Battery powered weed wackers

[Jackie_amp_Starlette]

I have to share - my mom is 90 years old, super independent, lives alone in a retirement village that each person has their own mobile home and very small yard.

Up until last year, she managed mowing and trimming. I took over last year as it was getting too much for her (she was doing a section at a time, takes me 10 minutes to do the entire yard). She has a small battery powered trimmer that she uses (it’s too short for me and I prefer my gas Stihl) that she will occasionally still use.

Leads me to last year and this I was noticing “crop circles” in her lawn especially around her small garden area. Could not figure out what was killing her grass like that. Until a few weeks ago I went over, and she was trimming - only when she was tired, she leaned on the trimmer like a cane. Crop circles explained!

And yes, she’s been scolded for it LOL!

[jherold]

My mom is 91 and still living in the big 4 bedroom house I grew up in. She would have done the weeds by hand, but she broke her shoulder in April and is essentially o e armed now.

[colorfan]

I have a Milwaukee battery powered ww. LOVE it. No more having to fight to start the darn thing. this spring I got the battery powered one from the shed, pulled the trigger and worked for a half hour. Still didn’t run out of last year’s battery charge. Used it again a couple days ago, still have’t charged it up.
I do thick weeds and small thorns/willows, nothing bigger mostly because I don’t want to have to deal with broken string.
The thing is also really easy to restring. Lotsa $$ but so worth it!

[jherold]

I’m so glad to hear that there are so many great battery powered weeders!

[DiamondJubilee]

@Libby2563 - the Dewalt chainsaw is AMAZING!!! We have every tool known to Dewalt x 2 and sometimes x 4 (my husband is a contractor though so he needs it) and he purchased the chainsaw and a chainsaw on a pole as well as the hedge trimmer and all 3 tools are amazing and we have been using them for years. The only issue with the chainsaw which is a known problem even to Dewalt, is that it leaks oil when it sits. So you do have to check it and keep it somewhere if it leaks it wont matter.

We never had so many trees down this year as we have had in the past 12 years we lived here, and it was so nice to use the battery one and not have to get out our loud, heavy gas Stihl one.

It cut through some big trees too, we are very impressed. And its quite quiet and we were cutting right beside our pony paddock and they were just feet away and were never scared of it (they gallop away as soon as we start up the Stihl).

[MunchingonHay]

Another vote for Ryobi.

We have their:
portable air pump
drill
power stapler
portable fan
hot glue gun
leaf blower
hedge trimmer
some other sort of drill thing my DH uses
and the weedwacker with both the regular string attachement and we have a second attachment with a table saw blade on the end.
We had their chainsaw but my DH asked too much of it and while it was great for smaller jobs, he was treating it like he was a lumberjack taking down Redwoods. He killed it.

We love Ryobi.

Then for larger yard stuff we have Ego products. We have the push mower, self propelled snow blower and we just got their 42inch deck riding mower.

[poltroon]

I have a Toro battery string trimmer. I love it. It only gets about 30 minutes on a charge but that’s also really how long I should use one without it starting to hurt my body too much with the vibration etc. Because it’s so easy to start and use, it’s no big deal to do like 10 minutes in the morning after I feed and so on the whole I do a lot more a lot sooner than I did with the Stihl where I have to plan and do a bunch of setup.

I also love how easy it is to pop the battery out and then fiddle with the string if it doesn’t unfurl enough.

Get yourself a harness for it, the electric ones don’t seem to come with one, but it makes for much less stress on my wrists and arms.

The battery is interchangeable with some other equipment so the system works great for us.

[endlessclimb]

I vote for ego, but that’s because it’s what I’ve got. I have a little backpack that I carry when I’m whipping the fencelines - I carry an extra battery and extra string. Nothing worse than having to walk all the way back to the house when you run out.

I don’t mind the weight of a gas engine, but I’m tired of having so much stuff that needs annual maintenance. Everything that I can, I am switching to electric.

