In South Portland, benefits of electric lawn care run up against feelings about cost and climate

Maine Public Radio ^ | May 15, 2023 | By Caitlin Andrews

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Hannah Holmes of South Portland loves her electric lawnmower. It's quieter and more eco-friendly than your typical gas mower. She can push it with one hand.

But it has its drawbacks. One battery has just enough charge to last about 30 to 45 minutes. People who have big yards either need multiple batteries — which are not cheap, Holmes noted — or need to accept that mowing the lawn will have to happen in stages. And you can't let the lawn grow too long.

"It doesn't like tall grass, it just doesn't have the horsepower of a gas-powered motor, so it'll stall out on tall grass," she says, carefully maneuvering the push mower through a hillock of grass.

It's springtime, and people are starting to plant flowers and mow their lawns. South Portland is looking at ways to make that process more climate-friendly as part of its sustainability goals. It's a small part of South Portland's ambitious One Climate Future plan.

But it's wrapped up in the effort to move away from gas-powered vehicles. Part of that effort could be phasing out traditional lawnmowers' use in the future. That suggestion has mostly been met with resistance.

"For my business it would cost upwards of six figures just to purchase the equipment needed to replace our small engine fleet, not including the charging infrastructure and the batteries that would be an additional cost," he said.

For residents like Ed Haskill, the city's entire climate strategy is pointless, given the global scale of greenhouse gas emissions.

"Yes, it would be nice if everything was perfect and wonderful and we could change the world in South Portland, but until you get India and China onboard, you ain't changing the climate," he said.

[cyclotic]

I was going to mention testing the gas generator but forgot and hit enter too quickly. Thanks for the reminder

[woodbutcher1963]

I sometimes cut my grass in stages.
That is because with the 1999 John Deere 42” riding mower it takes about 2 hours IF I cut everything at once.

Of course I could put the 72” Landpride finish mower on the three point hitch of the Massey Ferguson 37HP turbo diesel compact cab tractor. However, I have my 5’ bush hog on the back of it right now.

[cyclotic]

showoff.

I could probably do my lawn in two passes with that setup.

There’s a house a few miles from us that has about 20 acres of lawn. I can’t imagine the crew it requires to cut it.

[Gritty]

One battery has just enough charge to last about 30 to 45 minutes across town and back. People who have big yards trips either need multiple batteries — which are not cheap, Holmes noted — or need to accept that mowing the lawn driving will have to happen in stages. And you can't let the lawn grow drive too long.

Are we seeing a pattern here?

[woodbutcher1963]

I bought a Stihl AK series battery operated hedge trimmer about three years ago. It was my first outdoor battery operated tool. The battery is about the same size as one for a motorcycle. I can trim all the bushes in the yard with it and still have power left over.

During covid I blew the piston on my 1991 Stihl 026 chainsaw. It took over six months to get the replacement piston from somewhere. So, I bought the Stihl AK series battery operated chainsaw. It has the same battery as the previously mentioned hedge trimmer. It has a 12” blade. It is perfect for trimming trees. Plus it is so light I can hold it above my head a cut a branch off with confidence.
I even use it when I cut down larger trees to cut the branches off the log.

I now have three straight shaft trimmers. One Echo. Two Stihl. All three 2 cycle gas engines. The Echo and one of the Stihl I got for free at the town transfer station. People were throwing them out. The two Stihl are both the bicycle grip type set up to put brush blade on. The FS85 I bought in 1996.

[iontheball]

Green now means SCAM
____________________________________
Trump said it best in New Hampshire in response to a question as to what he would do to address the energy issue - “Drill baby drill.” Note the government deception that has prevailed for most of the last century involving oil. First, they started out with their ‘peak oil’ nonsense that we would run out of oil in X number of years. When that didn’t happen, they dreamt up their CO2 toxic gas scam. They actually claimed CO2 was a pollutant, thinking we were too dumb to know that plants die without it. Now the crazies have generated so much environmental junk - solar panels, windmill blades, spent toxic batteries - they don’t know what to do with them. These people absolutely can not leave anything untouched and they wind up screwing up our lives and the world along with it.

[jurroppi1]

What can you pull with the riding electric, and for how long?

With my gas powered rider, I mowed my yard, dethatched, then bagged the thatch all on about 1/2 gallon of gas.

I have also used my gas rider to pull a car carrier trailer with a large swing set loaded onto it, my boat trailer with the boat on it, etc...

I really have doubts about an electric rider in this regard.

[fuzzylogic]

Ok, I’ve gone done this entire rabbit hole. I own the EGO brand electric lawn tools; mower, snowblower, hedge trimmer, grass trimmer, leaf blower, and chainsaw.

You can buy them with or without a new battery and charger. So for the first few items I got them. Now I have various sized batteries (7.5A/h, 5A/h, and 2.5A/h) with 3 chargers. They’re all interchangeable, I can use any battery on any tool.

I can work all day without stopping. It takes ~40mins to charger the largest battery, so I can use other batteries while some are charging.

The convenience of dropping in a battery and ‘go’ without any hesitation of it working is golden. I got tired of gas powered tools, getting gas, mixing oil, oil changes, filters, the hassle of trying to start 2-stroke engines with a pull string, etc. etc.. Especially in the winter with the snowblower, I’m not the guy fiddling around while it is below freezing trying to figure out why it isn’t starting.

I’ve not had problems with longer grass, although I’m not talking about really tall/thick grass but can do my entire yard with a single battery (charge).

