Today I was thinking about the fact that soon the snow will be gone and once agani it wiil be time to start gardening. My question is: Which type of lawn mower is better Gas or Electric?
For the record, I’ve always had a Gas powered one. Ive never used an electric one but to me it seems that in some ways it might be better. For one, it seems to start alot easier than gas powered ones and they also seem to be a lot quieter. The only disadvantage I can see is that unless you have either a lot of outdoor outlets or a very long extension cord. You may have a problem with covering the entire yard with it.
This is getting swept over to IMHO in a heartbeat, if you ask me, but as long as I wandered in, I’ll just inquire: what’s wrong with a good ol’ person-powered push mower? Yeah, you have to get it sharpened from time to time, but it’s much quieter, better for the grass, cheaper, better for the environment, and good exercise. You just got too much lawn to cut by hand, or what?
YO! Kimstu hows about running over here and mowing my 5+ acres with that manual mower***** of yours? The only thing I’ve found that does the job is a commercial grade gas mower.
[indent]***** [sup]You do have one don’t you?[/sup][/indent]
Chill kniz, I did ask the OP if s/he needed a power mower because there was too much lawn to mow by hand. I’ve always used a manual mower myself but I certainly understand why you’d need a power mower for big areas. (No, I don’t have a mower of any sort at present; when we need the grass trimmed here in urban Rajasthan we just let the street cows have a go at it.)
Still, if we manage to turn this ultra-lightweight IMHO thread topic into an actual Great Debate about the environmental impacts and utility trade-offs of power versus manual mowers, I will be pretty impressed!
This is even better suited for GQ - and as I may replace my aging gas mower when it goes with a push type (just for trim and the area immediately surrounding the garden), any recommendations for best models would be welcomed.
Apart from the mere size of the lawn, there are also types of grass that are harder to cut with a push mower, and also parts of the country where summer heat and humidity are so bad that the environmental benefits of using the human-powered mowers have to be balanced with risk of dehydration and sunstroke. Plus there’s that elemental satisfaction of positioning a roaring gas mower directly over a fire ant mound and giving the little %#%^*@s something to think about.
We thought briefly about geting an electric mower last year (I was really interested in the quieter aspect), but the number of trees in our yard pretty much precluded that option for us. Think of the cartoons with a dog on a long leash which is wrapped around two trees thirty-five times. Now replace the dog with me pushing an electric mower, the leash with an extension cord,…
We looked into getting an electric mower a few years ago. There are battery powered electic models now so there’s no annoying cord to worry about. The main thing to look at is how large of an area can be mowed before the battery dies and how long it takes to recharge the battery. At the time we looked we had a 1/2 acre yard with hills and trees and probably would have needed two batteries worth of power to mow the whole thing. I suppose if you really wanted to go electric with a larger yard you could get an extra battery so you never run out of power. We ended up going with the gas mower again even though I hate the noise. It did look like a good idea for a smaller, flat, city size lot.
When I had a decent sized lawn in New Jersey I had a gas one, somewhat self propelled. When I was a kid I was allergic to grass, and thought if I still was my wife might have had to do it. But I’ve gotten over it. I never had any trouble starting it. Here in California, with a dinky lawn I have a push one. Less shed space, no gas to buy, plus I feel virtuous.
It is remarkable how much better starters have gotten. My father had a b ig snow blower which took hours to start (it was shared by about five families on our b lock.) I have a cultivator now, and even after 6 months of idleness it starts in about five minutes.
i’ve always used a electric one… personally i’d say its better:
lighter weight, so easy to move around
no gascans to fill & have sitting around
no gas fumes
much quieter
starts instantly
for me the cord (100foot in this case) really isn’t a problem… you learn how to
keep it out of the way… and i’ve never once mowed a cord, (even with all those
times i’ve mowed the lawn at night
the only problem i see is that you really don’t want to run anything besides the
mower on a 15amp circuit … or you’ll be taking a trip to the circuit breaker box
We have an electric mower and no problems…as mentioned above, it is quiet(er) and when you let go of the handle, it is off.
However, living here in Las Vegas, we had four years of great lawn and last year, boom…grass all go dead, bye-bye, pfui, basta!
Don’t know what to do this year…we have a drought, so have been looking into some of the newer “fake” grass that actually isn’t all that bad - not like the crap in the 60’s people put on the patio.
Or we might plow the rest of the crap up and re-sod, but on a smaller scale.
At any rate, having grown up using gas mowers, and recently using electric - I would vote for an electric mower…also have an electric trimmer as well.
I’ve had an electric mower for the last three years. No cord, it has a rechargable battery. I don’t recall the area that it is supposed to cover between charges but, I cut my lawn and my neighbors( a little over an acre total) without it needing to be recharged.
Also:
Electric start, so no worries about spark plugs or pull cords.
No gas storing or oil changing.
Quiet. Neither the cat or dog will move out of the way.(this may be a minus)
Looks really cool. Mine looks a little like a foot tall Volkswagon Beetle.
[sup]You do have one don’t you?[/sup][/indent]
I never had any trouble starting it. Here in California, with a dinky lawn I have a push one. Less shed space, no gas to buy, plus I feel virtuous.