The land maintenance, non-chainsaw thread

[old_newguy]

Does anyone have a recommendation on a battery powered weed whacker and a push reel style mower? This is for a small yard, definitely don’t want to mess around with gas. Last weed whacker I had was corded and would like to avoid that.

I have a set of Makita 18V battery tools....

[Flyoverland Captive]

We just got an Aiper Smart 20V whacker from Amazon. Comes with two batteries; plenty of power for a small yard.

[Buster Highmen]

I've got a 40V Ryobi weed whacker that's been great over the last 3 years. Battery life gets about 30-45 minutes.
Then I've been doing all mowing with a variety of corded electric lawn mowers over the last 15 years. Get 100 feet of 10 gauge extension cord and you're good to go.

[SkiLyft]

ego is king in the e-powered territory. Brushless. Batteries all swap and range from 2.5 - 7.5 depending on needs.

Electric feed on whacker is great. More plastic on the mower than I’d like but 1.5 years in and it still looks new. Blower has stupid power (use it to blow snow off my driveway).

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[Meadow Skipper]

Does anyone have a recommendation on a battery powered weed whacker and a push reel style mower? This is for a small yard, definitely don’t want to mess around with gas. Last weed whacker I had was corded and would like to avoid that.

I have a set of Makita 18V battery tools....

If you’ve already got Makita batteries...

[nickwm21]

Does anyone have a recommendation on a battery powered weed whacker and a push reel style mower? This is for a small yard, definitely don’t want to mess around with gas. Last weed whacker I had was corded and would like to avoid that.

I have a set of Makita 18V battery tools....

I have the cheapest makita 18v wacker. Perfect for my small yard. You need the larger 5ah batteries. Throw away the trimmer string that came with it and buy some nice string.


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[Mustonen]

Does anyone have a recommendation on a battery powered weed whacker and a push reel style mower? This is for a small yard, definitely don’t want to mess around with gas. Last weed whacker I had was corded and would like to avoid that.

I have a set of Makita 18V battery tools....

I have a battery powered black and decker 3 in 1. Basically a string trimmer that plugs into a little mowing deck. Perfect for my tiny and uneven yard. Mowing feels more like vacuuming. I tried, but my yard is too small for a reel mower to get enough momentum to make sense.

If a better brand made a similar device I’d buy it, but my 45 seconds of research came up empty. Honestly it’s worked great and I have no real complaints. It’s not the sturdiest thing, but it gets the job done.

BLACK+DECKER 3-in-1 Lawn Mower, String Trimmer and Edger, 12-Inch (MTC220) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HH4K548...Z5HSHM4M2P3CMR

[old_newguy]

I have the cheapest makita 18v wacker. Perfect for my small yard. You need the larger 5ah batteries. Throw away the trimmer string that came with it and buy some nice string.


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I was wondering about the amp hour required. I think I have 2 or 3 amp hour batteries so might need to upgrade if I stay makita.

I debated corded but my past experience has been that the cord setup takes longer than I actually use it.

Small house, small yard, small storage so will probably put up with the momentum challenges with the reel mower.

That B and D looks clever but cheesy as hell. I’m sort of a buy once cry once type of buyer.

[Mustonen]

I was wondering about the amp hour required. I think I have 2 or 3 amp hour batteries so might need to upgrade if I stay makita.

I debated corded but my past experience has been that the cord setup takes longer than I actually use it.

Small house, small yard, small storage so will probably put up with the momentum challenges with the reel mower.

That B and D looks clever but cheesy as hell. I’m sort of a buy once cry once type of buyer.

It’s SO CHEESY! I feel ridiculous every time I need to vacuum my lawn.

But going on year three and I dunno…. Still does the thing it needs to do.

[Meadow Skipper]

My lawn is about 25’x20’ and I totally get the momentum concern, but my reel mower works well enough. If I found a little battery mower powered by Milwaukee 18v I’d probably get it.

I’m waiting for my corded string trimmer to break so I can get a battery-powered one. So much more convenient. I’ve got a 9 mah and a 12 mah batteries, and I’ve become totally into battery-powered tools.

[bodywhomper]

I found the right thread. We started doing small understory broadcast burns on our property during the dry winter. We live in a pondo pine/black oak forest, which is mostly full of fire adapted/dependent plants. We focused on surface fuels and duff, which is pretty deep. So deep that we don’t see much growing on our forest floor. We only have 1.6ac. The largest of the burns was only 1,000SF, which took about 4hrs, including prepping the little unit. I did them all by myself with occasional help from the kids, so I was very conservative on site prepping, what fuel I was burning, water nearby, downslope backing fire only, and wx conditions (especially wind). It’s SO much easier than blowing, raking, hauling, and disposing of the surface fuels. There are supposed to be a lot of ecological benefits, too, which I’m looking forward to experiencing. We’ll be burning most of the property next wet season when conditions allow. I would like to do some thinning and clean up before that time for more successful burns. Depending on how areas respond, we’ll probably do it every year or two after these “entry” burns.

Over 40ac of private property was burned last winter in my hood (on purpose). I volunteered about 9 hrs at a 9ac burn last week, which was a pretty cool community event.

[Harry]

^^ interesting post, got me thinking.

Controlled burn would be easy on my place, it can’t get out of control because it’s an island. Plus no structures. I will talk to my county forestry dept about it. Thanks for posting.


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[bodywhomper]

Probably different burning objectives on your island than my area. Just make sure you don’t kill the vegetation that you don’t want to kill.

