Mowers

moneyistooshorttomention

Any costings please on how much it would cost to use a lawnmower?

I'm presuming that its absolutely minimal costs (ie too low to count), regardless of what type of mower it is (ie oil-powered, battery-powered or whatever else)?

Are costs involved in using a lawnmower enough to notice please?

DaftyDuck

Depends on the size of the lawn, and the size of the mower, as well as how often to you trim it.

Electric (plug-in) lawnmowers seem to be around the 1500 Watts for a small one. So, in one hour, that'd use 1.5kWh . Electricity is around 15p per kWh (variable, you can look your cost up on a bill), so that's 22.5 pence to run the lawnmower for an hour. You'd cut a fairly large lawn in that time.

Petrol lawnmowers are more difficult to price, as they don't list mpg, or mpacre on their details. I don't really notice the fill-ups for mine, as I do them when I fill the car up. I'd guess I get through four X five litre cans in a summer so, with fuel at £1.29 a litre, it costs me around twenty-five quid to keep the lawn cut. {I service my petrol lawnmower myself but, given it seems to cost about £60 for a "perfessnal" to change the oil & sparkplug, and count that as a service, that's a larger cost}

I still have two small electric lawnmowers that I've had for ages (19 years!), and they've never been serviced, but have had new blades (say £10) every three to five years.

I'm quite ready to be told my sums are wrong, but they'll be a start. Electric lawnmowers are cheaper to buy & run, and save on servicing, I believe, but not as tough. I know nothing about battery lawnmowers, and I don't think I'd want one. Cost for running will be slightly higher than an electric plug-in, EXCEPT the battery is bound to fail after a few years, and that'll cost a fortune to replace.

Edit: If you have Economy 7, you could save a fortune, and cut the lawn at night, but then you'd have to factor in a floodlight costing too ....

Davesnave

If you've had an area of grass that's not been mowed this year, no ordinary mower is going to touch it now.

I have 'wildlife' areas like that and only my Hayterette could hope to attack those. I'll actually knock them down first with a petrol brushcutter and mow later with the Hayterette. It's not time to do that yet, except under the apple trees, where I''ve already done it in order not to lose the apples that fall.

Edit: The costs in using a mower/brushcutter are noticeable to me, but I have a lot of grass and comparatively rough land, which takes it out of machinery. I would expect to pay £250 a year, at least, for fuel, spares and replacements. Trouble is, it's always more than that!

When I had an 'average' garden, I bought a secondhand electric Flymo for £50, which lasted the whole of the 21 years I was in residence. That's surely closer to what you can expect, but they don't make them like that any more!:rotfl:

pmartin86

DaftyDuck wrote: »

Edit: If you have Economy 7, you could save a fortune, and cut the lawn at night, but then you'd have to factor in a floodlight costing too ....

You would also have to factor in an annoyed neighbour if you did this! :P

lostinrates

If its not a huge area of real lawn and you keep on top of it then the old fashioned push cylinder mowers are of course free to run ( or an extra cup of tea, or third weetabix, or whatever your poison is).

I'm thinking of getting one for fiddley areas.

Horseunderwater

My Dad had a Battery cylinder mower in the 60/70's & we had to change to petrol as he could not source a new battery. We got a flymo that floated like a dream over the rough lawns we had. However back then petrol was in the region of 15p/lgallon. We used to walk to the garage & they fill the can up, we'd add the 2 stroke, swirl can a little to mix & walk home & away we'd go. Eventually I got tall enough & strong enough to start her myself, so did not need dads help with that. It was one chore I loved. We too used to clean the sponge filter, hot water with wash up liquid, then squeeze water out, use some old undies to dry it off, drop of oil massagedf in - replace & away we'd go again. That was how I learned about the internal combustion engine. I'm a girl BTW!