A few years ago I bought an electric lawn mower that has a cord instead of any of the cordless lawn mowers. I looked at the battery powered ones and they were fine but expensive. And the most expensive part is the battery, so I opted for the cord. I have a small yard and don’t like to mess with gas so electric was the way to go.
For years I would get mowers that had eight amp motors and the small cheaper cords worked well. The mowers lasted for years and the cut was nice. When I needed a new one this last time, I got a small model with a Ryobi electric-corded lawn mower.
It works well but the motor is bigger than eight amps and as a result needed a thicker cord. So the cord I got is rated for the motor’s power needs. You don’t want to skimp on that because that could shorten the life of the motor. But it’s heavier.
I can handle it, but it’s harder. Then I a funny thing happened. My Ryobi lawn mower blade started falling off. And I couldn’t find the nut. This never happened before. The Ryobi people were confused and even sent another mower. The same thing happened. The Ryobi people offered me a free upgrade to a battery-powered mower but I turned him down. I’m not sure about Ryobi anyway.
But maybe it’s time for batteries in cordless lawn mowers? But they don’t last for hours though. They seem more reliable too. You just have to be careful like you do with some other tools like cordless drills. Still, having a cord on an electric snow blower seems like asking for trouble.
I looked at Snow Joe for a snow blower and they sell cordless and corded models. But I saw a lot of YouTube videos about the batteries failing. But Snow Joe has what sounds like a great warranty. They replaced those defective batteries easily in the videos I saw. Still, they failed.
I think I may try a cordless mower next or snow blower. The warranties seem better. But you need to stick with a brand you know is top of the line. The prices really aren’t that much different. Brands like Stihl are great and have great reps but you won’t see them in big box stores like Home Depot. Those stores push their own brands and must have special relationships with certain manufactures.
The weight of the tool is another thing to think about. In the early days of cordless tools they were heavy since they used different types of batteries and they would hold a charge long. During the last few years the batteries aren’t smaller, but they are more powerful. You also need the power. Like my corded Ryobi mower, it has a tiny footprint but needs more power than my last cheap mower. So the batteries needed to be bigger. But they aren’t cheap to replace and that’s my biggest beef in regard to cordless lawn mowers.
I may buy another lawn mower and probably go cordless here. I think the way you need to think of this is to buy into a family of cordless tools. A lot of the battery powered tools can share batteries. For example, an EGO mower and snow blower use the same battery in many cases. Stihl has a line of similar tools. Buying into a family of tools rather than looking at the cheapest price or spring sale could save you more money in the long run.