[Meadow Skipper]

I found the right thread. We started doing small understory broadcast burns on our property during the dry winter. We live in a pondo pine/black oak forest, which is mostly full of fire adapted/dependent plants. We focused on surface fuels and duff, which is pretty deep. So deep that we don’t see much growing on our forest floor. We only have 1.6ac. The largest of the burns was only 1,000SF, which took about 4hrs, including prepping the little unit. I did them all by myself with occasional help from the kids, so I was very conservative on site prepping, what fuel I was burning, water nearby, downslope backing fire only, and wx conditions (especially wind). It’s SO much easier than blowing, raking, hauling, and disposing of the surface fuels. There are supposed to be a lot of ecological benefits, too, which I’m looking forward to experiencing. We’ll be burning most of the property next wet season when conditions allow. I would like to do some thinning and clean up before that time for more successful burns. Depending on how areas respond, we’ll probably do it every year or two after these “entry” burns.

Over 40ac of private property was burned last winter in my hood (on purpose). I volunteered about 9 hrs at a 9ac burn last week, which was a pretty cool community event.

Nice work!

[bodywhomper]

Thx.

[yeahman]

Been doing a shitload of fire mitigation this spring. Yesterday we took six loads of branches to the transfer station. That was more than a ton that we loaded and unloaded--and we still have five or six loads to go. Today I visited my chiropractor for some relief.

Could have rented a chipper but that's $250 a day and kind of a pain. Could burn it but in the 14 years we've been in this house there have been three fires that have threatened our house and all three were started by idiots and their burn piles. So we decided to just haul it away this time. This U-haul trailer was $35 and a total beast.

[Rideski]

I've read most all of this thread but forgetting if hedge trimmers have been spoken about. I didn't realize they could cut 5/8 to an inch diamiter branches. I find it hard to believe but maybe. I have some of those gigantic 10 foot tall grasses to cut down. The stalks are probably only 1/2" and pretty light.
But if I could use the machine on my lilacs and juniper, it would pay for the time for sure.

Lilac branches with a hedge trimmer?

[bodywhomper]

I can’t help with hedge trimmer advice.

Been doing a shitload of fire mitigation this spring. Yesterday we took six loads of branches to the transfer station. That was more than a ton that we loaded and unloaded--and we still have five or six loads to go. Today I visited my chiropractor for some relief.

Could have rented a chipper but that's $250 a day and kind of a pain.

We’ve done that a bunch, too. I missed the free green waste disposal in our area, too. Your chippers are more expensive to rent than ours. The thing about chipping or masticating vs hauling or burning is that you still have the fuel just in a different form, and sometimes a form more a available to carry a fire.

[yeahman]

The thing about chipping or masticating vs hauling or burning is that you still have the fuel just in a different form, and sometimes a form more a available to carry a fire.

True, although if it's chips on the ground vs. a tree that can crown it's much less of a hazard in terms of a fast-spreading fire. The chipper I've rented is spendy, it's a professional woods-worker caliber machine capable of chipping up to 6 inch pine branches, which is pretty damn burly, like Fargo style if you know what I mean . It is a loud and dirty job. My buddy says just burn it, it's free, but it is stressful and smokes out your neighbors and we have 10 acres so it would require multiple slash piles/fires.

Doing land maintenance is a lot of work. Funny we bought the house from a couple in their 70s who were selling it for just that reason. I'm not there yet but I can see why they wanted to get out of it. For now I still halfway enjoy it..

[bodywhomper]

I just looked it up. The 6” chipper that I rent is $175/day. Almost to the same cost. We have too many chip piles at the moment. last summer, meat bees made a nest in one pile. That kinda sucked.

On the 9ac broadcast burn that I worked last week, after the understory burn was done, we collected many of the larger unburned sticks (aka bones), and made small pile burns within our burn unit. Attention was paid to not be too close to trees trunks, stumps and stuff excluded in the burn unit, and the canopy. piles can burn hot compared the surface fuels of the broadcast burn. Burning in the black seems to work well.

I’ll be cutting and hauling to the transfer station later this month and next month.

In the dry CA winter, there were many escaped burn piles because the duff was super dry and smoldering under the piles (bad practice by the burner, IMO.) three escaped burn piles today in my general area that turned into understory or grass fires that required Calfire to extinguish. Sounds like structures and canopies were untouched (thankfully).

[Core Shot]

I've read most all of this thread but forgetting if hedge trimmers have been spoken about. I didn't realize they could cut 5/8 to an inch diamiter branches. I find it hard to believe but maybe. I have some of those gigantic 10 foot tall grasses to cut down. The stalks are probably only 1/2" and pretty light.
But if I could use the machine on my lilacs and juniper, it would pay for the time for sure.

Lilac branches with a hedge trimmer?

5/8” can be done, but you wait and wait for the nibbler. And the cut is ugly.
but for tree like shrubs I prefer to hand trim with loppers. To control the shape better.

When I moved into my overgrown house I bought a gas hedger that was affectionately called THE ANGRY BEAVER

It died two years ago. Been using a dewalt cordless now. Not as angry but works great.

[bodywhomper]

First of the season

[bodywhomper]

Day two

[bodywhomper]

Anybody else land maintenance-ing w/o chainsaws?

This is probably my last burn in a while. At the ski hill tomorrow (woot!) and rain/snow’s in the forecast. Praise ullr!

[bodywhomper]

Bump

Currently, in another brief burn window for small surface fuels like needles and leaves. Unfortunately, my day job wrk load has me bound to other things.

We had a brief window a few weeks ago that corresponded to when my teen was home, not super busy, and awake. He got to do a small maintenance burn by one of our critical structures (sits over a cistern tank and water pump system).

Nice article of fuel reduction. https://www.hcn.org/articles/wildfir...ire-prevention