[fourfillies]

Do you know which Ego? I traded my old gas Stihl blower for an Ego blower which I love. I’ve been waffling on the 15 vs 16” and whether autoreeling works in real life. My blower has the 56 amp battery so I’m committed there. It’s kind of surprising to me there are so many permutations of the Ego. I also don’t need to cut heavy brush. Just looking for something a little lighter that isn’t a pain to start.

[endlessclimb]

I have the one with the carbon fiber handle, not sure which model it is. The auto reel 100% works, and is the best thing since sliced bread. #iremembertheoldskoolway

[fourfillies]

Thank you! I’m sold.

[Inimitable]

I just asked my husband. We have the 15”, so no autoreeling.

[fourfillies]

Thank you!

[Bonnie2]

Another Dewalt lover here. Very useful for many jobs. Does not do the real heavy duty stuff. Does normal grass/weeds just fine and when the battery gives up I’m about ready to be done too. Much lighter and quieter than the gas trimmer. I would recommend getting a trimmer that takes the same battery as other tools you own. MunchingonHay has a bunch of Ryobi, I have other things that take Dewalt batteries. That way it’s easier to always have a spare battery.

[Leather]

@jherold

That’s my problem. When the Stihl starts it’s great, but unfortunately I don’t have a DH to fix it immediately when it doesn’t!

How old is the trimmer? My husband an ancient Stihl trimmer that always gave me grief (something with the carburetor I think.) I had enough and bought a new one that has a super easy choke (you set it to cold start or warm start as needed and it adjusts itself) and haven’t looked back.

But because the Stihl gas is a monster one (it’s a borderline professional model with the bike handles) I wanted a smaller electric trimmer for use up by the house for smaller jobs.

I think with battery trimmers you can pretty much just choose whatever is most convenient for you based on the battery type/brand.

I went with a Makita because we already had about 10 of their 18v batteries for other tools (drills, circular saw, grinder, stapler, leaf blower, etc.).

[Ghazzu]

@Bonnie2

Another Dewalt lover here. Very useful for many jobs. Does not do the real heavy duty stuff.

I got the DeWalt that has an interchangable /string/blade setup, and love it. Cuts throughthe damned woody bittersweet vines easily.

[Annie10]

I have a Ryobi , I really like it. I just hate the gas ones

[jherold]

It’s only a couple of years old. I’m sure there was something I was doing wrong, but since I don’t use it much it’s easy to forget a step!

[cardinale]

This Milwaukee is the one I just bought. Only battery-powered one I could find that has handlebars and a harness which I hope make trimming including small brush more tolerable. But, I hope it’s not too big and clunky for my height. Online only so unable to see in person before buying. It’s a dedicated brush cutter, so not interchangeable with other attachments.

[freshman]

I got the basic EGO 56v 15" trimmer as a part of a discount trimmer/blower + battery combo kit earlier this year. I like it the price and for my needs ($229 for the combo kit). But it is not especially lightweight. While not hugely heavy, it is definitely proportioned for someone 6ft+ with big man hands. Most of them are, though. If I wanted anything significantly smaller/lighter weight, then it really seemed like gas was my only option. The EGO trimmer is very, very powerful. Comparable to the several gas ones I have had. Runtime is 15-20 min on a full charge. It charges quickly. My basic cheaper EGO trimmer obviously doesn’t have the nifty auto-reeling feature that I really loved one my friends that I tried. Those EGO trimmer models are a lot more expensive than mine. For a farm owner, it would probably be worth the money for the auto reeling feature. And worth investing in 2 batteries.

I have heard great things about the Dewalt battery trimmer and almost went for one of those. I sort of wish I did. Just because the grass is always greener, haha. I would love to try one anyway. I don’t have anything else on the Dewalt battery platform, so the upfront cost to buy the Dewalt trimmer kit with battery was a bit more than the EGO kit that was on sale at the time.