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Anyone use a cordless electric lawn mower?

nortac

"Can't Raise an Eyebrow"
Entertaining the idea of getting a battery operated mower for trimming around the house and tight places my big riding mower can't get into, rather than getting another gas push mower. Reading reviews on Amazon doesn't have me too excited on durability and performance. Does anyone have one that they are really sold on? Even though I won't be using it to cut large areas, it must be able to mow through some tough stuff without konking out or getting damaged.
 

Ad Astra

The Instigator
Oh heck no.

I admit I do use a corded edger and blower; these have plenty of HP.

But a mower?


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Bought the Echo trimmer a few summers ago and it goes and goes. Also it has the speed feed head that accommodates normal trimmer line. When my mower poops out ill be looking for a battery powered one as well.
 

simon1

Self Ignored by Vista
So I picked up the Kobalt 80V Max with a 6 Amp/hr battery.


Let us know how it works in your area. One of those would be killed in about 5 minutes here. The blowers and hedge trimmers work well...if the trimmers won't cut it (pun intended) I have chain saws.
 

nortac

"Can't Raise an Eyebrow"
This is the one I picked up today.

So I gave it it's inaugural run today. It took the battery about an hour and a half to fully charge, as expected. It gave me about an hours run time before it showed one bar, the point at which you need to recharge, although the mower was still running. If you let it go completely dead, it takes 20 hours to recharge!!. The mower did OK. I ran it in mulch mode, as that is the way I always ran my gas mower. A gas mower it is not. It mowed the grass OK, but I was not impressed with the mulching of the few leaves in it's path. It wasn't phased by the few Fire Ant mounds I ran over. I didn't have any really thick or dense grass to cut, so time will tell, but I only have 30 days to return it if I don't like it. Bottom line, it cut everything I had to cut around the perimeter of my house on a single charge, and that's what I bought it for. I have my doubts as to how it would fare against really heavy mowing, but that's what I have my Ferris 61 in. zero turn for.
 
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nortac

"Can't Raise an Eyebrow"
Another update. The second outing with the Kobalt 80V, I started with the side discharge chute installed. I was not impressed with the side discharge function. The chute caught on something that I side swiped and popped off so I continued on without it in "mulching" mode. The grass was a little heavier and taller than the first time I used it, but not thick, lush and heavily overgrown, but I don't get that very often anyways. Although the late winter /early spring was rainy, it's been rather dry recently. Bottom line, like its first outing, it mowed what I needed it to mow for as long as I wanted to use it, roughly an hour or so, I did not time it. Certainly not the performance of a gas mower, but adequate enough to not return it yet. I appreciate that it is lighter to use than a gas mower and that it will fold up and stand on it's end for storage.
 
SWMBO bought one about 6 months ago, saying she could help mow the little yard at the house we have decided to stay/live in.

It has been out of the garage once for a few minutes.

I asked her how it was and did she like it.

Her answer was, oh, shut up Mick. Go mow the lawn.
 

nortac

"Can't Raise an Eyebrow"
SWMBO bought one about 6 months ago, saying she could help mow the little yard at the house we have decided to stay/live in.

It has been out of the garage once for a few minutes.

I asked her how it was and did she like it.

Her answer was, oh, shut up Mick. Go mow the lawn.
So have you used it?
 
So have you used it?

No.

I am an old Snapper man. The one here is 1970's steel deck black handle. I've used snappers for small lawns exclusively for over 40 years.

Bigger lawns are either a 36" walk behind or 52" ZTR.

Funny. It takes me almost the same amount of time on each lawn (45 minutes for 1/2 acre to acre +). The only difference is the mower and width of cut.

Don't seem to have a pic of the snapper but these are the other 2 mowers I use. I'll pic the snapper during the next mow in a few days.

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My corded lawn mower motor went just this week and I bought this battery one this morning on line




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

nortac

"Can't Raise an Eyebrow"
Another run with the Kobalt this AM. I attacked a different part of the lawn that I would not usually use a push mower on, even a self propelled one, just to further test out it's performance. The grass was taller and thicker so I used the self propelled feature more. This of course reduced the battery charge a bit quicker. The mower did it's job well enough. The motor raises the RPM when challenged by a heavier work load of higher, denser grass, but it didn't bog down. Even took pine cones, magnolia seed pods and thick leaves in stride. Some areas of high grass/weeds required a second pass to get an even cut, but that sometimes happens with a gas mower to. Sometimes a tough weed will get knocked down and not cut because this mower does not create as much "lift". But the flip side of this "under-powered" situation is that it doesn't create a choking cloud of dust in dry conditions like a more powerful gas mower will. Of this I am grateful! I think that I'll most likely be keeping this battery operated mower. It works fine if you accept certain limitations. The blade is of lighter construction than that of a gas powered machine, so I won't be using it to cut woody shrubs and small saplings around the base of trees like I would have with my gas mower, but I have gas powered trimmers for that anyways. It will be interesting to see how the blade holds up over time. Luckily they are not too expensive and readily available if needed.
 
All of my neibors have cordless electric mowers and they seem very happy with them. Honestly, I see no reason to have a gas-powered walkbehind mower anymore because electric is better and cheaper, not to mention you dont have to deal with the mess, the stink and the hassle of maintaining a combustion engine.
Another option to consider would be a reel mower. No gas, no oil, no batteries and the thing is pretty much built to last forever. I got a small, cheap reel mower and it works great.
 

nortac

"Can't Raise an Eyebrow"
For my property, a reel mower would be too much work! They work fine on small manicured lawns. Mine's a bit too rough and tumble for that.
 

nortac

"Can't Raise an Eyebrow"
Now I'm seriously contemplating the matching Kobalt 80V 18 " electric chainsaw. I still have two gas powered chainsaws, a Stihl and a Husqvarna, but the low maintainence of an electric saw that is ready to go at a moments notice is very appealing. Like the mower, it won't have the performance of the gas models, but a lot less headache and maintenance costs. And it should do most of what I need a saw to do, if it doesn't, I still have the gas powered ones.
 

nortac

"Can't Raise an Eyebrow"
I went ahead and picked up the Kobalt 80V chainsaw yesterday while it was still on sale. I cut up a large oak limb, about 15-20 ft. long that had fallen a couple of months ago. It varied in diameter from 6 in. to about 12 in. The 18 in. Kobalt saw did the trick. Like the lawn mower, not as powerful as a gas saw, but powerful enough to do what needed to be done.
 
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