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Craig-SM
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I’m not sure where the rubbish comes from about battery powered mowers. I have an Ego mower and it will cut my 75m2 lawn 3 times on one charge. It also cuts through the unkept grass verge behind the house that the council supposed to maintain. It’s never bogged down regardless of length of grass or it being wet.
Same applies to the Strimmer and Blower which have been more than powerful enough
Same applies to the Strimmer and Blower which have been more than powerful enough
daleyd
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I’ve not tried a battery mower but I got a dewalt strimmer and hedge trimmer and they have been nothing short of superb. Had a stihl kombi before (still have it but not really used it since I got the dewalt stuff) and while it was really powerful it was also noisy, could be temperamental to start, needed draining if not used for a time and required a fair bit of tinkering in terms of maintenance. Battery stuff is virtually silent in comparison, needs almost no maintenance, doesn’t care about being not used, no smells, lighter…
Each has got their own place but it’s been a revelation switching to battery. For occasional home use it’s a no brainer, I guess professional/ heavy use might be a different story.
Ross365
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Do you know what the AmpHour rating of the bats is? On the Mountfield I'm looking at, they are only 2AH (20V). The machine runs on one bat at a time, and is sold with 2 bats in the kit.
My battery strimmer and hedge trimmer do well. I've never seen the strimmer go flat, and by the time the hedge trimmer needs refreshing, so do I.
Ross365
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Those are much bigger batteries than the Mountfield.
SHOCK-HORROR; the bats are not covered by the 5 year warranty; seems like they are covered for 2 years, but they have some kind of extension scheme (£££). Spending more time on YouTube reveals a guy putting a 3 year old Mountfield in the skip, saying the bats are gone, and are more expensive to replace than the machine cost new
Smallfry
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Well, my neighbour is not enamoured with his Ryobi ! I have no idea what voltage or AH the battery is though.
The higher the voltage, the more powerful, so Ego running 56 volt makes sense. For me though, way too expensive to buy in the first place, and with any of this battery stuff, there is the question mark about how long the batteries (age) will last, and how much they will cost to replace.
I would expect a good quality petrol machine to last 20 years or more, as indeed all ours have, except for the rusty decks
Ross365
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I'm sure that all of my Suffolk Punches are well over 30 years old, maybe getting on for 40?.
As for Ryobi, my experience of them is that they could be the nastiest of the nastiest, based on the petrol chainsaw I had from them.
MattF
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They have their place, as do petrol. It's in a similar vein to the petrol/diesel/EV vehicle thing. Fossil fuelled is the only feasible option in some cases there.
Craig-SM
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For domestic use I can only see the upsides when it's a case of get it out, slap the battery in and off you go. Once done remove the battery, brush off the loose grass and put it away again in any position you like. Without the rigmarole you're more inclined to actually cut the grass than put the job for another day and even enjoy doing it. You have all the power of most petrol mowers without any of the hassle or additional servicing costs. The only maintenance I do other than cleaning is change the blade annually for the freshly sharpened one I have ready for rotation. I certainly wouldn't entertain petrol again and haven't missed out by going battery either.
I know of 2 people using them commercially and neither has any complaint or wish to go back to petrol. The only downside is the initial outlay which is more than petrol but most of that is tied up in the battery and charger especially when they need more than one battery to go through a whole days work. Other bare tools are competitively priced with their petrol counterparts.
Craig-SM
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I've not been impressed with anything Ryobi so wouldn't expect much to begin with.
The Ego stuff is an expensive outlay due to the battery costs and commercially users don't have any problem with short battery life so would expect my personal use to satisfactory. The batteries have a 3 year warranty and replacement is £230 for a 5ah. Even it only lasted the 3 years and needed replacing then it's £76 per year running cost and I can live with that especially as it powers the other garden tools.
A good quality petrol machine may last 20 years but "good quality" is now rare without a big outlay too. Most of the reasonably priced stuff is now cheap Chinese rubbish with a brand name slapped on it. Even get spares for them can be a nightmare.
MattF
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I find the battery gear good, for home use. I'm near a charger though.
So much easier for storage too, as there's no petrol to be considered.I love that Bosch battery mower. So nice to use, & has good grunt. It definitely is on par with the petrol mower, capability wise. My Makita battery mower is good too. The Bosch merely has the edge on manouevrability, but conversely lacks self propulsion, unlike the Makita.
Craig-SM
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I find the battery gear good, for home use. I'm near a charger though.
I love that Bosch battery mower. So nice to use, & has good grunt. It definitely is on par with the petrol mower, capability wise. My Makita battery mower is good too. The Bosch merely has the edge on manouevrability, but conversely lacks self propulsion, unlike the Makita.
For commercial use you need the extra battery or two but also need to remember to charge them ready for the next day too but it is only a different way of working as opposed to remember to fill the petrol can. Cost wise over the life of battery and fuelling/servicing petrol equipment there probably isn't much in it. Time spent doing so I'd bet on saving with battery.
