"Luke" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 05 Jun 2005 12:07:30 -0700, tenplay wrote:

I have a large grassy weedy area that needs regular mowing. I went by
Sears last night and was floored with all the choices of mowers. Please
answer a few questions for me:

Suggest that for anything equal or less in area than the approximately one
quarter acre area of grass that we cut, that a $130 (US dollars) Wal Mart
3.5 HP Briggs and Stratton or Tecumseh engined mower with zero extra
features is your best bet. I'm in my 70s and find that normal mowing on our
slightly rough and uneven half acre which includes the house-garage
footprint, fairly easy, using the normal precautions of steel toed foot wear
and eye protection.
Simple, reliable (despite being left out under the snow one winter!), easy
to maintain, lightweight and therefore easy to store, because of the lack
'extras', no grass clipping bags to drag or wear out, no complicated drives
to the wheels etc.
Lighter weight is also an asset making it easier to lift into the trunk of a
car or pickup if you DO need to take it somewhere for maintenance by others
or to the summer place. You can, if you wish, easily fit a leaf mulching
blade. such a light weight machine. Fairly light but the motors are pretty
rugged; even if you hit a stone/rock and stall the motor I've never yet bent
a crankshaft or ever broken the hub that the mounts the blade.
The only thing simpler (and perhaps not much cheaper?) is a mechanical
'push-mower' but I think they work well on flatter surfaces such as a golf
green?
Typical 3.5 HP gas mowers are cheap to replace, their cost, here, has gone
up by only about $20, during the last six to eight or so years. Our mowers
tend to last at least 15-20 years anyway. I think our present one of the
approximately three others we've owned since 1960 (the others were all
second hand!) is the first ever we bought new. It's about ten years old and
the only maintenance has been a couple of spark plugs, a change of oil,
sharpening the blade a few times and once a new pull starter rope. (Oh yes
and I painted the engine cowling once after the left in the snow incident!)
probably a total maintenance cost of less than $20?
Originally came with non adjustable height wheels; last year somebody
scrapped a mower and gave me the adjustable type wheels which I've fitted.
Adjustment useful this year to attack the increasing prevalence of
dandelions in this region using a temporarily lower setting.
Recommendation. KISS = Keep it something simple.
PS. And watch out for those toes. A work buddy of mine lost 2.5 of them
wearing rubber boots!