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Thread: How big a yard is reasonable to push mow?

  1. #61
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
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    Monroe, MI
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    11,896
    I stopped at my local L&G place again and she thinks I'm probably good with a standard 22" self propelled mower. She's got one they took back from an elderly guy's family after he went into a nursing home a few weeks after buying it. They asked about her selling it for them but she just did a refund and they've been using as an occasional loaner. She wants me to try it before buying anything. "But it will be mid August" I said. Her..."No problem, it will be here waiting for you." Gotta love the customer service. Wife and I have since discussed though that the right approach is definitely buy a good 22" self propelled and if that's not enough, we'll look for a decent used commercial walk-behind or pay someone to do it. The regular mower will be needed for some tight areas of the yard and will let any of us do the mowing if needed.

    We plan to buy a good snow blower too this fall. Our dog loves to try to catch snow thrown from a shovel. The snow blower should be really fun


  2. #62
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Doylestown, PA
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    7,551
    The lady next door has a battery powered mower. She can't let her grass get very long. If the grass gets long due to a wet spell she has to borrow a gas powered mower or mow twice, once high then a second time lower due to limited power.

  3. #63
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Monroe, MI
    Posts
    11,896
    I looked at a well used, but well maintained, good running Exmark 36" commercial walk behind yesterday that I'm seriously considering. Owner bought it from someone who ran a very small lawn service on the side and has used it in his own yard for a few years. He's selling because his dad bought a rider and handed down a larger version of the same Exmark. If we buy that I think we'll still buy an inexpensive (not cheap) 21" mower for tight spots and so my wife and daughter have something they can use.


  4. #64
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    SF East Bay, CA
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    287
    Gosh, when I first read this I thought by push mower you meant one of those reel mowers with no motor and the rear catcher. I'm actually thinking of getting one of those for the place we are moving to. I can use the extra exercise. Needless to say the front and back lawns are small. I'm probably going to find that the cost is comparable to a cheap powered mower at the big box store.

  5. #65
    You'll probably need a backup mower if you use a reel mower. Certain things don't go through a reel mower too well (weeds, grass that's tall enough to lay over when the mower hits it, etc).

    When I was in school, for summers, I worked at a driving range that had a boatload of adjacent property that the owner was under contract to mow (federal property). We used golf course mowers, and from time to time would use a rotary mower to chase down the stuff that managed to evade the reels.

    We also mowed at about half an inch (the shorter the cut, the better a reel mower works). Obviously the grass burned out when it was dry, but the root system stayed and it always came back when it was wet again - that's not an entirely bad compromise when you're getting paid to keep grass in order, but not so good for a yard.

    You could get most of the stuff that troubled us with a string trimmer, though, if your yard isn't too large.

    All of that said, I much prefer the way a reel mower works - it's so much more elegant and satisfying to see grass getting pinched and snipped off cleanly with so little energy used to do it.

  6. #66
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    SF East Bay, CA
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    287
    Quote Originally Posted by David Weaver View Post
    You'll probably need a backup mower if you use a reel mower. Certain things don't go through a reel mower too well (weeds, grass that's tall enough to lay over when the mower hits it, etc).

    When I was in school, for summers, I worked at a driving range that had a boatload of adjacent property that the owner was under contract to mow (federal property). We used golf course mowers, and from time to time would use a rotary mower to chase down the stuff that managed to evade the reels.


    We also mowed at about half an inch (the shorter the cut, the better a reel mower works). Obviously the grass burned out when it was dry, but the root system stayed and it always came back when it was wet again - that's not an entirely bad compromise when you're getting paid to keep grass in order, but not so good for a yard.

    You could get most of the stuff that troubled us with a string trimmer, though, if your yard isn't too large.

    All of that said, I much prefer the way a reel mower works - it's so much more elegant and satisfying to see grass getting pinched and snipped off cleanly with so little energy used to do it.
    Reel mowers were common when I was a kid. Used them at my parents and grandparent's yards. I remember doing this kind of forward/back motion to keep the reel speed up. At the bottom line, I think 1/2" is too short for me. I might have to rethink this. Wife wants synthetic grass, but that costs about 2,500 times what I will pay for a mower.

