For some years I have been happy mowing my smallish lawns, with quite convoluted edges with a Rotak 34. Since I built a pergola in the middle of my back garden I have made my task rather more trying.
I am now wondering about a cordless mower, and the equivalent models seem to be the smaller 32 Li with a 2.6 Ah battery, or the larger 37 Li with a 4 Ah battery.
Online reviews seem to be generally positive, with the usual number of disappointed or unlucky customers.
Does anybody have any relevant experiences to share?
I've had a 36V Rotak for about 3 years and it's still going strong - been quite impressed with the performance - it's as competent as my last small petrol mower and collects well.
My son, who has this large garden on 3+ levels, has moved from his petrol mower to robotic mowers. He now has 2, the first made by an Israeli firm, bought refurbished, the second a Flymo.
The first was easily movable by taking out the battery and carrying it up the steps separately, the second is much lighter. He got both at much lower prices than currently advertised.
When the Flymo was new, he and his family were away for over a week, so I had the job of looking after it. He set it going 24/7 on the main large L-shaped lawn and left it.
Almost every day I attended, it had fallen over the edge of the lawn, but usually at the same 3 places. I made notes of its fail points and left them for his return. I understand it is now about 90% reliable after he made small adjustments to the edge contours of the lawn at the problem spots.
It was easy and very light to restart after its failures.
Things I liked included:
It is a mulching mower, so no grass to remove. It was 100% reliable over the week and uncanny in the way it returned to the docking station for a recharge. It worked through heavy rain and shine, I was given a course in how to clean the blades, but just left it and it didn't seem to clog.
Those Bosch mowers look very heavy and clumsy in comparison.
Not sure why the Flymo prices have risen so much, or how he found his much cheaper one.
Have had an older version from the Bosch Rotak cordless range for some years now,must be at least 6 . Have abused it frequently but it still carries on and the original battery still seems fairly healthy with no noticeable drop in performance even though I am working it harder than ever since the missus took on two adjacent allotments with lots of grass paths between beds.
Interesting post. The robotic mowers are very expensive and I would not have to bother with the grass every day even if the work was mostly done by a machine.
I'd be tempted, but they couldn't cope with my garden. It's up, down, grass here, grass there and many ways it can escape and try to move the railway line!
Looked at cordless vacs recently - 2 year warranty; 1 year on battery, for one; 5 year & 2 year on another. Car: 10 year warranty (if serviced by $Rip-offGarage), engine 3 year warranty - see how that goes, but it's about the same thing.
A friend of mine has a Mountfield electric mower which works extremely well. I've only used it on medium/short dry grass and so cannot comment on its ability to cut long or damp grass. The battery fits other gardening tools such as a brush cutter/strimmer and a hedge trimmer. You probably need two batteries as the lawnmower runs at full speed until the battery senses it is going flat at which point the mower stops dead.
I did find the associated strimmer a a bit heavy for occasional use and had to use a shoulder strap in order to help with the balance of the tool. The strimmer is possibly more suited to more heavy use rather than just trimming around the edges of a lawn. I personally have a very much lighter weight cordless Flymo strimmer which I use to edge my 60ft lawn. The Flymo battery lasts just long enough for the task (10 minutes) but I have two batteries.
Would I personally change from a petrol mower to cordless electric? Probably not. Having used corded electric mowers in the past and found cutting the grass for the first time in the season is a PITA. (It's got too long because you can't be bothered as it's too cold outside or it will not stop raining etc.) A petrol mower for me copes with both the first of season cut of wet/damp grass as well as week to week cutting. The only downside of petrol is some routine maintenance, remembering to take out the petrol containers when filling up the car and some DIY repairs to some crappy plastic bits on the throttle cable assembly.
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