Anyone use an electric lawn mower?

[Roundybout]

45 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

I have a dual battery self-propelled Ryobi. Love it.

 

My father has all the Ryobi tools, from weed whacker to blower. He loves them and they're easy enough for him to use in his 70s. 

[Augie]

2 hours ago, \GoBillsInDallas/ said:

 

I’ve always wanted to work in landscape management. I would give her footwear a one time exemption. 

[Mike in Horseheads]

13 minutes ago, Augie said:

 

I’ve always wanted to work in landscape management. I would give her footwear a one time exemption. 

She looks smart enough to be careful

[Augie]

43 minutes ago, Mike in Horseheads said:

She looks smart enough to be careful

 

Sorry, off topic, but the thought made me chuckle: My wife’s parents were very “old country”. Other than a couple times on the golf course, and eventually in the hospital, I never saw her father not wearing a tie. English was her mother’s third language (after Arabic and French) and she spoke in a very formal way. It’s what she was taught in boarding school in Lebanon, not growing up in the Bronx. Very different. 

 

We moved to Sarasota, FL in 1993, known for Siesta Key beach. Naturally, we wanted to take my MIL to all the great things in town when she came to visit. The opera house was great, but I had to tap the brakes when the wife wanted to show her the beach. Her dad was always in a tie, and her mom was ALWAYS in high heels. I asked my wife how she saw that going, and we just cruised thru the parking lot. 

 

That girl is going to sink into the grass, but there will be no shortage of people eager to help her up. 

 

.

Edited May 12 by Augie

[SoTier]

I have a Ryobi 20 inch battery operated mower that I bought last year to replace my 10/15 year old behemoth self propelled gas mower.  Love the new little mower.  I have a large lot but I use a rider on most of it.  The walk behind mower is to do the front tree lawn (grassy area between the street and sidewalk), the grassy paths through the front and side yard flower beds, and to do clean up around the raised beds in the veggie garden.  I can do it all on a single charge.

[wnyguy]

16 hours ago, Roundybout said:

 

My father has all the Ryobi tools, from weed whacker to blower. He loves them and they're easy enough for him to use in his 70s. 

I have an EGO battery powered weed whacker and it is great. If their lawn mowers are as good as the weed whacker you can't go wrong.

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

On 5/12/2025 at 9:36 AM, Ridgewaycynic2013 said:

Seeing the corded A.C. versions reminds me of my father and his Sunbeam electric hedge clipper in the 1960s.  The corner lot of the Buffalo house had a privet hedge along the entire perimeter, and a great certainty of every Spring trim was either one of his fingers or the trimmer cord was going to get sliced.  There was more electrical tape on the cord than in Niagara Mohawk.

*
As a thank you premium, a hardware chain gave a Black and Decker battery operated hedge trimmer with each lawn mower purchased.  "Great!" we all said, until we found that one of these battery operated units in 1970 got you about 20 feet of hedge trimmed before it died an ignoble death, and took a good 36 hours to recharge. 🤨

As a further 'haw haw' to the hedge trimming follies, I was on cleanup duty as my father was clipping when the neighbour stopped to talk.  This truck driver father and PE instructor neighbour were brainstorming an idea to set a gas mower on a frame of angle iron and just pushing the mower along to trim.  Never mind that you now have a blade whirling at chest height, and no real provision to trim the sides of the hedge, it was a winner! 😳 No consideration given to assembly / disassembly time of the contraption, either. 🤨

[Southern McButterpants]

I went full EGO this year.  21" self-propelled mower, string trimmer, edger and blower.  they all work super - as someone else mentioned, the mower is light as a feather.  The back yard slopes considerably, so the self-propelled part is a blessing.  No issues with batteries (yet).  Loving it. 

[Mike in Horseheads]

10 hours ago, Southern McButterpants. said:

I went full EGO this year.  21" self-propelled mower, string trimmer, edger and blower.  they all work super - as someone else mentioned, the mower is light as a feather.  The back yard slopes considerably, so the self-propelled part is a blessing.  No issues with batteries (yet).  Loving it. 

What did that mower run ya cost wise?

[Southern McButterpants]

8 hours ago, Mike in Horseheads said:

What did that mower run ya cost wise?

All together, just under $1000 - the mower itself was around $550. Fortunately, one of the batteries is interchangeable among the trimmer, edger and blower. Plus, I built a bad-ass looking charging station in my garage.  

[Roundybout]

On 5/12/2025 at 4:39 PM, Draconator said:

I'm going to Penn State in Turfgrass Sciences (Bachelors). You can't go wrong with a reel lawn mower for a lawn size of yours. 

So I ended up ordering one of these things. It’s not a traditional reel mower, the blades are driven by a chain that spins the rotor faster. Plus it has all the stuff I wanted like a lever to control the height of the cut and a steel grass deflector. 
 

 

Itll get here Friday, looking forward to giving it a shot. 

