Our lawnmower finally wouldn’t start this year. I suspect it needs electrical cleanup or something, but it’s an extremely heavy Menard’s special which was a gift from a friend of Sweet Lori’s, and I just didn’t want to put money or time into it. So I put money into a new Toro 21” battery-operated mower. And I am flatly amazed.
It is lighter than anything I know of comparable in gas, even though its construction is nice steel; its maintenance is hose it off and charge the batteries; it folds vertical for storage (it’s set up well for this, and no liquids, no hot parts…); there’s absolutely no lack of power; and it mows our whole yard in half a battery. It’s a Toro 60V (same as my very happy leaf blower bought last year), so I have two more batteries if I need them. We have wonderful neighbors who have mowed our yard before, so I’m going to have that kind of fun soon.
But the most intriguing part for me, was what happened when the mower pulled us to denser growth. Immediately that thing knew it and increased the power output. The first and second time it happened I thought something might be wrong, but no, it knows, and it drives that power up and down according to need of the moment, immediately, no hesitation at all. (This is why well-implemented brushless motors are a very good idea.) For ages, some gas mowers have had “regulators” that are claimed to do the same thing, and I’ve used a number of them, but they’re nothing like this. It was “vroom!!!” and then wonder and look to see what was going on, and only then, “Oh, now isn’t that nice!” The only slight “gotcha” is that overall result tends to pull the walker occasionally, but for me that’s almost more of a plus than anything, it keeps me going at a good pace; I tend to be a slacker at mowing!
It was also interesting to see the result. I do the mulching thing, and not bagging or shooting, because I flatly don’t want the bother and the bags. Every other mulching mower I have ever seen work, leaves some larger bits as it addresses denser growth. Not this one. I walked around the whole yard after I was done, I had had the mower set on quite short, and I saw absolutely zero sign of cuttings. Zero. Amazing.