If you recall, I was out mowing the lawn on Sunday morning and had to use a filler post. I began mowing at around 8 am, and by the time 11 am rolled around, it was 95 degreesF outside with 60% humidity. That makes the heat index (or feels like temperature) a balmy 113 degF. That also makes the dewpoint 79 degF.
When I came in, my shirt was soaked through with sweat to the point that it was dripping water onto the floor. I have had enough with lawn mowing using a walk behind mower, especially in the summer. Something had to be made easier. I looked at Home Depot for a riding mower and was stunned to see that they cost between $3k and 5k for the cheapest ones. Holy cow. Not only that, but you have to store, maintain, and fuel the damned thing. Then you are still stuck outside using the mower to care for the grass.
Then I saw the Husqvarna Automower. Amazon had the cheapest one on sale for $699. I went a couple of models nicer, and got a model 430X. It cost a little bit less than the riding mower, but it mows the lawn for you. I temporarily placed the invisible fence wire using pegs, just so I could see how well it worked before making the install more permanent. It mows the lawn perfectly, cutting for a bit over 2 hours before returning for a recharge, then returns to finish the job. My lawn looks great, and now I don’t spend three hours a week mowing and another hour edging. All I have to do is use the edger for about an hour, and I am done. This will save me 3 hours a week during summer, and every other week during the rest of the year.
That’s more than 100 hours of leisure time a year that I won’t have to spend mowing the yard. Yeah, I know some people claim to like mowing, but I don’t, especially when it feels like 110 degreesF outside. Speaking of work, it’s now time for me to head to the salt mine to see what the idiots of my area are doing today.
12 Comments
Sailorcurt · August 15, 2024 at 10:25 am
If you decide to revisit the riding mower idea, buy used. Preferably something at least 10 years old.
Unless you spend $10k on an industrial model, the new ones are pretty uniformly just very expensive crap. Most of the “budget” mower brands are now owned by one Conglomerate (Stanly Black and Decker owns MTD which owns the Craftsman, Troy Bilt, Yardman, Cub Cadet, Farm King, GardenWay, Bolens etc etc etc brands) and are all built to the same (cheap) standards using mainly Chinese parts and recently even Chinese engines.
A beat up 10 year old mower with a Briggs and Stratton engine will likely work better and last longer than a new mower you buy today.
I personally own a 2008 John Deere X320 that I use on my big property in the mountains. I bought it used three years ago for $1800 (from a dealer so I probably paid more than I should have). It’s a beast that I abuse regularly and has never let me down. I also have a tiny little 2013 Troy Bilt 30″ cut mower for my city property I bought used for $500 earlier this year when my hip arthritis got so bad I couldn’t use the push mower any more. My Troy Bilt is old enough it still has a Briggs motor on it, but it’s still pretty cheaply built. No freaking way I’d pay $2k for that thing (what they cost new when I was looking to buy) especially with a Chinese knockoff engine on it.
As with pretty much everything else these days, new mowers are built to be disposable so if you don’t want to be buying a replacement in a few years when the warranty expires, I’d buy something used. You’ll get a better piece of equipment and it will be much cheaper to boot.
And that concludes my unsolicited advice for the day.
EN2 SS · August 15, 2024 at 6:41 pm
When my hip/back gave out a eight years ago, I gave up the mulching push mower and went to a Sears 30″ riding mower (the same as your Troy Bilt, I bet) for $995. I recently saw that it now starts at $2000. I sold it when I left for $1000. I was happy, the guy that bought it was happy, the world is good. LOL
Rick T · August 15, 2024 at 10:35 am
The old solution was paying a local teenager to mow, but they are all indoors playing games now.
EN2 SS · August 15, 2024 at 6:43 pm
I just offered a grandson $20 to wash my car, he went into his room to play games.
LOL
Cederq · August 15, 2024 at 10:51 am
Wait until you have to mow five and half acres in Southern Alabama during the summer. You use the smallest commercial riding lawn mower from John Deere with a six foot mowing deck and a sunshade over the seat and two, count them two cupholders… with about the same temps, humidity, and dew point. Now I concede I would not have mowed it with a push mower for love of money, time or God. Because of the water moccasins basking in the lawn I had a Mossberg 410 shotgun in a scabbard along the engine cowling, damn snakes are so aggressive they will chase you and climb the mower to get at you. You certainly did not want to run over them, a bitch to untangle up to a six foot snake from your blades…
Will · August 15, 2024 at 2:35 pm
You need a tractor and bush hog. If you are from LA, I’m sure you are familiar with a bush hog.
