unit.

The same model transaxle could go 200 hours or 2000 hours based on vehicle design and maintenance schedule.

I have discussed these in various threads on here and I can track down the references if you like.

Gas lawn equipment is supposed to be responsible for something like 5% of U.S. emissions.
Battery-powered lawn equipment seems like a solution that creates more problems. I bought one that turned out to have a dead battery, but it was so old that I doubt it had the power of a gasser, or even a corded unit. Mom bought a lithium-powered snowblower and I believe that I burned out something, so I need to take it apart.
Lawnmowers die if you overwhelm them, but I have always been able to back off the gasser, restart, and proceed slower, or shift further over towards the part that I already cut.
When Mom's corded mower died, I needed to replace parts.
My sister lives on an acre, and despite using medical terms to explain that mowing was killing her, allegedly she mowed her lawn with her electric mower and multiple extension cords.
That must take forever.
She bought goats, but they were raised on pellets, so if you buy goats, make sure they are grass-fed.
Now they are pets and she bought a used riding mower.

Clover is beautiful, but ours always turns to stickers.

Thousands and thousands of stickers.

I spend many hours every year pulling clover. I tried weed and feed once. It did not seem to make a difference.

See, that's the kind of junk I'm talking about when I say there's meetings discussing how to save a few cents on a product since the customer won't immediately see the need. Of course, a line must be drawn on cost, features, durability, etc, but it drives me nuts as a consumer when I see that my life with a product could be made way better if the company had spent the extra 5 cents, and even charged me 50 cents more.

Rather than tout a product as "maintenance free", simply put in the drain plug, and advertise that the competitors "maintenance free" won't hold up as long.

I hated siphoning the oil in Mom's mower. It broke too many times and we could not figure out what was wrong, while we had the then-working corded mower.

Mowers are dead simple to work on. You need spark, air, and fuel to run. Spark can be checked in 10 seconds. Fuel can be checked quickly too by taking the air filter out and spraying starter fluid into it while cranking.

I try to run my mower out at last mowing. In the spring if there's a little fuel left I just pour it out and light it on fire.

Find something from the 1940s or 1950s that someone else has already sunk restoration money into. At a good price, it will never be worth less again.

This decision was a bit more complicated than that. John Deere used to make a private label mower that was sold in Home Depot. When they decided to paint that mower green and yellow to draw on the brand equity they ran into resistance from their dealer network. Basically the dealers didn't want to work on low end junk and people that pay $1500 for a riding mower don't expect to pay AG dealer rates for service. The "answer" to the problem was to make the low end mowers "maintenance free". Since the transaxle was no longer serviceable why not save some money by removing the drain plugs?

The problem is that people that want to take care of their mower and do proper maintenance now have to remove the transaxle from the mower to change the oil.

John Deere's decent riders start with the X-Series

And if you just dont want to fool with it you go down to harbor freight and buy a brand new (probably poor quality) engine for under $100.

It looks like Facebook is the place to shop for mowers:

Yeah honestly I'd probably put a Honda on whatever I get once the engine starts to need major work. It's the rest of it I'm concerned about; things that tend to be more specific to the mower.

That's a fine price on those mowers. The Cub Cadet seats still have vinyl on them, and there's an inline fuel filter already installed.

Our Honda is quieter, but I've never had a problem with the B & S engines. It's the carbs that usually are the most trouble.