Lawn Mower Battery- Its make your mind up time?

This is the time of year that all the keen gardeners amongst us, stand back and take a look at our trusty (and Rusty) old lawn mower. I am no different; I have had the same mower now for 10 years at least. I remember when my other mower finally keeled over and died, I was in the same dilemma then as I am in now.

When I had to replace my old mower the modern version was a mower that started with a battery, a lead acid battery, just like a smaller version of a car battery. I remember thinking; how good would that be, no

My trusty old petrol lawn mower

more pulling your guts out trying to start your mower every time you use it. I also wanted a mower that would give me stripes on the lawn, my dead mower did not have a roller attached and so could not perform the stripe bit.

It was a bit like buying a new car, which one do I go for. The latest mower out then was an electric mower that worked off the electric mains, but I have a large garden about an acre and I did not fancy dragging an electric cable around with me. My next choice would have been for a petrol mower with a battery starter system similar to a car battery starter system. The batteries for these range from a 038 battery for a large or ride on mower down to 12 volt 4.5 amp sealed agm battery for smaller mowers.

In the end I decided to buy a mower from a grass cutting company who did all the mowers for Calderdale council. The wasteful council traded their old mowers in for new ones after a couple of years so I decided to try a second hand Hayter mower with a roller attached and a Briggs and Stratton 4HP engine, the only drawback  was that it was not a battery starter but a pull cord starter. The machine had just been serviced and was a bargain at £150. This mower has been remarkable; it has never let me down once and starts every time all the time with the very first pull of the cord, even after a winter break.

The machine gives me a nice striped lawn and cuts my four lawns on one tank of petrol (gasoline). There is a but though and the thing that plagues me is the environment. There must be millions of these mowers in use today, and this must constitute a huge amount of pollution released in to the atmosphere. I do not know the figures for the UK but in America where they are fanatical about their lawns, about 54 million Americans

mow their lawns each weekend and they use about 800 million gallons of petrol every year, accounting for tons of air pollutants entering the atmosphere.

One petrol driven lawn mower produces as much pollution in one hour as 11 cars in the same amount of time, astonishing figures, so can you imagine what the figures are across the World?

Battery power has got to be the future

 Whether we like it or not. We cannot imagine the damage that is being done to out air quality just coming from the humble lawn mower. Although my mower is in excellent condition and works first time I do not know what to do. Am I selfish by keeping the old petrol polluting mower, or should I be a leader and buy a battery powered mower?

The best solution would be for the Governments to offer some sort of incentive for gardeners to scrap the petrol mowers or part exchange them for their battery driven counterparts. We are all reluctant to part with something that has served us well in the past, “if it’s not broken then don’t fix it” springs to mind.

I am aware that the petrol mowers require a certain amount of maintenance, but the benefit of the battery driven mower is that they only need cleaning and the battery charger switching on between cuts. Another advantage is that the battery mowers make very little noise, which must also be good to your neighbour’s ears on a lovely summer evening when you decide to cut the lawn.

We all know that battery powered tools have been getting more powerful 

Over the years and this has enabled mower companies the use of much more powerful batteries to power their new technology mowers. A company in America uses a 56 volt lithium-Ion battery that is half the weight of an industrial counterpart lead acid battery. This should make the new mowers also much lighter than the petrol driven mowers, which can sometimes be clumsy to handle.

The new Lithium battery will also charge up in 30 minutes

 From flat to been fully charged. The company that makes these machines in America is called EGO and the claim is that their mowers will outperform the conventional petrol driven mower.  

I am now starting to warm up about the idea of a battery powered lawn mower and have looked at the following website for some ideas… http://www.mowdirect.co.uk/greenworks-g-max-45li-40v-lithium-ion-4-in-1-cordless-lawnmower-25357.html

The one I would be interested in is the Greenworks G-MAX 45Li-40V Lithium-Ion 4-in-1 Cordless Lawnmower (25357). This mower ticks all the boxes but I am not sure, it would be nice though not to have to wear ear plugs and have to spend £7 every time I have to fill my petrol can up.

Thanks Eric Roberts keen Gardner and the other things below

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