Battery Powered Lawn Equipment

[wsmith1625]

I have lived on a property, my parent's property, which does have a lot of trees and plenty of leaves. It's actually a bit surprising because my dad and uncle, who farmed together until they retired, are the kind of guys who want to till every acre they possibly can. I once heard my uncle say that he wished he could make the ditches tillable and plant right up to the road.

But my dad left a bunch of maples all over the backyard as part of a windbreak and some in the front yard for privacy, and also some to shade the house. When some of my siblings still lived at home we did spend an entire weekend most autumns just raking and burning leaves. Yeah, it was probably happening during harvest, but I was the only one expected to make a career out of farming, so until I was old enough to drive something I was supposed to help rake leaves.

I'm not going to look up how many acres our building site was, or count how many trees we had, and I don't expect you to, either, but suffice to say we had plenty of leaf debris in the fall. We never got a blower. I maintain that buying a leaf blower would have been wasteful.

As a farmer you should understand that jobs are made more efficient and manageable using technology. Your father who wished to till every acre of his property did not walk behind a manual tiller, but likely used a tractor making his difficult job much easier. In the same vein, most home owners use gas, electric, or battery powered tools to make our jobs manageable. Without my gas leaf blower, I would need to spend days raking leaves and I just don't have the time or physical ability to do it with a rake.

 

[Kent88]

As a farmer

While living on a farm was a big part of my identity growing up and had a huge part in me becoming who I am today, and I still have strong ties to agriculture, I feel it's a disservice to people who make their living through production agriculture to call me a farmer.

you should understand that jobs are made more efficient and manageable using technology. Your father who wished to till every acre of his property did not walk behind a manual tiller, but likely used a tractor making his difficult job much easier. In the same vein, most home owners use gas, electric, or battery powered tools to make our jobs manageable. Without my gas leaf blower, I would need to spend days raking leaves and I just don't have the time or physical ability to do it with a rake.

One thing that has stuck with me since living and working on farms is payoff for labor invested.

I can appreciate wanting to keep parts of one's yard looking very nice, but to obsess over the entire yard every weekend, that's something I will never understand. I think my parents made us rake so much just to give us outdoor busy-work. And my dad hated when I would go inside because I got bored waiting for him to come back from one of our other building sites or a field.

Ok, you have a large yard. What's the payoff for the labor you invest in cleaning up the leaves from the parts that nobody sees? How much satisfaction do you get from a neighbor telling you that your lawn looks really nice? Perhaps you would get more satisfaction by focusing your effort on a different project entirely?

Maybe this circles around to:

I'm not sure your experience with farmers collecting leaves is comparable to a bunch of desk jockeys in the suburbs trying to tidy up their lawn on the weekend.

Despite not living on a farm for years, when I think of outdoor chores I'm thinking about mixing feed, feeding livestock, sorting cattle, and milking cows. When it comes to my lawn I definitely don't want it looking terrible, but I also feel like there are more important outdoor chores than raking leaves.

Whatever. I'm not going to change anyone's minds here. I still feel like a leaf blower is a waste. I'm not saying people who own a leaf blower are terrible, it's just something that I don't, and apparently won't, understand.

 

[NickTheGreat]

I was working from home this week with a sick kid. And it was 70 and sunny for at least 3 of those days. A lot of us suburban dads outside (not me) and lawn services in the area.

I don't generally don't approve of Big Government coming in and stomping on individuals rights. But I see why California is banning them. It was like working in a bee hive all day. And I couldn't even see any of them, that's how far the sound travels.

I'll probably fire mine up this weekend, so I obviously didn't learn anything from this experience.

 

[bleme]

What I like best about my battery powered eq is the lack of maintenance required. I don't have to worry about draining tanks or cleaning carbonators. I don't have to plan ahead. They are always ready to go when I need them.

 

[murphyslaw]

I've got an automower, which i love. But I also bought an electric 40v mower for the two or three times I year I need one and don't want to deal with trying to start up a gas mower that hasn't been used in 6 months.

 

[Kent88]

I'm glad I didn't know about this when I looked at electric snowblowers



While we occasionally get some big blizzards comparable to what he describes, it's not frequent enough that me, someone who can still operate a shovel and/or operate a snowblower in the middle of a big snowfall and again at the end, would need to put down that kind of money on a snowblower.

My Greenworks single-stage snowblower has handled everything I have asked it to since I bought it. I'm pretty sure it was less than half the price of this EGO unit.

Still, when I get to a point where I don't like shoveling, can't handle the cold very well anymore, and the kids move out, it's nice to know that this sort of thing will be available.

 

[Kent88]

Bobcat introduces all-electric compact track loader

 

[Rodent]

I'm glad I didn't know about this when I looked at electric snowblowers



While we occasionally get some big blizzards comparable to what he describes, it's not frequent enough that me, someone who can still operate a shovel and/or operate a snowblower in the middle of a big snowfall and again at the end, would need to put down that kind of money on a snowblower.

My Greenworks single-stage snowblower has handled everything I have asked it to since I bought it. I'm pretty sure it was less than half the price of this EGO unit.

Still, when I get to a point where I don't like shoveling, can't handle the cold very well anymore, and the kids move out, it's nice to know that this sort of thing will be available.

I recently bought an Ariens snow blower thanks to a significant amount of driveway and walks that need clearing. Took me 1-1/2 hours to clear +4" of heavy snow (aka locally as concrete) from 650' of driveway and another 100' of walks ahead of an equipment delivery on Monday.

I really wanted to go electric battery, but there was nothing on the market and available within reasonable driving distance that could reliably handle such a scenario on a single charge.

I'm also married to an ICE for my mowing needs in that I have 2 acres up top that I use a zero-turn rider on, and another 1-1/2 acres down below that I BushHog using the rear PTO from my diesel tractor. With plans to go solar next year I'd love to have a batter vehicle option for such large areas, but it'll be years before there's somebody targeting my outlier needs at an affordable price that is also not so heavy that it'll get stuck in the bottom area and have difficulty getting back up the steep include of the narrow access road

 

[Kent88]

I'm wondering if I could use this as an ice auger

80V Earth Auger Head (Tool Only)