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

1 hour ago, Roundybout said:

So I ended up ordering one of these things. It’s not a traditional reel mower, the blades are driven by a chain that spins the rotor faster. Plus it has all the stuff I wanted like a lever to control the height of the cut and a steel grass deflector. 
 

 

Itll get here Friday, looking forward to giving it a shot. 

Fiskars is a well trusted name in limbing and trimming saws and shears.  We look forward to your reports.

[Draconator]

2 hours ago, Roundybout said:

So I ended up ordering one of these things. It’s not a traditional reel mower, the blades are driven by a chain that spins the rotor faster. Plus it has all the stuff I wanted like a lever to control the height of the cut and a steel grass deflector. 
 

 

Itll get here Friday, looking forward to giving it a shot. 

That looks sweet! Good choice!

 

[Simon]

On 5/11/2025 at 4:35 PM, Roundybout said:

 

Anyone use an electric lawn mower?

 

 

I don't, but my wife does.

When she's done cleaning the gutters, I'll ask her what model she got herself for her birthday.

[Behindenemylines]

We had a solid 1 acre of mow-able grass in Westchester and I used a 21” EGO push mower.  Would take two battery charges and I had multiple batteries so quick switch was key.  It even had a headlight on but so could now into the evening.   
 

Gave it to my buddy when we moved and my new yard was small so invested in the ryobi system.  I liked the eGO better in general but for the money the ryobi isn’t far behind.   
 

they are both so quiet and I beat the crap out of them and never an issue since 2016 with the Ryobi. 

[Draconator]

On 5/14/2025 at 8:40 AM, Roundybout said:

So I ended up ordering one of these things. It’s not a traditional reel mower, the blades are driven by a chain that spins the rotor faster. Plus it has all the stuff I wanted like a lever to control the height of the cut and a steel grass deflector. 
 

 

Itll get here Friday, looking forward to giving it a shot. 

 

Have you had a chance to use it and how was it?

[Doc]

On 5/12/2025 at 4:44 PM, \GoBillsInDallas/ said:

 

Can't wait for the picture of her trimming the bushes.

[Roundybout]

27 minutes ago, Draconator said:

 

Have you had a chance to use it and how was it?

 

Yes! It was tough going the first time, because my lawn was easily at six inches. That said, it handled it like a champ. I did a couple passes afterwards dropping the mower down a few levels and it was much easier. Good workout too! 

 

I am impressed that the "InertiaDrive" feature that Fiskars advertised isn't a gimmick. It genuinely felt like the blades were picking up a bunch of extra momentum that helped get through the tall grass. 

[Draconator]

8 minutes ago, Roundybout said:

 

Yes! It was tough going the first time, because my lawn was easily at six inches. That said, it handled it like a champ. I did a couple passes afterwards dropping the mower down a few levels and it was much easier. Good workout too! 

 

I am impressed that the "InertiaDrive" feature that Fiskars advertised isn't a gimmick. It genuinely felt like the blades were picking up a bunch of extra momentum that helped get through the tall grass. 

Glad it worked out! 

[SinceThe70s]

Sharing my 2025 lawn mower journey in case it's useful to anyone. I have 1/2 acre that is a bear during growing season, gotta mow it every 4-5 days to keep up which isn't always possible. Going into 2025 I had two gas mowers and three lawn mowers (me and two sons). 

 

It became obvious early season that I was going to have to replace or fix one or both of my mowers so I was following this thread. The older one had issues with the self-propelled drive and I thought I had that solved by replacing the front wheels as the drive wheel gears were stripped. Shortly thereafter the frame on the newer one cracked rendering it completely useless. I thought about salvaging the engine and putting it on the older one but that looked kind of daunting and regardless I was in the market for a new mower.

 

I considered an electric mower but wasn't convinced that would be a good option for my 1/2 acre so I bought a Toro gas. The big conundrum was front or rear wheel drive. I always had front wheel drive and what I read was that rear wheel was better for hills (I'm mostly flat) but you could tear up the lawn when turning with a rear wheel drive. Toro I bought was rear wheel and that turned out to be a complete non-issue due to the way you engage the self-propelled drive. Love the new Toro with one exception: the handle is way to high and a major pain in the @ss when I'm mowing around the edges/hedges - handle constantly gets stuck in low-lying branches. 

 

In the mean time, replacing the drive wheels on the older mower was an improvement but the drive was still no bueno. Tried replacing the drive belt but that didn't help much and so I was back in the market for a second mower. Knowing the Toro could handle the entire lawn I was more inclined to go electric and ended up buying an Ego - rear wheel drive.  Made sure the handle was lower addressing my only issue with the Toro. Used it for the first time yesterday. The Ego is capable but less powerful than the Toro and the one issue is that when you're turning it you have to disengage the drive (or rip up the lawn) and there's a delay when you re-engage that is annoying af. Only did half the lawn and the battery was just above half charge so it might be capable of doing the whole lawn on one battery. Looking forward I may have to replace leaf blower and/or weed whacker in the next year or two and I'll look into Ego (brother in-law has been happy with both) especially if batteries are interchangable.