IMHO this is a great example of how the technology MEETS THE APPLICATION. If I had a massive yard it might be different, although EGO does have a riding mower that takes 6 large batteries :) ...I just don’t need it.

I could understand for commercial fleets they may not yet be good enough. It’s really the ratio of chargers/batteries against time used that is key.

[woodbutcher1963]

I have 12 acres. Which is the reason why we bought this property 11 years ago. However, it was completely forested when we purchased it. There were 2-3 foot diameter White Pines, Red Oaks and Red Maple trees with 15 feet of the house. The roof was covered with moss. The house had drainage issues too. Even though it sat on a hill 35’ above the road.

So, the year after we bought it I hired a logging company that cut for a week. We ended up clearing about 2 acres. Now, the closest tree is a Red Maple about 35’ from the front.
Since logging I have twice had excavators in to regrade, remove stumps and boulders. Not rocks. I mean boulders. Some more than 6’ across. Heavy enough that a 30M# excavator could barely lift them.

My property(in south central NH) was never a farmers field in the 1800s like most land around here. I was never cleared until nine years ago. So, there are rocks and boulders all over the surface left from the glacier that receded about 12,000 years ago. Fortunately, there is no ledge. No granite. Just a lot of big rocks and crummy soil with a lot of clay.

[V_TWIN]

“Green now means SCAM”

It always did.

I remember when they called it “ecology” back in the 70s.......fortunately most people were too intelligent back then to believe the Bravo Sierra.......nowadays though, many people are dumb as a sack a dirt and believe all kinds of crap.

[iamgalt]

It doesn’t like tall grass and you have to cut it in stages. This is ridiculous

[bray]

The CO2 from the gas mower feeds the lawn and trees. Does an electric?

[woodbutcher1963]

Come on MAN!

Seriously, back in the 1970s and previously we had some major pollution problems. I grew up south of Buffalo. Lake Erie was a sewer. The Niagara River was disgusting from the chemicals pouring into it. In Niagara Falls, NY there was a subdivision and school built on top of a land fill called Love Canal. Where they has buried hundreds of 55 gallon drums of chemicals. The river in Cleveland caught on fire several times in the 1960s.

Even the autos we drove put out tons of pollution. For example, one of the guys in my office has a 1964 Corvette. All original. He pulled in the parking lot next to me last week. I could not believe how much his car STANK.

[Roadrunner383]

I’ll mention again, if you have a small to medium sized lawn, a battery powered mower may be a good choice. No gas, no oil, starts every time. I had a Ryobi Battery Walking Mower way back in 1997. Battery life was about 25 minutes, just enough time to cut my smallish lawn if I hustled. Of course you have to keep the grass trimmed, you’re not going to cut through shin high, or maybe even ankle high grass.

Now, for commercial operators, no way that battery powered mowers can run all day and deal with the variety of yard work they face.

[Myrddin]

My wife wanted the electric mower sold by Costco. 80 volt, two batteries. One 4 AH, one 2 AH. We have 1/3 acre. I mowed our front lawn and the lawn of our elderly next door neighbor on Saturday. Put the batteries on charge. Yesterday, I tried to mow the backyard. It was doing a great job, but ran out of battery capacity before I could finish. I fired up the Honda mower and my wife ran that over the remaining area uncut by the electric. We're going to need 2 x 4AH batteries to do just the backyard.

[Tell It Right]

You are correct that an electric mower won’t do for all of that. I pull a small wagon with mine loaded with yard tools about 500 ft to my mothers house, disconnect the wagon, mow her grass and do weed trimming and such, reconnect the wagon and pull it back to my house, disconnect it and mow over half of my yard before it needs recharging. I do no mulching or bagging. But I recharge it more than enough in the hour plus it takes to weed trim and blow out at my yard. And it comes with four of the portable 56V batteries that Ego has for their yard tools (with slots for 6 batteries if I want to add 2 to extend range). I have no need for those extra 2 batteries.

More on it being best for some use cases but horrible for others. It doesn’t add to my power bill because of my home solar. When I’m done cutting grass for the weekend I plug it into a 120V outlet that’s powered intermittently, only when I have good solar. In the week’s time between grass cuts I’ll have at least one day of good solar—so it’s always charged up with free power. Which will almost always be the same for the recharge while trimming— if the weather is clear enough to do yard work it’ll almost always be a good enough solar day for free power. Though I have a constant powered 120V by the shed just in case I’m doing yard work on bad weather.

[Myrddin]

I would like a riding mower, but I have trees and the dogs have dug holes that would easily tip the mower. The front yard is entirely too small for a riding mower. The big chore remaining is to get all of the pine needles out of the grass in front and back. The mower won't pick them up. It takes a pair of rakes to gather and pick them up. Just once a year, but it's a lot of work annually.

[V_TWIN]

Most of what you described was industrial pollution.....and I suspect that had far more impact on the environment than cars.

Also, the left can outlaw every ICE car in the country, put us all in mud huts and allow transportation by horse only and it won’t ever offset the pollution being spewed into the atmosphere by Russia, China and North Korea.......they couldn’t give 2 shits about the environment.....which means all this green bs is nothing more than an excuse for the left to eat away at our freedoms........THAT is what it’s really about. CONTROL and COMPLIANCE.

[Reeses]

Gas mowers are the ONLY way to efficiently and quickly cut grass.

When human labor (or Central American) is involved (jk), yes, but low power robotic slothbots have a completely different sense of time. They don't want to finish, they just want to finish this round then start over, forever. The energy consumption of that approach can be a tiny fraction of the brute force time-is-tacos method.

[Libloather]

"It doesn't like tall grass,"