FFS he isn't asking for alternative suggestions he is asking for anyone's experience of battery powered lawn mowers. I can't help him myself as I haven't owned one though the thought has crossed my mind.
True, but It would appear that his reason for discounting a flex out of his window was flawed, so I think my suggestion is a not unreasonable one.
Tim
It's actually quite interesting what happens if you hang a cable down the side of a very tall building. Another interesting thing is what happens if you need to get a 20ft scaffold tube up there.
Bill
Done this loadsa times. You pull enough cable outa da holder or reel den loop it around da holder or reel, den carefully lower da holder or reel on the cable. At da bottom ya unloop da cable from da holder or reel.
Bill
Is there a nearby street lamp?
Bill
Tie a piece of cord to the reel & lower it out of the window, keeping hold of the plug......
A friend has a Mountfield battery operated spinning blade, wheeled, lawn mower with grass collection (Approx £340). I've used it a few times and on fairly short/medium grass and it works very well. I would have serious reservations about its use on long grass. My experience with long or damp grass is to use a petrol mower. After struggling for years with long grass and cheap mains powered electric mowers a purchase of my first petrol mower a few decades ago was a god-send.
My friend also has the Mounfield strimmer/brush cutter which uses the same battery. This is NOT a light weight piece of kit and this does tackle long grass with ease. Personally, I also have a light weight battery strimmer but it is only good for 15 minutes of light weight edge trimming - use it on long grass and I get 10 minutes from the battery before it starts slowing down and become ineffective.
The batteries are expensive - mitigated to some extent if you have 3-4 of the tools and share one set of batteries (bearing in mind you can use the big battery in handheld devices at the expense of weight).
I've been waiting for Bosch to bring out a strimmer to replace the knacker Black and Decker that I had and whose battery was always unreliable in recharging (overheated, cut out, manual reset needed almost every time).
In message , TMH writes
Perhaps I'm the odd one out, but my home made reel is always wound with the plug on the short end, so the socket unwinds first. I happened to have a rubber plug and double socket in the shed, so bought a fairly long length of rubber covered cable, to make my extension lead. In the OP's situation, I would unwind the cable in the flat, plug one end in there, and drop the cable out of a window, socket end first.
Presumably the OP will probably have to cart the mower upstairs for storage, in which case my choice would be a fairly cheap and lightweight mains powered mower, with nice long extension lead. Lugging a heavy battery powered mower around, and possibly up and down stairs, does not sound like fun.
But surely you will need to charge it so where is the difference. You still need power. I'm sure these devices have come on since I had one many years ago. then they basically used a small car battery but these batteries seemed to have both a short running time and a short deep cycle life as well, I guess cos one never used them over the winter it tended to let the battery decline. The new ones should be better but I'm not convinced modern battery technology has tackled the underlying issues with varying loads and running them too flat. Brian
Yes there is :-) Are they 230V? And presumably this means cutting the grass during hours of darkness only :-)
Scotland, so not leasehold. We are self-factored, meaning that we are collectively responsible for the maintenance of the common parts. .
Yes 230V and there's mains in the bottom - the controller is either a time switch in the base after the main cutout fuse, or it's up top in the form of a light sensor.
Not that I'm advocating stealing electricity!!!!
I could take the battery into the flat pretty easily.
I assume lithium ion will be better than anything that has gone before. The Dyson cordless vacuum cleaner works will, albeit for a limited time between charges.
Thanks. The consensus seems to be that they are an expensive option and not as good as mains power. I may need to look again.
Scott brought next idea :
No, they are live all the time at the base. Some work on a light sensor, some of a remote control system, maybe the really old ones on a time clock, where several might share a circuit..
Just get a long extension lead out of your flat window - unless you are in a real sky scraper?
Far more so - and the higher voltage types that you find on serious tools (36V/38V and similar) are extremely manly.
Do not confuse these with either the low voltage LiIons or anything that's gone before.
More expensive, but not expensive absolutely.
And I strongly disagree with "not as good as mains power". Unless you are regularly tackling wet grass that is 6+" high, the Bosch Rotak is just as effective as both a mains mover and a smaller Hayter that preceded it.
In message , Harry Bloomfield writes
I suspect Scott was thinking more off not being seen robbing the street light during hours of darkness :-) I'm picturing Scott's mower looking like a 1960s Lambretta, festooned with spot lights as he cuts the grass at midnight.
At least you'll make light work of it.
G.Harman
So drop a cable out of your window. I used to drop one out of my 5th floor flat window so I could use power tools when working on the car in the street.
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