Will · August 15, 2024 at 12:19 pm
A very wise man once told me, “If you ever buy a lawn mower, you’ll never be a free man again.” I believed him.
D · August 15, 2024 at 12:22 pm
I hate mowing. Especially when it’s over 65 outside.
I bought a mower a few months ago (not Husquavarna) and had a hell of a time.
Our property isn’t smooth and flat. It’s not a manicured lawn. We have french drains. There’s a burn pit. There are frequently kids toys scattered everywhere. There are a few spots where temporary cables are run across the ground.
The company made all sorts of big promises on their website and through chat that the robot would map the yard and allow me to set exclusion zones, set up borders, etc…
When it arrived, I unboxed it and set up the base station. I hit “go”. The robot backed out of the station and onto some very fine gravel (“stone dust”), tried to spin in a 360, only did about 320 and froze and errored out. I moved the base away from the house (which is surrounded by gravel) and put it in some nice smooth grass. It made it about 320 degrees again. After doing this 10-15 times it finally managed to complete it’s 360 startup circle and then immediately started cutting. I dug through the app to look for mapping options and found none. Then it started moving towards a temp cable. The app wouldn’t stop the mower. I went over to grab it, but it managed to put a gash in the cable. Oh well….then it suddenly veered off (apparently in suicide mode) and started heading up the driveway to the road. I picked it up and it kept mowing. I flipped it on it’s back…and it was still mowing. No safety stop or anything. I waited until it ran out of batteries, boxed it up and called them for an RMA. Their website promised a 30-day money-back guarantee.
It took a week for them to give me an RMA number and a return label.
A week after the shipment was dropped off at their warehouse there was still no refund. I called them. It sounded like they learned English last week. After 30 minutes of being on hold and transferred around I finally got someone who spoke English, and she told me I had to call them *after* the return arrived in their warehouse to request the credit….like…they had no idea why a robot was returned and just decided to roll with it. Super lame. They told me the credit should show up within 14 days.
I said “Naah”, called the credit card company and reported it as fraud.
So much for a $1,500 robot mower.
When my riding lawnmower breaks down, I’ll probably go with a high-end Husquavarna that has GPS mapping and stuff. I’m interested to hear how well yours performs over the next few months.
Bad Dancer · August 15, 2024 at 5:19 pm
I’ve been fascinated by these little murder roombas ever since I saw them maintaining the lawn on some park and historic buildings. Slowly been seeing more of them reach the normal people and other than Sinister shenanigans I rightly fear, I’ve been impressed by how quiet and unobtrusive they’ve been.
Plenty of folks say how they’re a gimmick and will ruin your lawn/cut up your garden hose/spray gravel across the car but with as much as the neighborhood likes to gossip I’ve heard not a thing against them from the people who have them and several now have googley eyes, mohawks, or other bits of personality flair.
I wondered how none of them had been stolen but then got an evil cackle imagining a porch pirate trying to nab one of them in action then being called Stubby from then on.
Eager to hear how your murder roomba works out for you as time goes on.
Jonathan · August 15, 2024 at 6:56 pm
I will also be interested in how the robo mower does.
At my last house I wore out a Cub Cadet with 8 years of heavy mowing – at least 2.5 hours a week with a 50 inch deck, some of it steep hills and other parts very rough.
I bought used and didn’t regret it. I agree that they have gone up crazy since then, but everything has.
Here grass only grows if I water it, so w push mower works but it still takes a while. Sometimes I wish I had a riding mower.
joe · August 16, 2024 at 6:52 pm
i feel your pain DM…living in tx…you can be out there at 9 am, spend an hour mowing/weed eating/edging and have to peel your clothes off…summers do suck in the south…
SiG · August 17, 2024 at 10:38 am
What do you do about edging? Not just along a sidewalk but driveway, porch, or other things like that. To save an hour of walking in rectangles is good, but that edging work can add another hour every time you mow.
Like others have said, keep us posted on it. We actually pay a guy to mow and all the rest. It’s not a lot but maybe two to three years of paying him to buy the “murder roomba” as BadDancer called it. If I pay that and still don’t get something to make edging and trimming easy peasey, I’m not sure it sounds worth it.
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