MsNito and I are in the process of buying our first house, so we’re going to need a lawnmower. Our yard is just small enough to tempt me to buy a reel mower instead of a power mower. Not quite a postage stamp, but close. The advantages I can see are that they are cheaper (both to own and to operate), quieter, better exercise, and I can feel environmentally smug. But I imagine that they are slower and harder to use.
Any Dopers have any experience with these? Any tips? I think the MIBOR listing stated my yard as .25 acres but that might be a little on the high side. It’s smaller than a typical subdivision yard.
I had a reel mower for many years, when I had a very small yard. It’s certainly quieter - in fact, it makes a pleasing sound. Maintenance is easy - keep it clean and dry, and sharpen the blades once in a blue moon. It’s going to be slightly slower than a power mower, but for a small yard, that doesn’t make much difference. Is it harder to push than a power mower? Somewhat, but less than you’d think. Especially if you’ve got a level lot, once you get it going on one “pass” across the lawn, it’s just as fast and easy to push as a power mower.
Downsides? First, a reel mower is not good at handling tall grass. If the grass is too tall, it tends to bend over in front of the mower, and not get cut down. You can’t let the grass get too long, or you’ve got a problem! Second, a reel mower won’t cut the grass up into small bits, like a typical modern mulching mower. In that case, too, if you cut frequently enough, it’s not an issue.
I use a reel mower in my tiny yard and like it just fine. As Early Out notes, it doesn’t do well with tall grass – which includes that that weedy grass with sproingy seedheads. I go over the lawn with a weed whacker once a month or so to keep that under control – depending on what you’ve got growing in your lawn, that might not be necessary. (Me, I’ve got this whole philosophical objection to the American obsession with lawns, so I let whatever wants to grow, grow – dandelions, crabgrass, clover, ground ivy, creeping charlie, whatever – if it’s green, it’s fine with me.)
We have a pretty small amount of grass and I use a Brill Luxus 38 reel mower. As noted already, it won’t cut very tall grass or weeds, but I can mow grass that is a few inches tall if I go over it in a few different directions. It’s also hard to use in areas where the ground isn’t pretty flat. It will dig up a clump of grass if it hits a high spot.
My mower cuts 15 inches wide but you have to overlap passes to make sure you cut everything, so the effective cutting width is much smaller. We have so little grass that it doesn’t matter. I’m done in about 10 minutes if I haven’t let it get long, but then I have to go back and handle the edges where the mower can’t reach. With a power mower you can get very close to the edges because the blades are as about as long as the axles. The reel mower has a big wheel that has to ride along the edge so you miss a few inches at the edges. You have to cut that with an edge trimmer or, as I do, manually with clippers.
Clover, by the way, is a *good *thing to have in your lawn. It’s a nitrogen fixer, so if you’ve got a healthy crop of clover mixed in with your grass, you shouldn’t need to fertilize. The problem with a lot of lawn weed-killer products is that they knock out the clover along with the other stuff (plus the better known “toxic, can’t be good” objection to their use!).
I’ve got a lawn outllook very much like Twickster’s (except for the creeping charlie - that stuff bugs me but is nigh unkillable), and I love my reel lawnmower. My front and back lawns are both about 30’ x 30’; it takes me about 45 minutes to an hour to mow the entire thing.
You do need to be fairly diligent about picking up any sticks in your yard - while the mower can power through smaller ones, they can also ding and dull the blades, as well as give you a pretty good “oof!” moment when they stop the mower entirely by getting stuck in there.
Other than that, it’s not bad at all. I’ve never mowed with anything other than my reel mower, though, so I don’t really have any point of comparison. (What? My dad mowed his 40 acres with a riding John Deere when I was growing up. Sue me.) On the exertion scale, I’d put it higher than a stroll around the neighborhood, but lower than at 30 minute jog.
I have a tiny yard. I think it’s 1/6 of an acre, and a good deal of it is covered with ivy. I like my reel mower quite a bit. Not much to add except to agree with the “tall grass” downside. Ditto for dandelions – I have to bend over and pluck them. I don’t find it hard to push at all. Since it’s lighter than a powered mower, I think it’s actually easier to use, especially on hills and around tight spots where you have to manhandle it around a telephone pole or something. The tradeoff is that you often have to go over the same spot more than once, but given the size of my yard, it doesn’t bother me.
Using my Brill pleases me. I hate hate hate gas mowers, and I would much rather work a little harder than stand behind a spewing noise pollution monster. I lurrrrve the snicker-snick of the happy busy german-engineered blades I do.
My last lot was 50x150, and my current one is 50x200.
A reel mower was - and would still be - my choice on a lot of that size. (When the job passed to my kids, my wife gave in and bought them a gas mower. When it soon becomes my job again on a full-time basis, I will buy myself a reel.)
As folk have said, the advantages are many. Reel mowers are light, inexpensive, require little maintenance and no fuel/oil, take up less space in the garage/shed, and are not noisy/smelly. I have read that the reel mower’s “scissors-like” action is better for the grass than the circulating power mower’s blade, but I doubt that is a big deal for most folk. Modern reel mowers are a world different from the heavy beasts many of us pushed around as kids. So don’t buy some cheap old model you find at a garage sale. If you do, you may well be disappointed.
The only disadvantage is that you cannot let your grass grow too long. You can still use your reel mower, but it will leave shaggy spots which will require that you mow 2X or more in different directions. So sometimes in the spring you will have to mow 2X a week. Also, reel mowers don’t mulch, so if you let your grass get too long it will leave the lengthy clippings on the lawn which you may feel like raking. Or you can use a grass catcher with many models.
You can get a nice reel mower for just a little over $100, so it might be worth a shot. Even if you decide you do not want it for every mowing, you might buy a power mower for heavier mowings, and keep the reel for quick clean-up jobs.
As an aside, I bought my most recent reel mower maybe 15 years ago when I was having problems with my rechargeable mower. One spring the battery just wouldn’t hold a charge. The company said they would repair/replace it, but it would take 6 weeks! Figuring my lawn couldn’t go 6 weeks in spring without being mowed, I went out and bought a cheap, basic reel mower at Sears. When my kids got old enough to mow, my wife got rid of the reel in the never-ending effort to declutter the garage.
My grass in California is so small that I have one also. Only very rarely have I let the grass grow high enough to be a problem. I figure I can pretty much finish my lawn in the time it would take to prime and start a power mower.
The only disadvantage is that a power mower can cut the grass closer to the ground. When my reel mower was being sharpened, I borrowed my neighbor’s power mower and the result looked good. Not good enough to get one, though.
I’ve had my reel mower for 13 years, with no service besides sharpening.
I just bought my first reel mower today. I’ve got a small lot 90x40 and I hated mowing my parent’s lawn as a kid because of the noise and I just can’t justify $300+ for an electric.
The only thing I’m worried about is that I got my sob laid about 2 months ago and so it’s pretty long. But I figure since I still need to buy a weed whacker for edging I can always trim out the long stuff to make it mowable.
I supposed to get the mower by next Friday so I’ll let you know how it does.
I never hear that sound anymore (big yards around here!) but if I did it would take me right back to late Saturday afternoons and my Pop mowing the backyard when I was a kid. ::nostalgia
We had a next-door neighbor a few years ago who had one of these. He would mow about once a month, when the grass was probably a foot high and going to seed. He’d do a half-ass job of mowing, so that there were foot tall blades of grass sticking up all over the place. Plus, they are uphill from us (with a retaining wall in between) and all of the foot-long grass stalks that DID get cut fell into my wife’s flower beds. So yeah, if you’re going to use one, be sure to use it correctly. (Thank goodness these people moved away last summer.)
