what, like goats etc?

protip: get rid of the grass, plant some vegetables. then you can deal with even fewer fossil fuels being burned on your behalf.

Electric lawnmowers are only environmentally friendly if you use nice electricity. How about a push mower? (I use a petrol one … my yard takes just on 300 mls of petrol a mow, four or so times a year – and I’d have to weigh up the environmental cost of buying a mower to replace my perfectly good one, that has at least 12 years left in it … I expect I will carry on and use (tsssk tsssk) about 10 litres of petrol over the next decade … )

yup, coal powered lawn mowers ….. there’s a thought

I have an electric GMC mower. It’s not too bad. I have an outside power point so I don’t really need a long cord to run it. I’d only used it on small lawns though.

Haven’t heard of cordless ones. Though from all accounts electic mowers are absolutely terrible.

Go petrol. No comparison. Get the job done quickly then plant a tree or something if you’re worried about emissions.

We had a push mower for many years and they are perfectly adequate for mowing lawn. However, if you are faced with what is better described as ‘grass’ they are pretty much useless. They easily bog down in clover and leave anything tall like paspalum still standing.

We recently changed to an electric mower. It’s brilliant – always starts first time, never runs out of fuel halfway through, is relatively quiet, light to handle, cuts well, and at $120, was much cheaper than a petrol mower (even if the life span is much shorter).

Horrible – concreting the whole lot would be preferable. No good experiences whatsoever with electric mowers, just a BAD idea.

As others have mentioned, the petrol used per mow is 5/8 of fark all (maybe a litre or two a year?)

My tip would be: don’t accidentally “mow” over the electric cord, otherwise you’ll be in for a shock! hehe

Also, on langdon avenue by the wanniassa shops, the people there used to have either a goat or a sheep, I forget which, on their lawn and they had a sign offering to hire it out to “mow” other people’s lawns at one stage, I highly recommend the animal mowing method anyway.

I would definitely go a push mower. Have had one before and they are great for smallish lawns.

I have the most powerful push mower known to man. I can mow soggy grass and have a beer in less time than you rainbowed coloured electric mower types

I-filed said :

How about a push mower?

I have a reasonably small yard to mow and I was using a push mower for a while and found they are ok for short grass but struggle if you let the grass grow too long. Also the blade needs sharpening after about 6 months or so, not sure how much this costs or where you get it done (there used to be a blade sharpening place in Fyshwick cnr Lyell and Barrier Sts, not sure if they are still there?). A push mower is good for your fitness too, save on gym fees!

Chop71 said :

Electric lawnmowers are only environmentally friendly if you use nice electricity.

I agree that we don’t have clean power generation, but this is actually incorrect. Due to the scale of production, electricity is always going to be far cleaner than thousands of tiny petrol engines.

How much oil did it take to get that 300 mls to your house?

Electric lawn mowers are a great idea IMO, however I am yet to see one that is worth buying.

Agree. Electric are terrible. You can’t beat the sound and smell of a petrol lawnmower on the weekend.

I don’t have any lawns to mow so I can’t speak on how well electric vs petrol mowers go, but I did however find this cool looking gadget a little while back:

Droplet, designed by Ashley Marsh-Croft

Apparently Ashley designed this while he was studying Industrial Design at UC. Can’t find any details online to purchase it though, but a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend (typical Canberra) knows Ashley so she’s finding out.

Interestingly enough, I believe the emissions from the decaying grass after you cut it outweigh those from the petrol you use by a long way. So the best option is not to mow it at all…

My corded electric mower does a good job, cut through the knee high grass earlier in Spring without difficulty, and continues to do an excellent job!

One thing you’ll find is that they’re not a lot quieter. Modern 4 stroke engines aren’t very loud, and most of the noise comes from the blades.

The one I got was a $350 1300W model from Bunnings, no doubt you can get them cheaper from somewhere else, but it was the same price as a similar petrol mower.

There were a few cordless ones about, but the sales dude said they’re not so good at cutting through the high grass, they’ll do it, just a bit slowly, and that the batteries will need replacing after 5 years or so, just like a cordless drill.

I was reading about an new electric lawnmower that draws electricity wirelessly from the upper ionosphere- based loosely on Tesla’s ‘World System’. It includes a simple program for your laptop that GPS maps your lawn and even allows you to program it to mow while you are away. It works on a system of bladeless turbines to hover over the lawn and a laser pulse reflects off mirrors to cut the lawn. Great stuff this technology. Don’t know where I read it..

caf said :

Interestingly enough, I believe the emissions from the decaying grass after you cut it outweigh those from the petrol you use by a long way. So the best option is not to mow it at all…

Ba ha ha ha! Priceless.

This whole emmissions/carbon foot print thing is getting ridiculous when you start concidering lawnmowers, transportation etc. Just living is creating emmissions (especially true in my case)

Rad Dave said :

I was reading about an new electric lawnmower that draws electricity wirelessly from the upper ionosphere- based loosely on Tesla’s ‘World System’. It includes a simple program for your laptop that GPS maps your lawn and even allows you to program it to mow while you are away. It works on a system of bladeless turbines to hover over the lawn and a laser pulse reflects off mirrors to cut the lawn. Great stuff this technology. Don’t know where I read it..

