I Just Dropped $470 on Electric Lawn Care Equipment ヾ( •́д•̀ ;)ﾉ

And let me tell you, when I saw the price on the register, my life flashed before my eyes. I really can't afford this right now. But I also can't afford not to buy it. One of the things I didn't realize that's different when you rent a house instead of an apartment is that you have a lawn to take care of.

If you don't take care of the lawn, some pencil pushing busybody from the state comes and makes note of it. He then calls whoever you rent from and threatens them with fines unless the lawn gets mowed. This hasn't happened yet, though I've let the lawn go for pretty long.

It costs $40 to have somebody come out and cut it. That adds up quickly. For what I paid, I only need to mow the lawn 12 times before the cost of the mower (and the trimmer!) is paid off. That's perhaps two Summers worth of mowing. I like to spend money, when I have the choice, in a way that saves me money down the road.

So, after about a week of unsuccessful attempts to find a self propelled, brushless motor, lithium battery powered mower on Craigslist that's remotely nearby, I buckled and bought one from Lowe's. To my surprise the mower itself was only $350. It came with a battery, and so did the trimmer (which cost $120).

Here's the mower box. Let me tell you it was a bitch to lug this down from the shelf, and then around the store until I found a wheeled cart for it. The self propelled feature was important to me, because of how heavy these things are. Why strain myself pushing this across the lawn when it already has an electric motor? Why not let it push itself?

Here's the battery and the charger. There was one in the box for the trimmer as well. It's advantageous to have two, since if you run out before the mowing is done you can just swap to the other battery. Since each one lasts longer in use than it takes to charge, this swapping technique lets you mow non-stop.

Here it is in the charging cradle. There's two now, but I thought I'd take a photo of one by itself. I tried to get it with the light glowing, but it was blinking (indicating it's charging) so it was difficult. Many other mowers only have slow chargers which take around 4 hours to fully charge the battery. I wasn't having that.

Here's the trimmer in box. You'll notice both are 40 volts. I could have gone 80 volts but that would've added $200 to the price of the mower and $100 to the price of the trimmer. I don't have much of a lawn so I doubted if I needed anything so heavy duty. Probably even a 24 volt model would've been fine, but I didn't want to risk it.

Assembly was easier than expected. I did need to consult the instructions twice because of some cryptic assembly steps, but it was overall pretty painless and took under 10 minutes for both the trimmer and the mower. You can see where the hefty battery pack slots into that bulbous pod on the end.

...Whereas on the mower, it drops into this little alcove. It does snap into place in both cases and there's a release lever you need to depress in order to eject it. Everything on it seems cleverly designed. I have high hopes, but haven't used it yet and will report back once I have.

---

^{Stay Cozy!}