What petrol multi-funtion to buy?????

Boohoo

Hello.


My parnters parents have downsized to a smaller house and moved in 3 weeks ago.
The garden is very overgrown and is 50m long and 12m wide and on one side a hawthorn hedge about 8 feet high runs the whole length and the overside a hedge runs about 25m. The grass has not been cut for about year and there are some trees at the bottom of the garden that will need pruning back.
The owners either side have kept their sides of the hedge ok and have tried to trimm my partners parents side og the hedge while the owner was living there.
My partner has said we would come over for bank holinday weekend and help clear the garden(she's good at volunteering) as theye are in their 70's.
I told her dad you will need a to cut the grass with a petrol strimmer as it's a foot tall in places so i thinking he should buy a 3 in 1 multi tool jobbie(strimmer,hedge trimmer and tree lopper). I have seen some for about £140 and he should only use it for the weekend as he has a petrol lanmower and a cordless hedge trimmer and lawn strimmer but the will do after the garden has beed tidied up.
Has anybody got any ideas on what to product to buy please.

Browntoa

Why not just hire it as its a one off ?

lardlikesdogs

It might be worth hiring a Gardener for a day and given the fact they are in there 70's they may need help going forward.

Even if it is a one off it would be more cost effective than buying a cheap multi tool.

lardlikesdogs

Also what are you planning on doing with the waste ?

There will be a skips worth at least.

On the hiring hand route .

One of the biggest cost / time is the collecting and removing of the waste.

You could just get someone in that will cut and drop only .

Leaving all the mess for you to pick up and dispose of.

Getting just the hedges cut and lawn strimmed and you doing the donkey work would only take a decent gardener 2-4 hours work.

lardlikesdogs

And the £140 multi tool will be dross.

I paid £400 for a Petrol Long reach HT and £300 for a petrol Strimmer.

Sadly you get what you pay for.

Boohoo

Why not just hire it as its a one off ?

He looked at that and the price for 3 items he/we need was £120 for weekend or £200 for a week. He wants to buy and keep for future use.

Also what are you planning on doing with the waste ?

There will be a skips worth at least.

On the hiring hand route .

One of the biggest cost / time is the collecting and removing of the waste.

You could just get someone in that will cut and drop only .

Leaving all the mess for you to pick up and dispose of.

Getting just the hedges cut and lawn strimmed and you doing the donkey work would only take a decent gardener 2-4 hours work.

The waste is not a problem as it can go in garden waste bins over time and he can use the 2 neighbours bins also. As for getting a gardener in he had 2 quotes and they were for about £800.

Even though he is in his early 70's he his very fit and loves gardening and want to build a veg plot in the back garden when its done.

glasgowdan

I'd suggest he uses the mower without the bag, flap propped open with string and sturdy bootsand trousers on, and just mows thin strips of 6" at a time.

Does he need a pole saw/trimmer? A cheap multi tool thing will really be poor. He could buy a good used petrol hedge trimmer by echo, stihl, kawasaki etc which will be well worth it, if heavy.

How much time were the quotes from gardeners suggesting it'd take?

Kiran

I had a similar problem when we moved into our house. The garden was well stocked to say the least. Had grand ideas of getting it all sorted in a weekend. Coming up 3 years later I still have brand ideas, lol. We found that buying the items separately, albeit in electrical form worked out better as you could ha e more than 1 going at the same time. Also you can always find stuff on gumtree if you only need to do the job once and then just maintain.

Boohoo

Thank you for the replies/ideas.
He just wants to buy a multi-function jobbie to get it sorted and then keep for future use. He wants to buy new as he has been done before on gumtree/ebay.

Davesnave

Boohoo wrote: »

Thank you for the replies/ideas.
He just wants to buy a multi-function jobbie to get it sorted and then keep for future use. He wants to buy new as he has been done before on gumtree/ebay.

Do you honestly think he will get serious use from some multi-tool sold for a sub £150 price?

If he could, that would make those who buy more expensive brands, complete idiots.

There is sometimes a case for something like a cheap electric long reach hedge trimmer used a couple of times a year, but to do all these tasks at a distance from the house you are correct in thinking petrol is the way to go. However, petrol tools of inferior quality can vibrate a lot, fail to start and have bits fall off. It's easy to get the power and harder to deliver it reliably and comfortably.

Something like this from Screwfix has the advantage that you can easily get your money back inside a year if it goes wrong because there are branches nationwide and they're good like that. After a year, though, you may have 'fun' finding parts:

http://www.screwfix.com/p/titan-ttk587gdo-1-1hp-25-4cc-petrol-landscaping-multi-tool/48423

Don't forget to read the negative reviews as well as the glowing default ones that come first.

Finally, whether they're downsizing or upsizing, if people buy a house costing masny tens of thousands, and choose one with a large garden, the cost of maintenance tools is still a tiny fraction of their overall outlay.