by OldGuy » 31 Jul 2024, 18:08
Anyone who has done their own lawn care even just once in awhile knows about the roar of the gas powered machinery. Heaven help you if the neighbor decides to use his gas powered leaf blower at dawn before he heads off to work and doesn't care if he wakes the entire neighborhood. (Especially if he has one of the old squealers that scream as much as they roar.) Gas mowers can be hard to start at times but fiddling with the carburetor might get you going. If the grass clogs up the mower, you have to carefully lift the entire mower enough to reach under and scrape the housing clear of grass clogs. You can't tip it much because the oil will spill out. Gas hedge clippers are pretty heavy, but the plug in clippers always seem to get the cord in the way. Someone always ends up cutting the cord by accident. Gas weedeaters can be as cranky to start as the gas mower and they are heavy to hang on to for a day's work. All of that on top of the correct gas/oil mix to make things run right.
Most all of it makes enough noise and pollution that some neighborhoods, towns, counties and now even entire states are banning gas powered equipment. The list of places with outright bans is growing longer every day.
So you will eventually end up being stuck using battery powered equipment. It is coming and you can't avoid it. People kick and scream over the change as much as they did in the past when being forced to switch from DOS to Windows in their computers. That was a major change oldies like me really hated.
OK. So now you have to look at all the battery powered options and pick what will work best for you. Every manufacturer uses their own style battery. Some equipment comes with a starter size battery that will last anywhere from a half hour to an hour. You can buy a spare battery to make a switch and keep on going, or stop to charge it up for 3 to 5 hours before you can continue. There are optionally larger capacity batteries that can run for several hours in a single run, but those high capacity batteries can cost 2 to 3 times the cost of the equipment itself.
Battery powered equipment is surprisingly powerful. The only piece that is not quite as powerful as the gas powered version is the leaf blower, at least in my collection. I suspect it is because that particular tool is the oldest battery powered tool I have and that a newer one would work much better. They have improved a lot in recent years.
All other devices work as well as the gas version. They are much quieter and don't bother the neighbors nearly as much. If a mower clogs with grass, you can just flip it over to have full access to the grass chamber for cleaning. No oil to worry about. Everything starts and stops just by pulling the trigger as you go. No ripping your arm out of the socket just trying to start the dang thing. No cords to cut because no extension cord is needed. Everything battery powered is much lighter to carry. There is truly nothing to complain about when you leave the gas powered world and start using battery powered equipment.
If you select different brands for each tool, you end up with a pile of different batteries that will only work with that tool. However, many manufacturers make the entire line of equipment and the same batteries will work in all of them. If you end up with a half dozen different devices from the same company, that means all those extra batteries are spares for all that equipment. Each one also comes with a battery charger so you can actually charge all of them at the same time. One runs out and you just switch to a fresh battery and keep on trucking. A simple battery switch is faster than filling a tank with more gas. Just charge all that you use when you get back to the shop.
I actually carry a half dozen extra charged batteries to every job site but the manufacturers all warn not to keep the batteries in a hot vehicle. The high heat is not good for them. I keep them all in an ice chest. No ice, just the chest. It keeps the batteries cool even in a hot car. Since I travel to multiple sites, I keep a charger at multiple central locations near each work area. I can just drop a used battery in the charger where ever I am, run the rest of the job with a fresh battery and go on to the next site with fresh charged batteries all day.
Since I now use all battery powered devices, I no longer have to mix gas and oil and I no longer have to carry that deadly concoction in my vehicle from job site to job site. Since everything works so well and so much downside was eliminated, it was an easy switch from gas to battery power. Try it. You will like it.
Anyone who has done their own lawn care even just once in awhile knows about the roar of the gas powered machinery. Heaven help you if the neighbor decides to use his gas powered leaf blower at dawn before he heads off to work and doesn't care if he wakes the entire neighborhood. (Especially if he has one of the old squealers that scream as much as they roar.) Gas mowers can be hard to start at times but fiddling with the carburetor might get you going. If the grass clogs up the mower, you have to carefully lift the entire mower enough to reach under and scrape the housing clear of grass clogs. You can't tip it much because the oil will spill out. Gas hedge clippers are pretty heavy, but the plug in clippers always seem to get the cord in the way. Someone always ends up cutting the cord by accident. Gas weedeaters can be as cranky to start as the gas mower and they are heavy to hang on to for a day's work. All of that on top of the correct gas/oil mix to make things run right.
Most all of it makes enough noise and pollution that some neighborhoods, towns, counties and now even entire states are banning gas powered equipment. The list of places with outright bans is growing longer every day.
So you will eventually end up being stuck using battery powered equipment. It is coming and you can't avoid it. People kick and scream over the change as much as they did in the past when being forced to switch from DOS to Windows in their computers. That was a major change oldies like me really hated.
OK. So now you have to look at all the battery powered options and pick what will work best for you. Every manufacturer uses their own style battery. Some equipment comes with a starter size battery that will last anywhere from a half hour to an hour. You can buy a spare battery to make a switch and keep on going, or stop to charge it up for 3 to 5 hours before you can continue. There are optionally larger capacity batteries that can run for several hours in a single run, but those high capacity batteries can cost 2 to 3 times the cost of the equipment itself.
Battery powered equipment is surprisingly powerful. The only piece that is not quite as powerful as the gas powered version is the leaf blower, at least in my collection. I suspect it is because that particular tool is the oldest battery powered tool I have and that a newer one would work much better. They have improved a lot in recent years.
All other devices work as well as the gas version. They are much quieter and don't bother the neighbors nearly as much. If a mower clogs with grass, you can just flip it over to have full access to the grass chamber for cleaning. No oil to worry about. Everything starts and stops just by pulling the trigger as you go. No ripping your arm out of the socket just trying to start the dang thing. No cords to cut because no extension cord is needed. Everything battery powered is much lighter to carry. There is truly nothing to complain about when you leave the gas powered world and start using battery powered equipment.
If you select different brands for each tool, you end up with a pile of different batteries that will only work with that tool. However, many manufacturers make the entire line of equipment and the same batteries will work in all of them. If you end up with a half dozen different devices from the same company, that means all those extra batteries are spares for all that equipment. Each one also comes with a battery charger so you can actually charge all of them at the same time. One runs out and you just switch to a fresh battery and keep on trucking. A simple battery switch is faster than filling a tank with more gas. Just charge all that you use when you get back to the shop.
I actually carry a half dozen extra charged batteries to every job site but the manufacturers all warn not to keep the batteries in a hot vehicle. The high heat is not good for them. I keep them all in an ice chest. No ice, just the chest. It keeps the batteries cool even in a hot car. Since I travel to multiple sites, I keep a charger at multiple central locations near each work area. I can just drop a used battery in the charger where ever I am, run the rest of the job with a fresh battery and go on to the next site with fresh charged batteries all day.
Since I now use all battery powered devices, I no longer have to mix gas and oil and I no longer have to carry that deadly concoction in my vehicle from job site to job site. Since everything works so well and so much downside was eliminated, it was an easy switch from gas to battery power. Try it. You will like it.
