The right mower is the best lawn mower during the sunny days since they greatly cut-off the grass in your compound. If you need a perfect mower but again you are not certain on their features and type of more you want, here we already covered you. We have a lawn mower buying guide that will help you select the best mowing machine.
Step 1: Ride or Walk
You should fast decide if you need a mower, you will use in walking behind it or riding. The mower threshold we use is approximate of a quarter an acre. If your ground is not big enough, you can decide on a walk-mower, and for bigger spaces, riding mowers are the best.
You should make your mowing surface approximation first. You can walk on the land as you count the steps then add the rectangle areas and you shouldn’t be very precise. For a man, his stride can be an average of 30 inches, and for women, they can make up to 26 inches average stride. However, you can opt to measure the stride to be accurate.
Step 2: Select the Features you want
Once you’ve decided on either running or walking mower, consider the comfort and budget. Expensive mowers are versatile, durable, does the job faster, and are intuitive too. For the cheaper ones, they perform opposite of the more expensive ones.
The Walk Mowers
Walk mowers resemble cars in option range with varying complexity and prices. Ensure the price of products is in line with its features. Consider if the mower must be pushed or it can handle itself be it a rear-drive mower or a front-drive mower. Self-propelled mowers are enjoyable especially when you’re loaded while mowing or in hilly places. The self-propelled machine may never require being pushed in uphill places.
Reel-hill drive is perfect for side-hill and uphill mowing since pushing down its handle towards the hill; there is no lost traction in front tires. Toro owns lawn-boy that has been invested in with a quality performance for a long period. The mower is simple and provides great services.
Functions
Mowers that bags and mulches are double-functioned. The mulching lawn is healthier since they return clippings of gas rich in nitrogen to the ground; hence they are not perfect if grass being cut is taller from the summer stress or spring seasons. There is Husqvarna mower which is the best two-function front-drive self-propelled walk mower. The machine pushed, small, cheap, and simple with two functions which side discharge and mulch.
A machine with three function mulches, side discharges, and bags and is the best for utility mowing and when the lawn has moved far from you hence you want to take grass in stages and set mower deck to the fullest height, the three-functioned machine is the best.
The best three-functioned example is troy-built, has a mid-sized engine, pushed mower, front driven, and its engine is Honda. The machine has large rear-wheels with a diameter of 11 inches.
Common Features
Mower specialist will always explain until the common features of the mower machine you will buy, and they include:
Deck levers are in four, two, or one group. One lever has linkage which increases weight; hence you need to lubricate some interval for it to work well despite being so convenient. Two levers compromise four and one levers. The linkage is lower than for one lever but more than for four levers, however, getting the correct height is easier. The standard design and time-tested one is four levers.
To know the good speed control for you is by handling the mower while in the store, home center, or dealership. Handling may make controlling integral where the mower moves faster when you press drive control forward harder in the handle. It may be bail or separate level, if you want mower’s drive system activated or ground speed increased, squeeze the lever especially if mowers have fixed-speed.
There are three transmissions types of self-propelled mowers: Hydro-static, the smooth in operation, reliable, and very expensive which drives hydraulic fluid through the impeller which spins the output shaft that controls ground speed. There is a belt-and-pulley arrangement used in rear or front drive walking mower for directing power from the output shaft of the engine up to the rear or front axle gearbox. The design has several variations which work perfectly and are easily repaired and maintained.
The Honda’s mower has a hydrostatic drive with its precise in cutting and smoothness. There is a mower snapper’s rear-drive-hi-vac which is used in bagging. Kind of such mowers have been in the market for many years, and they’ve emerged to be strong performers and reliable. The spinning disc drive employed by the mower is easily serviced compared to other rear-drive transmissions.
From the cheapest to more expensive, the engines of mower may be overhead cam, overhead valve, or valve design. Expensive engines offer more durability, less oil consumption, and reduced noise. Walk mower rear wheel size happen to be larger compared to the front wheels diameter. The larger wheels help to navigate rough grounds and ruts easily.