As you may have noticed I'm a bit of a Milwaukee fan boy and already had their strimmer but I couldn't justify the cost of their mower (especially with the additional batteries I'd need) compared to the Ego equivalent that always seemed to outperform in tests. It wasn't an easy choice to go for Ego over Milwaukee that I'd built up trust over a long time but glad I did. Replacing the strimmer later with an Ego one really showed off the performance increase and I could easily hold it's own against Stihl petrol streamers I had before.
The big bonus again is time. Battery on the mower, cut the grass before putting the same battery on the strimmer to do the edges and behind the fence and slot it in the blower to quickly tidy up the loose trimmings. Even with Milwaukee strimmer I had a battery to take off another tool to return later and usually needed charging more often.
I never entertained Bosch as I replaced my Suffolk Punch with a Bosch corded rotary and their cordless strimmer that had plastic blades. The mower would constantly bog down and when it wasn't it was clogging up because the cuttings never managed to reach the collector. The strimmer was worse still in fact it was useless so would borrow a neighbours Stihl when he was using it. Costco always had good deals on Bosch Cordless but because of my past experience with them I just avoided them. In fact I've avoided their tools until recently when I bought their laser measure and very impressed with that so maybe need to put the bad experience to the back of my mind.
If I'd had Makita cordless tools I would have gone for their mower as it always seemed very well priced. The Ego has propulsion but I never have it switched on as the garden is level and I'm not at the level to need it .... yet. The neighbour across the road who borrowed it when his mower broke thought it was great though although a bit fast for him, I didn't have the heart to tell him it was on dial for how fast or slow it needed to be.
MattF
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With the new Bosch battery gardening gear, I've been unable to fault it. I have the mower, strimmer & hedgecutter, & they've been sound.
The latter two merely take a bit of getting used to, when you're used to using petrol. As I mentioned, subtle difference in the feedback you get from them.
Strimmer could benefit from a slightly longer shaft, but that's my only gripe with it.
The latter two merely take a bit of getting used to, when you're used to using petrol. As I mentioned, subtle difference in the feedback you get from them.
Strimmer could benefit from a slightly longer shaft, but that's my only gripe with it.
Craig-SM
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Maybe I've been unfair with my hate towards Bosch as the mower was just after the EU brought in the rules with electric motors that affected more just Dyson vacuums and it was the early days of cordless garden tools, I'm sure it was Li-Ion but it was still useless as you could guarantee it would stop rotating if the blades hit anything.
Craig-SM
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This is what I had
This review sums it
"As an avid Bosch fan, every power tool for DIY I have is by Bosch and I have a lot, I have to say this is poor.
Looked good on the outside, the changeable batteries from my other tools to this was a bonus and the strimming blade vs. wire seemed good.
However, turned it on strimmed (or tried to!) for 5mins and then turned it off and put it back in the box. Not fit for purpose. My old £30 Flymo thing does better and it’s on it’s last legs.
It couldn’t handle anything thicker that about 1mm, didn’t strim a Dandelion (!) and definitely couldn’t take down a nettle.
Shame. Had high hopes for it but they were misplaced.
Save yourself a headache and buy something else."
This review sums it
"As an avid Bosch fan, every power tool for DIY I have is by Bosch and I have a lot, I have to say this is poor.
Looked good on the outside, the changeable batteries from my other tools to this was a bonus and the strimming blade vs. wire seemed good.
However, turned it on strimmed (or tried to!) for 5mins and then turned it off and put it back in the box. Not fit for purpose. My old £30 Flymo thing does better and it’s on it’s last legs.
It couldn’t handle anything thicker that about 1mm, didn’t strim a Dandelion (!) and definitely couldn’t take down a nettle.
Shame. Had high hopes for it but they were misplaced.
Save yourself a headache and buy something else."
daleyd
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I think the newer Bosch garden stuff uses the batteries from the blue pro power tool range - the green stuff, including the power tools, were very much aimed at the diy market and not great (I had one of their early 9.6v Nicad powered drills and it was pretty bad. Their blue stuff is different class altogether.
I have a couple of Bosch (Blue) drills, jigsaw and circular saw - I would have liked to have got the garden gear to use the same battery platform but they weren’t about when I was looking so I ended up going with dewalt - I’ve since got their impact wrench and multi tool so at least the batteries are used for other stuff too.
I have a couple of Bosch (Blue) drills, jigsaw and circular saw - I would have liked to have got the garden gear to use the same battery platform but they weren’t about when I was looking so I ended up going with dewalt - I’ve since got their impact wrench and multi tool so at least the batteries are used for other stuff too.
MattF
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Nah. They were stagnating for years. It's only this last few year they've upped their game on the pro gear.
