Lawn Mowers

Many people love the idea of being able to ride on their riding lawnmowers while cutting the lawn, while others prefer to get the exercise of walking behind a lawnmower that is self propelled. If you are really looking for exercise, then a pure push-type lawn mower is probably the way to go. Not only do you walk behind the lawnmower you expend extra energy as you push the lawnmower as well. Still, it can get quite tedious pushing a heavy lawnmower. Especially when you have a large lawn to cut every week!

So what type should you purchase? What criteria should you use to help you narrow down your decision? We are going to focus on the type of lawnmower in this post and stay away from manufacturers or various models. Basically, we will compare the push type of lawnmower, the self-propelled lawnmower, and the riding lawnmower.

Our criteria are the cost to purchase, functionality, area to cut, and overall ease of use. You may have others and we would be glad to hear about them, so please leave a comment or suggestion.

Riding Lawnmowers – Cost

The cost of a lawnmower varies a lot and as you add features the cost goes up. A basic lawnmower without a grass catcher or mulching capability can cost as low as $150 on sale. This is a push-type lawnmower with no features. It has a good engine and will cut your lawn for many years, however, you will need to push this lawnmower in all conditions and if the grass is long you may have to rake up the grass. You can spend a little more money can get something with a grass catcher.

Self Propelled

The next major level up is a self-propelled lawnmower and of course, these are more expensive, have more moving parts, and have more things to go wrong over time driving up repairs. They are easy to drive, you just follow and steer the lawnmower in the direction you want to go. I prefer the front-wheel-drive model since all you need to do to slow your progress is to lift the front wheels a little bit to disengage them from the ground. The rear-wheel-drive lawnmowers work equally well, however, I find these less easy to maneuver. It is not uncommon to spend $400 to $600 on these types of lawnmowers.

The next level is riding lawnmowers. There are various types of mowers such as zero-turn mowers, and short radius mowers, tractors with mower attachments which can be used for various other activities around the yard. Of course, the sky is the limit in terms of size, power, and attachments, so the price is as well. You really need to decide what you will use the riding lawn mower for, how much you will use it and whether it is worth it to you to spend up words of $1500 and much more on one of these machines.

Riding Lawnmowers – Functionality

We have mentioned push, self-propelled, and riding lawnmowers. What other things do you want the mower to do for you? Mulching, grass-catching, de-thatching, rototilling, pick up leaves, pull trailers, push snow, or blow snow. These basic questions and the answers to them will take you in one direction or another in terms of the kind of machine to purchase.

The more you want to do with these machines, the higher the cost and the more functionality that is required. Examine this area carefully. Sometimes it is better to buy one machine that will blow snow and cut the lawn with various attachments. Long driveways with large yards in areas where you get hot summers and cold snowy winters might push you in the direction of a riding lawn mower with a snowblower attachment. On the other hand, small yards with lots of obstacles and little snow in the wintertime pretty well eliminates any kind of riding lawnmower.

Riding Lawn Mowers – Area to Cut

Riding lawn mowers are naturally bigger, cut larger areas easily, and provide comfort for the driver. They do not work as well in areas where there are lots of shrubs to maneuver around, steep grades, and tight corners. If you have any of these conditions, give some careful thought to what you want to purchase and how you will be able to use it. You do not want to end up having to do a lot of extra trimming because you cannot get into tight areas or around shrubs and trees. Riding lawn mowers are best at wide open large areas that need grass cutting.

Overall Ease of Use

Any of these machines are great to use when they are working fine. The problem is that the more working parts there are the more that can go wrong. Which will drive your overall cost up especially if you need to hire a mechanic to fix the machine.

Push lawn mowers just need gas, oil, and starting by pulling a chord to get you going. While the other extreme is the riding lawnmower. Which has a starter, a generator, more belts, and possibly a transmission and driveshaft. Also inflated tires, larger engine, and several cutting blades. When they work they work great. However, like any machine, they need regular maintenance. Because they are more complex, your ease of use will be in question if you do have problems.

Riding lawn mowers are great, we just want you to realize that these machines are more powerful and will need more care and maintenance than a simple push lawnmower.

Feel free to leave comments on our criteria or add some of your own. Spam will be deleted so don’t waste your time and ours. For more details in general about lawn mowers, click here.

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