Ball bearing wheels are easily pushed about bushing-type wheels. Larger yards leads to difficult terrains, if you haul in clippings bag or the ones mixed with the mulched leaves, then you will need the option. High-end walk mowers have blade-brake clutches that enables you in releasing operator-controlled handle with the continuously moving engine. With this feature, you may pause the mower, remove obstacles that may be blocking the way, and go on with mowing with the engine not needing to be restarted.
Brigs & Stratton small gas engines don’t require an oil change. There feature is checking and adding more periodically hence replacing the vaporized oil during combustion. Snapper is the best example of such types of oil.
Landscapes yards need front caster wheels since they need more pivoting. The wheels don’t track well on mowing side-hills and bumpy ground. The current Mowox mowers replaced the front casters that were dual with only a single wheel since this mower is very maneuverable. However, cub cadet is in mower manufacturers list which pioneered the front caster use wheels.
The wash-out fittings help you in hooking up the garden hose in washing accumulated clippings from the deck. Clean decks are long-lasting since accumulated grass holds lawn chemical residue and moisture that causes deck corrosion. However, you also need to do under-deck scrapping using a putty knife despite the fittings being of great help. The troy-built mower has single-lever height adjustments and wash-out port. Manicured and small yards are best to be used with the electric walk mower. However, you need always to remember some important things:
Cordless mowers have small decks hence takes more of your mowing time since they are less powerful compared to others. They struggle with all sizes of grass with leaves, and they are fine for the intermediate mowing conditions. Larger lawns use more batteries and have specialists recommendations concerning running time which however varies in terms of grass thickness and height, and mowing habits; hence when you have more batteries, you will cut them neatly and slowly for a perfect outlook.
Ride Mowers
Riding mowers are the best machines to have for large area coverage since they are efficient and fast in mowing. Riding mowers are of three models that include, rear-engine riding mower, zero-turn mower, and lawn tractor.
The lawn tractor is familiar since they have the front-mounted engine and steer wheel that is familiar. The engine is from 18 to 25 hp many having step-up models with a V twin and single cylinder. Other models have electronic fuel injection engines.
Cheap models are lever-operated gear transmissions but have a continuously variable transmission (CVT) and pedal hydro-static which are operated by hand lever with shift-on-the-go. The automatic CVT has pulley drive to a lubricated and sealed gear case. An expensive tractor having heavy-duty pedal foot hydro-static transmission needs a lot of money.
A rear-engine riding mower is preferred for larger mowers. In more than two decades, zero-turn mowers have had an outstanding performance to landscape contractors and homeowners. They are designed to be steered and have fording speed with the dual hydro-static transmissions in their rear-wheels that are separately controlled with the lap bar at the front-seat.
Pulley engine spins impellers on hydro-static transmissions which power all rear-wheels. Moving a lap bar away from its adjacent one makes it act like the throttle and allows enough hydraulic fluid to be transmitted towards the wheel. It hence makes wheels to turn rapidly than the wheel at the opposite side and enables you to pivot or turn corners.
Engine sizes always range from 452 cc to above 700 cc, and their power is estimated between 12 to 25 hp. It’s powered with a commercial-duty V twin or a single cylinder, having either commercial-duty hydro-static or just hydro-static transmissions. Decks are either fabricated with heavy-duty or stamped, foot pedal or manual hand lever are used in deck adjustments while an electro-PTO or manual hand lever are used in deck engagement.
Every power of cutting grass needs a price mostly from $1,200 to $6,000. You even don’t need spending $3,000 for you to acquire Ariens Zoom 42. The mower is well-built, has good finish and fit, and cutting grass performance is excellent. You can get the mower at the Toro Time-Cutter at a lower price. The option is perfect mid-priced that is always perfect when looking for a lawn mower buying guide.