Battery Power for Lawn equipment -- is it time?

the push mower is definitely easier than the rider.

for the rider, ryobi recommends:
1) remove the cutting deck from the machine
2) turn deck over and scrape buildup off of all parts and clean motors
3) replace cutting deck on machine

 

So, you're saying look into clean up when buying an EV riding mower.

 

idk, it doesn't seem to bother anyone else. maybe just because i'm old and crippled with arthritis, makes it very difficult.
i still wouldn't go back to gas.

 

I own an 80v Kobalt electric mower 21" RWD.

I was an Electrician/Engineer so I certainly know about electricity and water.

The motor is a sealed, brushless motor

I regularly wash my mower off and clean the underdeck with water - always remove the battery first - the battery compartment is pretty well sealed and isolated when the lid is closed. If it's not too dirty, I will blow it off with the weed eater. We've owned our electric mower for 5 years now.

Our mower has one electric switch for the push start/bar hold and one electric assembly for the rear wheel drive - battery plugs directly into the motor assembly.

Probably not ideal and certainly not a best practice but it hasn't hurt the motor.

Very careful not to get water in the motor/battery compartment. The other switches are very well sealed, and I spray them off directly.

In our area high humidity and grass covered in heavy dew every day is a constant you can count on - so the mower has to take that water assault. Also have mowed briefly in light rain.

Mower is very well put together, and powder coated -rust is not an issue even under the deck

 

I clean the underside of our corded electric mower by blowing it with a corded electric leaf blower. Whatever doesn’t come off I let be, then maybe once a year get more thorough, scrape off the stuff that’s clinging.

 

Our greenworks 25322 just needs a quick scrape every other mow.

We pretty much have to wait for the dew to burn off, but I'd want to anyway just to reduce the chance of spreading plant diseases- turns out that matters.

We got it secondhand 6 years ago, still runs great.

 

Is yours the one with the integrated lead acid battery? It must be pretty heavy. You can get a riding mower lift or use car ramps to get it up and angled for you to spray the bottom with a hose. Saves on your back trying to get under there with it on the ground

 

My corded electric mower (Black & Decker) is 26 years old. The bottom is plastic and I just scrape it off about once a year with a putty knife. I never mow when it is wet and never spray any water on it. The only repairs I've ever done is to get a new power lever...just the plastic part you pull to trigger the switch. The small bump on the lever that presses the electrical switch wore down and didn't depress the switch fully.
I do remove the blade and sharpen it every couple of years

Mike

 

I first learned to cut grass using an old B&D corded rig. It was like this one.



The signature feature is the handle attached to the deck by a longitudinally-centered hinge with a 90° range of motion, so when you got to the end of a row you popped the release, flipped the handle to the opposite side and you were free to push it the opposite way for the next row.

It was a fantastic feature! You never actually had to turn the mower around, which meant you never changed the trailing angle for your power cord.

To this day I've never seen another with the trick throw-over handle.

 

Hmmm, you had it easy, I learned with this...



But the lawn was more weeds than grass (not like in this photo!), it wasn't easy pushing that bad boy!

now I have a Craftsman Rider and a Kobalt 80volt pusher. At my retirement home I have a Kubota tractor/brush hog, a John Deere rider and a Craftsman pusher. The Deere and the Craftsman are history once we move.

 

Nice! I still own a Husqvarna reel mower but I'll admit it doesn't get a lot of use lately.

 

Some B&D mowers might still have that feature. Remember seeing such several years ago. If not still around, sales lost out to having a bag.

 

Hey, I still have my that.

But now I also have a 56 volt rotary Ego.

I never found the that to be very hard to push. And it takes up very little space hanging on my wall.

But it stops cutting once the grass exceeds a certain height, just bends it down and rolls over it. So being too inconsistent in my mowing schedules, I was continually borrowing a friends rotary mower, to knock things back down to a height I could mow with the that.

Then during the lockdown I bought the Ego, so I wouldn't be continually going out to borrow somebody's mower.

... which is really the only reason I've pretty much stopped using the that.

