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Despite a significant increase in sales of cordless machinery, petrol mowers remain a very definite favourite with a significant number of British gardeners. Image Credit: Author
Storage
For a product that’s engineered to spend its operational life outside, it’s perhaps ironic that most lawnmowers today, will spend most of their lives inside.
On a small lawn, a mower may be in use for as little as 20 hours each year, yet spend over 8,700 hours parked up inside. So, whilst your focus when purchasing a mower, may well be on your lawn, you’ll also want to consider how and where you store your machine.
Many of today's lawnmowers will spend most of their lives inside. Image Credit: Author
To make machines easier to store, manufacturers have baked in a number of innovations:
- On machines fitted with a grass collector – and with the exception of dedicated mulching mowers, that’s practically every mower on sale in the UK today – the grass bag or box is designed to be removed. This usefully reduce the mower’s footprint, when in storage;
- Almost all machines today incorporate folding handles. These reduce the footprint of stored machines. However, some handles fold easier than others, so it makes sense to try, before you buy;
- Historically, all machines had to be stored horizontally. However, there are a growing number of machines, which are purpose designed, to be stored in an upright position, to reduce the space required for storage. Thanks to clever engine design, even some petrol engine machines can now be stored vertically e.g. mowers equipped with a purpose designed Briggs & Stratton Mow N’ Stow engine;
- Lighter machines e.g. some hover and battery powered mowers, can even be wall hung.
When considering storage, it’s also important to consider the width of any new mower. Almost every machinery dealer at one time or another, will have a customer purchase a mower, only to find later that it doesn’t fit through their shed or workshop door. With smaller mowers, this is unlikely to prove an issue. However, if you’re choosing a larger mower, you’ll wish to choose carefully. The width of some machines now exceeds 83cm, whilst a standard UK door is just 76cm wide.