[kansasrph]

I have been given good info with previous questions, so will ask this. In Kansas I mowed a big lawn myself. When we moved here I didn't want to keep gas, oil, dirty mower in my garage (I had a shed in Kansas). I bought an electric mower. It works fine but I HATE the cord. I'm deciding whether to bite the bullet and keep fighting the cord or change to a different mower. Our lawn is medium sized here. I was wondering whether the lithium powered batteries on mowers worked well. I liked my old string trimmer that had alkaline batteries, but they wore our fairly quickly and I know lithium is the new technology. Any experiences with these products would be appreciated. Thanks so much.

[Buffalo Jim]

Sent you a PM . Check it out !

[Topspinmo]

Yes they work good on small yard and regular cutting 1/3 or less off the grass. From my experience expect about 2 maybe 3 years from batteries depending on use and recharge (with older technology lithium style batteries). Try to use up the battery till it immediately stops. That way you full charge it every time. Type grass will also affect the preformance of the mower. Deeper thickear grass try to stay within 1/3 or less cut off the top.

[rjm1cc]

Years ago I had a battery lawn mower. Cut about 1/4 acre and had to do it in two parts. But now I would assume batteries are better and I would go with a battery mower and I think you will not have any problem with the small lots.

[JerryLBell]

We bought our house here two years ago and had a yard service do our small lawn for that time as we only moved here this year. When it came time for the annual renewal, I decided to buy a battery powered lawn mower and do it myself instead. To be specific, I bought a Kobalt 80-volt 21-inch mower and a trimmer that uses the same battery. I'm told a fully charged battery can last up to 40 minutes or so. The battery takes only 30 minutes to charge fully. I found I can mow my lawn (a designer series house with a non-premium lawn) in 15-20 minutes, take the battery out and pop it in the trimmer and do all the trimming and still have charge left on the battery. Thanks to a sale, I'm supposed to be getting a second battery for free and I don't know if I really have a need for it.

Battery technology has advanced a LOT in the last several years. Lowe's has their own line (Kobalt) and Home Depot has their own line (EGO), both of which allow you to use the same batteries on multiple pieces of equipment (though they are not interchangeable across manufacturers). I'm sure there are others as well. There is some decision-making to do as to going higher voltage but lower amp-hour rating or vice versa (80 volt, 2.0 amp-hour with Kobalt vs. 56 volt, 5.0 amp-hour with EGO). I'm not qualified to explain (or even understand!) the difference.

The one thing I found was that the mower was a bit harder to push than I'm used to. That's NOT because of it being battery-powered (the mower is a bit lighter than my old Honda 21-inch gas-powered mower and the EGO mowers with their plastic decks instead of the Kobalt's steel decks are lighter yet). It's because the type of grass grown here is VERY different than what I had in North Carolina or in Michigan before that. I used to be able to set the mower to two inches and the mower rolled over the hard ground and did a nice job on the grass. Here, the grass is far thicker and resists rolling almost like you're pushing the mower over a wet sponge. I've seen recommendations of setting the mower to three inches here and I started with that but it looked like I was scalping the lawn. I set it to four inches and finished with that but my wife wants me to go even higher to keep the lawn looking green even directly after mowing. That would be true whether the mower was gas, battery, corded or even push-mower-type manual.

The other thing to keep in mind for mowing is the weather. It is HOT and HUMID here in Florida (if you haven't already noticed). I'm kind of used to it, having lived in North Carolina for the last 19 years, so it doesn't bother me that much. Had I come here straight from Michigan, I might have melted trying to mow here in the summer. Also, you have to decide if you want to spend the time, however, minimal it might be, doing this instead of playing here in The Villages. There are a lot of decent lawn services at a variety of price points who'd be willing to take that effort off your hands if you'd rather not. I used Cripple Creek and thought they were great but now that I'm here full time and still in OK shape and "just" 62 years old, I figure I'd do it myself for a while. Heck, I actually kind of like doing my lawn. If that ever changes, I'd go back to them in a hot minute or look around if they weren't available.

Good luck!

[kansasrph]

Great info. Thank you so much.