MarkS

Gas powered mowers put out about as much air pollution as full sized cars and SUVs and they're way noisy.

I have a reel mower, but found I was too inconsistent to make it practical. So I usually use an electric purchased for $25 at a garage sale (former owner discovered he didn't like to do his own mowing). Reel mower doesn't do edges around trees and walls very well since the reels have to be moving to cut. Small sticks and other objects bring it to a stop immediately, whereas you can use the electric to make mulch of anything in its way. Tall grass gets wrapped in the spindle and have to be cut out by hand. The trimming collector bag I got for the reel mower simply didn't work -- the trimmings are not ejected with a high enough velocity. Also, not sure where to get it sharpened now that all the mom & pop repair places have been Walmarted away.

chennai

Definitely right about the sticks, but after doing a spring raking, they aren't a problem. Also right about the edges, but I guess I'm just not that picky about the edges.

My grandfather used to have an electric mower, and I thought the cord was a major pain. He had a set path that avoided the cord, but I never could buzz along without trouble.

Turboem1

To everyone asking about how to keep the blades sharp here is some info:

I work in a mom and pop hardware store that has been in my town since 1922. Every so often we get the push mowers in for repair and people always ask about sharpening. My boss said he hasn't seen the old machines that used to sharpen the blades in 40+ years so I really doubt you will find someone who still has a machine. (Depends on where you live. I am in NY [long island suburbs] and people dont keep that stuff around. If your somewhere more rural you may find a place but I highly doubt it.)

Anyway there is still hope. The blades do not have to be sharp. They work by having the spinning blade make contact with a metal bar on the bottom. The two pieces of metal making slight contact will cut the grass without being sharp. Over time the push mower may seem to become less "sharp" but in reality it has just come out of adjustment. When you push the mower there should be slight resistance of the two pieces of metal touching. If it spins very freely or keeps spinning after you stop walking you are probably not even cutting the grass as the two blades are not making contact.

Anyway to properly adjust it look on each side of the blade and you should see some sort of adjusting mechanism. What you do is loosen the nut/screw/bolt (depending on model) to make it possible to adjust a bolt which will lower or raise the blade. Adjust both sides and lock down the locking piece on the adjustment. A good way to test if you adjusted it correctly is to take a piece of toilet paper and lay it inbetween the two blades and then spin the blade. It should cut the tissue paper in half with a nice clean cut. If you adjust it to tight you will notice that it is really hard to push, if so just loosen up the blade a little.

It is hard to explain but if you have some mechanical knowledge (which i am sure you all have since you are capable of any sort of repair on a bike) it can be done easily in 5 minutes. And when your all done you can spray everything with some wd-40 or equivalent to keep it working smooth.

Hopefully this helps some of you out as these push mowers really never go bad and are great for small lawns. As for the people worried about not getting close to certain places you can pick up grass shears (really big scissors for cutting grass) for very cheap.

Hope this helps.

Turboem1

I found a pic of one style adjuster so you can see.

bike2math

For the edges an electric trimmer works well or "gasp" hand pulling will do a fine job. Whatever way you cut your lawn you should let the trimmings lay as a mulch. Rake the lawn in the spring to remove the previous seasons thatch.

A general purpose flat file will do all the sharpening you ever need. Also the manual for mine says that lathing compound can be used to sharpen it by running the blade backwards. Now finding lathing compound is another issue, but I've found that every spring a quick file to restore a clean edge to the cutting bar followed by an adjustment and the machine is good to go for the season.

You should be doing the same thing with the blade on your cutting mower also. So I fail to see how sharrpening is a problem...

slagjumper

Grass, of the lawn variety is over rated. A spilled teaspoon of raw gas, dumps 50 times the florocarbons into the enviroment as a gallon burned in an engine. You could impress her with your knowledge and concerns for future generations.

They say that a gallon of gas = 500 man hours. From Curt Kurt's example it takes 78 man hours to mow an acre every season. So 6 gallons does a half an acre per season. A full acre would take 6000 hours to mow w/out gas per season. Perahps we should dump grass covered lawns alttogether. I have two lawns about 35 X 30 each. Thankfully one lawn is under a Black Walnut tree and so never really grows very well. The other one is half garden. If we sold just the basil from one 4 by 8 foot raised bed it would make 800 bucks a year. We take the basil make it into pesto, freeze it and have pesto for the family of five for the whole year. Of course you have to have free water to do that. A small honda tiller is handy as well.