    David, regarding your last paragraph, I agree that there is a satisfaction component to using an old reel mower. Hopefully this won't start a hand vs power tool thing with lawn mowers.

  7. #67
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Cincinnati Ohio
    Posts
    4,731
    Matt,

    What happened to the ZTR?
    "Remember back in the day, when things were made by hand, and people took pride in their work?"
    - Rick Dale

  8. #68
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Lake Gaston, Henrico, NC
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    8,973
    Quote Originally Posted by David Weaver View Post
    You'll probably need a backup mower if you use a reel mower. Certain things don't go through a reel mower too well (weeds, grass that's tall enough to lay over when the mower hits it, etc).

    When I was in school, for summers, I worked at a driving range that had a boatload of adjacent property that the owner was under contract to mow (federal property). We used golf course mowers, and from time to time would use a rotary mower to chase down the stuff that managed to evade the reels.

    We also mowed at about half an inch (the shorter the cut, the better a reel mower works). Obviously the grass burned out when it was dry, but the root system stayed and it always came back when it was wet again - that's not an entirely bad compromise when you're getting paid to keep grass in order, but not so good for a yard.

    You could get most of the stuff that troubled us with a string trimmer, though, if your yard isn't too large.

    All of that said, I much prefer the way a reel mower works - it's so much more elegant and satisfying to see grass getting pinched and snipped off cleanly with so little energy used to do it.
    I had a personal driving range in one of our pastures. The local guy, who is not carrying a full load, thought pulling the ball picker behind the riding lawnmower was the best job ever-sort of like Forrest cutting grass. It worked pretty good until one day when he decided the grass needed cutting, and he could do both jobs at the same time.

  9. #69
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Monroe, MI
    Posts
    11,896
    I have a verbal commitment to sell the ZTR to the guy who's buying our house. Its a 60" deck--a little impractical for a 1/3 acre lot!


  10. #70
    Quote Originally Posted by Larry Whitlow View Post
    Reel mowers were common when I was a kid. Used them at my parents and grandparent's yards. I remember doing this kind of forward/back motion to keep the reel speed up. At the bottom line, I think 1/2" is too short for me. I might have to rethink this. Wife wants synthetic grass, but that costs about 2,500 times what I will pay for a mower.

    David, regarding your last paragraph, I agree that there is a satisfaction component to using an old reel mower. Hopefully this won't start a hand vs power tool thing with lawn mowers.
    I don't know what you can get away with and do well, maybe 2". Certainly you don't have to go down to 1/2". We used that for two reasons, one because it kept the grass from growing too quickly (though it did grow fast in spring), and two because out on the driving range, people are a lot happier if they can see their ball roll for a while. Makes them feel like a big golf bully.

    I spent most of my time riding an old jacobsen F14. It could mow around 4-5 miles an hour, 14 feet wide and on a gallon of diesel an hour or less. It had hydraulics for every reel (to lift them, but the reels themselves were ground driven), so you could keep driving and only lift one reel if there was a stray golf ball where you were mowing. If you hit a golf ball with one, all you heard was a loud "ping" that resulted in two halves of a split golfball flying in the air.

    you did get covered with grass driving it, but it never got old to me - it was such a marvelous efficient piece of equipment.

    The new push mowers do seem to mow better than the old contact reels, though - at least in the videos the manufacturers show online.

  11. #71
    I use an old reel mower to cut our yard (one-third of an acre less a 1,200 sq. ft. House and short driveway and some small gardens) using a 15 year old or so mower. Works fine, though I did have to trim one part of the yard w/ clippers once when it got excessively overgrown.

    I also have my grandparents' cast iron mower which I've used a couple of times, and have a spare like the one I use for parts which my wife saved from someone's trash.

  12. #72
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Minneapolis, MN
    Posts
    5,426
    I'm going the opposite way of Matt. The house I sold had maybe 6,000 square feet of grass to mow. It took about 45 minutes with a 21" mower. The house I put in an offer on has at least two acres of grass to mow. I already bought a used Toro commercial mower and did some repairs on it to get it running. It is 48" and I'm starting to wonder if I should have waited and got a 72" instead.

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