Riding mower is the only gas engine I have to mess with. Counting down the years until a more competitive battery riding mower is sold.
Riding mower is the only gas engine I have to mess with. Counting down the years until a more competitive battery riding mower is sold.
* The battery is the same as my drills, giving me added battery capacity for the whole Dewalt system. Vendor lock-in...but they're a solid system. My dad's Dewalt batteries from 2012 finally just hit an unacceptably low battery capacity.
* I clean it after use but have had no other maintenance required.
* It's better for the environment
* It's silent when I'm moving across the yard. Having no idle sound is so nice. I actually value this very highly and am seriously considering buying all electric going forward. Last week I saw a guy mowing the yard with an electric mower. You could hardly hear it from 50 feet away.
As for riding, the deep cycle variants are getting competitive with gas powered but lithium is a ways off. fortunately with most deep cycle models batteries can be purchased in many places.
I have kept an old push gas mower around for high grass and light brush clearing a common area that is not regularly maintained. they still have more oomph than electric mowers.
The surprising win for plug-in electric is a small, cheap single-stage snow blower. For snows in the 1-4” range at under 25°F, it’s hard to beat the speed and convenience. I bought it just as a cleanup tool behind my “real” snowblower (a 2-stage can’t clear down to clean pavement), but I find I’ll often use it as the only blower I use for a light, fluffy snow.
I recently got the Ryobi riding mower, which is a glorified golf cart (lead-acid batteries) but works really well as a rough cut. When the blades are in action, it makes the sound of a box fan, and when the blades are off, it's totally quiet.
For the tools that I haven't electrified (my Mantis tiller and Trucut reel mower), I stick with Honda engines. They are a marvel of reliability compared to the others. Only exception is my shredder which has a Kholer engine and does seem to be good too. All these start on first pull after a winter in storage.