And I got it at Home Depot. I decided on the Ego because I have excess solar generated electricity from my roof top solar system. We net meter and have some batteries that allow us to power our house and our electric car, a Nissan Leaf as mentioned in this previous blog https://bit.ly/1svADZd .
Also my gas powered self propelled push mower was old and would not start. I did a lot of research and wasn’t sure there would be an adequate electric mower but then my Ego showed up. It is powered by a rechargeable 56 volt, 7.5Ah battery and a fast charger that is advertised to run up to an hour and charge within an hour. I ordered it online through Home Depot and it was delivered to my house needing very little assembly. It was noticeably light due to a mostly plastic body and aluminum handles. How durable it will be is to be seen though an electric motor should need much less maintenance than the gas powered mowers.
It actually took some reading the directions to figure out how to start the thing the first time and how to operate the self propelling part. Once started and moving I was a bit anxious and hopeful in equal measure. An electric motor makes so little noise it is hard to imagine it can do the work of the noisy and vibrational gas cousin. Our lot is hilly and takes about 45 minutes to mow the whole thing. I got through the whole yard without needing to recharge and discharged most of my anxiety. In self propelling mode it helped me all I wanted up the hills and cut and bagged as well as my gas mower. (Those bagged grass clippings are great stuff for mulching the garden or adding to the compost pile.)When it runs into thicker grass it amps up and has had no problem even around our compost which is a thick stand of grass and weeds.
It did recharge in less than an hour as advertised. My partner, Claudia, took a turn with it and was equally happy about it. We have now mowed our yard four times and are satisfied it will do the work with less noise.
“According to the test, the electric lawnmower could do the job up to 100 minutes on the same amount of energy that the petrol lawnmower will use in less than 7 minutes and 30 seconds! That’s well over 10 times more!”https://bit.ly/1TvGx70
That was a Bosch GRA 53 Professional lawn mower, so not an exact comparison but gives a sense of how much more efficient it is and when you add the solar charging into the mix it really looks like a major improvement in terms of energy use.
This article on gas lawn mowers and pollution (https://abcn.ws/27J7AC4 ) has some good tips for mowing to reduce the pollution impact. “Spending an hour behind a roaring lawn mower can spew nearly the same amount of oily pollution into the air as a 100-mile car trip, according to a Swedish study.”
“Lawn and garden equipment really does add to air pollution,” says Cathy Milbourn, spokeswoman for the EPA. “People can reduce the impact it has by using [lawn equipment] in the early morning or in the late afternoon. Or perhaps not at all” on high ozone days, she says.
So I am happy to have made the move to the Ego and will watch for a Superego or even an Id though I doubt Home Depot will deal in those.They do also have a 56 Volt Ego weedeater that a neighbor has and likes a lot.
boone guyton