I’d buy one.

caf said :

Interestingly enough, I believe the emissions from the decaying grass after you cut it outweigh those from the petrol you use by a long way. So the best option is not to mow it at all…

I have been following this method for the last two months.
Nothing to do with emissions, i’m just lazy.

Make google your friend.

Or, as suggested earlier get a push mower.

Canberra doesn’t experience the high growth of the northern regions where you need to mow fortnightly over the summer months, so if you have a small yard, a push mower is the best option. If you let your weed patch grow to be quite long between mows, give it a quick once over with a whipper snipper to remove the longer stalks and reduce the thicker sections, then give it a going over with the push mower to even it out.

Push Mower’s blades don’t need sharpening. Eg, mine wear at such an angle that all you do is adjust the blade position relative to the bit it rubs on as it (slowly) wears.

As has been suggested, an electric whipper-snipper cleans up the tricky bits and you probably want something to do your edges with anyway. The push mower takes a bit of work (and don’t even try when the grass is wet) but I doubt there’s anyone here that couldn’t do with the exercise.

Lawn mower engines put out hundreds of times more emissions per litre of petrol than car engines do. Older ones even more.

p1 said :

Rad Dave said :

I was reading about an new electric lawnmower that draws electricity wirelessly from the upper ionosphere- based loosely on Tesla’s ‘World System’. It includes a simple program for your laptop that GPS maps your lawn and even allows you to program it to mow while you are away. It works on a system of bladeless turbines to hover over the lawn and a laser pulse reflects off mirrors to cut the lawn. Great stuff this technology. Don’t know where I read it..

I’d buy one.

p1 I can sell you the plans to make it and this month im chucking in not 1 but 2 Mind Control Lawn Feeders

I’ll second the sheep motion

You can’t hug your petrol mower and say thankyou for a job well done. Well, you can, but it’s kinda weird. Sheep are cute, but do require maintenance of their own (you can pay someone to come shear them for you, or learn to do it yourself). And repairs can be expensive (or delicious, depending on the outcome).

Just don’t give your sheep a name if you plan eating it. Though “Freezer One” doesn’t really count as a name.

wait until Tony gets in then a nuclear powered model.

Grail said :

I’ll second the sheep motion

You can’t hug your petrol mower and say thankyou for a job well done. Well, you can, but it’s kinda weird. Sheep are cute, but do require maintenance of their own (you can pay someone to come shear them for you, or learn to do it yourself). And repairs can be expensive (or delicious, depending on the outcome).

Just don’t give your sheep a name if you plan eating it. Though “Freezer One” doesn’t really count as a name.

…ha ha…’Freezer One’ is a fine name for a sheepy!!! My brother lent me ‘Beer’, ‘Stubbie’, and ‘Longneck’ to help mow the lawn of my rental property years ago when I didn’t own a house or a lawn mower…they were the best woolly mowers EVER!!! And dare I say…they were very delicious when they ended up on his spit 12 months later.
…You’re terrible Muriel….

Why settle for just cordless, when you can get a robot to do it: http://www.vacuumrobot.com.au/categories/ROBOT-LAWN-MOWER/
Their robot vacuum cleaners are getting close to affordable now too.

Or Husquvarna has some vastly more expensive ones: http://www.husqvarna.com/us/homeowner/products/robotic-mowers/husqvarna-robotic-mowers-for-homeowners/

Question

Lenient said :

wait until Tony gets in then a nuclear powered model.

Question is, will uranium’s half-life last that long?

We have a great little electric mower, plus a very long extension cord. We have put it through quite a bit of work in our average sized yard (sticks, rocks and all) and it does well for such a light plastic machine! It does take longer to mow because we need to constantly look out for and shift the cord, but we dont have to cart petrol home etc, maybe because we do abuse it a little it may not last as long as the old Victa. I used an electric hover mower whilst staying in the UK and that was quite good for a small yard, I wouldn’t recommend a hover mower for Canberra unless you have a small well groomed lawn.

I think that it is best to carry on using a petrol lawnmower because the environmental impact of going out and buying a cordless mower would, in my opinion be far greater than carrying on with the petrol one. Petrol mowers may be more polluting in the location where they are used, but the electricity that drives the cordless mower may be more polluting during the process of making it at the power plant, especially if fossil fuel is burned in the manufacturing process.

neanderthalsis said :

If you let your weed patch grow to be quite long between mows, give it a quick once over with a whipper snipper to remove the longer stalks and reduce the thicker sections, then give it a going over with the push mower to even it out.

The clueless tenant in my property obviously took your advice. They just ended up with a broken whipper snipper and an equally stuffed push mower.

And the remaining weeds are certainly defiant – strength through adversity and all that.

I never realised they could grow that high.