Backstory: New homeowner (go me, supporting the economy) with a third acre lot. The front set back is some flower beds and weeds. We’re gonna scrape the house when the architect is done and the build permits issued, but that will take a few months. I’m sure my new neighbors would appreciate me keeping the jungle under control in the meantime.
I haven’t used a weedwhacker in 3 decades and not sure what I need. I think I want to keep the jungle under control for now, and later use it as an edger and for strategic areas in the yard. I think I want a gas blade model but not sure. I’ve got kids, including an autistic 6 year old that doesn’t really understand safety, so my gut feel is that a gas model might be safer as she won’t be able to start it. But a blade would definately represent more potential danger than a line.
Thoughts, experience, recommendations would all be appreciated. Thanks!
I’m too lazy for that, so I just rent goats. The main thing to remember is to keep their chains short enought that they don’t get their lips on anything you don’t want eaten. They eat everything to the ground and often pull up the roots. Use a chain, because they will eat ropes and then go off to eat your car.
I’ve heard that sheep are good too, but I haven’t rented one.
I use an electric weed whacker with a long extension cord. I’ve fitted it with a heavier line and it has no problem taking out the jungle in my front yard. Even small tree seedlings aren’t a problem. What are you cutting through that you need a blade?
Also, several manufacturers make systems with interchangeable heads. So one motor can run a weed whacker (fitted with string or blade), an edger, a tiller, etc. You might want to look into that. I also have the Black and Decker gas interchangeable system. Works fine, but it’s heavy and loud, so I prefer the electric.
Also, with your safety concerns, the battery operated seems like the worst option. At least an electric has to be plugged in first. The battery operated ones start quite easily.
I find that electric ones are too weak, but I live in a rural area where the grass can get pretty chunky before I take action.
We have two attachments for ours - the nylon cord one, and the plastic blades one. Some models you can also get basically a steel circular saw blade that fits on the end, but I’ve never used one of those. The plastic blades seem like they’d be kind of pathetic - they’re just soft, not-so-sharp thick plastic blades that hinge so that if they hit an obstacle they bounce aside, rather than bouncing the whole machine like a fixed metal blade does - but it turns out they are ludicrously more powerful than the cord. They are, however, crap at cutting around stuff that you don’t want to severely damage. So for instance, we have a big bank that’s too steep to drive a mower on, but it’s just grass - I get that sorted almost an order of magnitude faster with the plastic blade than with the cord. But last time I tried cutting around some small trees with the blade, it was more fatal for the trees than I had planned.
From a safety point of view, it’s also worth mentioning that the plastic blades really aren’t sharp or dangerous if the engine’s not going. I can imagine a sufficiently determined child hurting themselves or someone else with a metal blade even when it’s not running, but the plastic blades are about as dangerous as the edge of a frisbee.
My dad loves loves loves his Black & Decker battery powered one. He’s got a half acre with 8 trees and a driveway that he trims around. Needs to do the front yard one day, let it juice, then do the back yard the next day. He’s had it 5+ years now and he’s never had an issue with it. One time he did have me bring my gas trimmer out to do some of his heavier weeds he’d let get out of hand. Otherwise, it takes care of everything he needs.
You can lock the battery powered ones, but you’d have to look at how the different models do it and assess how well your kids can figure it out.
Dad has a bad back and a bad neck and stands 6’ tall but does not have any physical problems with the Black & Decker. It’s very light.
At my house I have a gas 2-stroke and I find it to be heavy but I am a girl and while I’m a large girl, I just don’t have the strongest back. The $5 shoulder strap I bought makes a world of difference. I also use safety goggles with my trimmer.
My trimmer is an Echo. I used to have a Toro and when it broke and I tried to get it fixed, I was told by the local power-tools-fixing-place that Toro is shit and Echo is where it’s at.
My trimmer uses the 2 line rapid-loader head which instead of a spool of wire is just two 8" sticks of wire that replace really quickly. I’ve found this so much easier than a bump head. I had a bump head on my Toro and it did nothing but confuse me.
I never use a blade head, but I assume that’s what dad has on his Black & Decker. Suits him just fine. I need heavy-duty line for my yard.
Another vote for gas. The others just aren’t strong enough; strong’s not the word, but you keep having to go over the area you just did with electric and battery. Plus with cords I (this is personally) don’t feel its safe for kids under 8, so that would include your daughter (now and in the future).
I have a gas powered one and an 18V cordless. No comparison to the amount of work the gas model can do with it’s double strand versus the cordless and single strand head. I can cut small trees with the blade attachment. The cordless won’t handle any serious weeds.
I like their easy wind head but I’m not a fan of the short wire replacement type. I’d be going through replacements every 2 seconds when trimming around steel fence or concrete. That quick wind head looks great.
Not sure what you mean by holding up but standard fuel line for gas trimmers are a replacement item. They’re exposed to heat and a lot of banging around. I got about 15 years out of mine. When I replaced them they just crumbled. Many of the units use a “golf tee” style of fuel connection which is nothing more than a plastic piece jammed into the line from inside the tank.
If your yard is quite small, an electric model might work. For anything like mine, gas is the only way to go.
Stihl is the brand I have, and easily the best of those I’ve used. Among its many virtues (as I again demonstrated a couple of weeks ago) is that you can leave this thing lying all winter with half a tank of ethanol-contaminated oil-gas mixture and still expect it to start on the third pull.
(It would no doubt be better for me to properly “winterize” the thing, but why bother?)
I’ve got a Shindaiwa and it’s probably the best I’ve ever owned and there have been a few. It’s lightweight, starts first pull everytime (rare) and it’s really simple and quick to load new line in, you just run a line through the end and wind up both sides at once, takes 15 seconds.
I don’t have a huge yard (4000 sq ft, but I do have a 2 cycle gas power head and a set of attachments that I use, primarily because it seemed more economical to buy $80 attachments (string trimmer, edger, leaf blower, hedge trimmer, pole saw) than to buy each individually. I have the Ryobi/Homelite Expand-It system stuff, but Echo and Stihl make their own versions if you have the $$$. I’m using a Toro power head which is $20 more than the Ryobi, but seems noticeably superior in terms of build quality and components.
I went gas because my back fence is a chain-link fence covered in a bunch of trumpet vine and honeysuckle that gets overgrown into the rear alley and I have to take the hedge trimmer to it from time to time. Extension cords would be a monstrous pain to get to the back corner.
My trimmer head is a .095 bump-feed model, but it’s pretty easy- you just wind the line around the spool in the indicated direction, press it into the holders, cut off about 4" of slack, and then put the spool into the head, loosely tighten the hold-down bolt to keep the spool on, and then pull on the line to pop it out of the holders, then screw the bolt the rest of the way down.