 

5 years into the thread...
Still using my rescue, corded Greenwerks and 3 adult-sized petrol machines on two lawns totaling perhaps 3 acres of turf.

The electric mower continues to impress!
$15 for one spare blade plus electricity to operate over some three years.
If you keep the blade sharp, it slices the grass rather than shattering it with a dull hunk of metal propelled by an ICE.
Amazing results on a fairly flat 1/3 (1/2?) acre city lawn!!!
Almost whisper quiet, and you get to actually experience the aroma of a freshly mown lawn rather than the fumes from a gas burner.

For ME, for NOW it's not yet time to go 'battery only.'
I will be happy to rescue a battery-powered mower from a land-fill, and I use a battery weed-whacker, blower, and even a 10" chain-saw for light touch-up work.

HOWEVER (comma!!)
For those that don't burden the planet with ultra-dense, concrete enforced congregate living, rural lawns have things like deadfall, pine-cones, and irregular surfaces.
BIG weeds, and BIGGER trees.
I Still need gas for that.
For now.....

I use a 10-year-old Craftsman push mower and a 42" rider for my rural property.
My 17-year-old 1100# Zero-turn is still operable, but in semi-retirement for emergency use.
One of the benefits of pushing a mower or wheeled line trimmer over 200' of road frontage is that you get an amazing workout!
100 minutes of cardio and over 20,000 steps, according to my i-watch-thingy.
Someday, I will join my cohort and just pay somebody an obscene amount to spend 15-minutes riding a yuge gas-burning zero-turn, beating my city lawn into submission, and my beautiful 5-acres of paradise will be maintained by my hiers or turn fallow.
Until then????
I'll keep rolling the rock to the top of the hill.

I need the exercise.

 

I'm considering this to replace my John Deere rider. between this and my tractor, diesel and electrons, I would be good. Concerned about using it on a slope though. But then, the crappy John Deere trans wimps out and stops going up hills after about 10 minutes. It's a known problem that JD won't address. Nothing runs -from a design flaw- like a Deere!

 

Picked up a Fiskars thinking it would be fine with my small yards. Didn't count on my inconsistent mowing schedule. My yard might also be too small. It does great when going straight, but around beds and corners, it can be tedious.

 

Just found this corner of the forum and electric mowers are not new to me. But forgive me for not reading all 39 pages. I have had an EGO self propelled mower since 2017 and keeping it running now is just testing my mechanical stubbornness. The warranty coverage sucks. I registered it right away, 3 years in the battery life was less than half new so I called and asked for a replacement. They told me since I did not have the original sales receipt the warranty would not be honored. I made a fuss and sent a copy of the credit card statement. End result was they sent a new battery but voided my warranty for future claims. Then I found out why. These things are junk. The folding handle has wiring for the controls, at year 4 the speed control failed. Being out of warranty I opened it up myself and ran new wires. Then the drive started getting real noisy. There are no seals in the gears at the wheel and the gears were clogged up with crud. Cleaned them out and regreased. Last year the second battery went, run time was down to 3 minutes. I found a used battery and was back in service until yesterday. The self propelled switch on the handle stopped working, another broken wire. So 3 more wires jumped the switch to the mower. During all this the blade, which must be made of aluminum, needs to be sharpened every third week. I am cutting a half acre, never had a blade go dull this fast.
On the plus side I love battery powered lawn stuff. They are quiet and no gas storage. The blower and trimmer seem to run forever, after 7 years the batteries have all been replaced but the tool still works. But a mower that can't go 10 years without major issues and a warranty that is a a joke pisses me off. Eventually the drive or motor will crap out and I will get another electric mower, but never from EGO.

 

now you're scaring me on my new ego purchase

 

No problems yet with any of my Ego tools.

Well, the bump feed on the string trimmer has always been a joke. Reportedly, they have newer models with better feed arrangement. I just keep using mine and laugh at the joke. My neighbors might really enjoy watching me stop every so often and flip the tool over and pull more line out with my hand. Let 'em laugh. I don't do enough trimming to go replacing it over that. (And it's light enough that flipping it over's no problem, and no gasoline dribbles out.)