Like Paulius, I recently purchased a new lawn mower from Lowe's. My experience, however, was the total opposite of his. Before I start that aspect of the story though, let me back up a bit...
When I first had to start mowing the lawn, I lived in a rental house with a lawn virtually small enough to mow with scissors. The house was directly adjacent to an alley... no lawn there. The "back yard" was a patio... no grass there. The only grass in the front yard was the area between the sidewalk and the street, and the side yard was no larger. I purchased a mower because I didn't know the neighbors well enough to feel comfortable asking them to borrow.
The mower I purchased was one that had been salvaged, scavenged and rebuilt. I paid about $40 for it. Since I had such a small yard and cheap mower, I never took care of it... never changed the oil, sharpened the blade or anything like that. Heck, my storage of the thing consisted of throwing a tarp over it during the winter.
When I moved into a place with a real yard, I didn't see a need to buy a new mower (the old one worked fine) but I did sharpen the blade occasionally. Last spring I finally changed the oil and spark plug... several years (I don't recall exactly how many) after originally buying it. A month or so before the first frost, the handle broke. I'm usually pretty good at figuring a workaround when stuff like this happens, but this time the handle snapped in such a way that the only viable option was replacing the handle. I was unable to find a suitable replacement in a brief period of time, so I bought a new mower. I felt bad about ditching the old mower simply because the handle had broken. It seemed really wasteful. But whatever.
The new mower was about the same price that Paul and Sunny paid for theirs. I don't know what brand they bought, but mine is a Bolens -- a brand I'd never heard of before I purchased the thing. I was a little disappointed that I went from a 22" radius to a 21" cut, but in exchange, I got a mower that will mulch or bag from behind. The old mower would only spit the grass out the left side, which was a little restrictive.
Here's the part that was unlike Paul's experience... my mower was pretty much assembled. I merely had to put the handle together and mount it to the base, and put the oil into the engine. I was up and running in about 15 minutes. (This includes the mandatory beer consumption that accompanies any manly project.) Since then, I've mowed the lawn ten or so times. The mower has performed as expected. (NOTE: The assembly time didn't include the time needed to put the grass catcher together. That alone took as long as the rest of the assembly.)
By the way, I did not purchase a self-propelled model. My yard is the typical suburban lawn... not big enough to truly need a self-propelled mower. Besides, actually pushing the mower is one of the ways that I get my exercise during the summer, and every bit of horsepower devoted to moving the mower is a little less cutting power.
It's a little ironic that Paulius posted about his mower today. My grass is really long.
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3 comments:
Well, Damn.....There's Paul's problem- we didn't have the mandatory BEER for his consumption!!!
I TOLD him we should have bought some Sam Adams on the way home!!!!
And btw- ours is the Bolens as well, not self-propelled, and with a 22 inch cut and the left side discharge.
I found it sort of odd that the one that cost 20.00 more actually had the catcher bag- but had the smaller 21 inch cut radius.
We could have gotten either one- but decided with about a half acre that's considered OUR responsibility to keep up, every inch counted.
Right now the weather is spring-like for the first year in about 20- but even last night the humidity was so thick it seemed you could cut it with a knife. Cutting a half acre of grass in the summer needs to be done as quickly as possible unless you LIKE heatstroke.
Maybe for our 10th I'll surprise him with a riding mover!!!
Think he would like that? Or would that be like buying your wife a new vacuum for her birthday? Seriously- would it be?
My experience was more like yours than you think. The new mower is a bolens (I also hadn't heard of that brand before), only it just fires the cut grass out of the side instead of into a bag.
Mine was also pretty much assembled. Technically, all I had to do was bolt four wheels on, attach the handle and fill with oil.
My problem was just build quality. Pre-assembled parts where put together out of alignment etc.
Unfortunately, I have a yard where a riding mower is called for, never mind a self-propelled...I did a little today and manhandling the thing through waist high grass in places was absolute murder...more on that in my blog later.
I'm not 100% sure, but I don't believe the larger radius mower was more expensive in my case, and it definitely didn't feel cheap as I assembled it. As time goes on, I am increasingly satisfied with my purchase. You?
Today's word verification word... Sestly: A modernization of the word sexy. Sunny came home to Paulius mowing the lawn, and thought his sweat-soaked shirt made him look sestly.
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