I got another new toy.

[jasonw]

Check it out. It took me 2.5 hours to mow one lawn with my push mower at this ranch on Monday so I said never again. Wednesday I came home with this, woohoo.

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[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

Oh that is great! What's your review of the tractor so far? Likes/Dislikes?

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[jasonw]

So far likes are everything. The only problem I have is it is a fairly steep decline with an off camber turn to get to the back of the farm and the mower is very scary to drive on this off camber serfice. If you happen to flip you will roll about 30 feet down the embankment so care and caution is a must on slopes but I love everything ells. the 17.5HP is way more power than I use and the 42" cut is awesome as well. The only thing I don't like is TB puts a usable life of 250 hours on it. I don't know why but that's what the manual says.

[swstout]

I bought a Sears tow behind box blade for lawn tractors. It was for sale by one of my competitors. List on it was $229.95. I got it for $75.00. Ir's small enough to get it into a job I have coming up with a fence and a 48" gate. The bos blade is 46 inches wide and my lawn tractor has a 42" deck so it will be larger than my treads.

Currently I am using an old set of box springs that I put cinder blocks on for weight. Doesn't look very professional but get the job done with many passes. This should work (and look) better.

Also, yesterday I received a call from our local " Hartsville Happenings" web site asking if they could include my Wordpress blog in their web site. I thought about for maybe a millionth of a second and said yes!

Will let you know how it works next week.

Steve

[StartALawnCareBusiness]

Congrats on your purchase.

One of the great things about being in business for yourself is the ability to buy (and put to use) new toys.

Keith

[jasonw]

I was just talking about this with my father the other day. If you are the type of person that beleaves in honest hard work and loves gadgets then get into the lawn care business. This way are you gadgets will be paid for lol.

[jasonw]

Originally Posted by Steve

Oh that is great! What's your review of the tractor so far? Likes/Dislikes?

Steve I remembered one more dislike. Remember my little trailer? This thing just barely fits on it. So close that I am betting a cop would stop me for overloading the trailer.

[justin_time]

I don't know how long that tractor is going to last you. I have 450 hrs on mine and it's a 20 hp with a 42 inch deck and i almost need to get myself a new tractor since it's falling apart. If you plan on doing some commercial yards in the future, i would suggest a ZTR mower

[jasonw]

I purchased this primarily for large residential yards. More than likely it will only be used for 1/4-1/2 acre lawns. I was rated at 2 acres or less so it should do ok. I think along the lines with anything maintenance is the key to longevity. I stated this once before and see it all the time. A lot of people give these things bad reviews but they think they can buy it, use it hard and put it away wet and never maintain it. I have some equipment that has far outlived its useful life by several years and still working great. I am a huge stickler for maintenance though. Every time my equipment is used at the end of the day it gets cleaned and lubed and in some cases even gets some polish. Thats why my 6 year old mower still looks new and runs well enough to get the job done. The fact of the matter is though my old mower is just not cutting it "literally" with some of the business I am getting. 2.5 hours to mow one lawn is not acceptable to me but with my old 3.5hp mush mower I don't think I will do any better. With this new one on the other hand it should greatly speed up the process. Most mowing jobs I do are not hourly, they are a flat rate so I can be there for 30 minutes or all day and still get paid the same. Because of this time is of the essence. The faster I get it done and get out of there while not skimping on the quality of work the more I get for per hour funds. I have no doubt this new toy will well more than pay for itself long before its useful life has been reached. I understand though it would not be a good choice for commercial accounts. I will be keeping everyone up to date on how its working as well as the new trimmer. I really think Troy-bilt got a bad wrap from the aforementioned people that don't perform even the recommended maintenance. The trimmer has reached and passed its first recommended oil change and valve adjustment as per the hours of use in the owners manual. I had an issue with it last time out where it didn't want to idle. After getting home and checking the valves I adjusted the idle screw a little bit and now she purrs again. There is a lot of vibration from the 4 stroke so I am sure all that happened is the screw vibrated out a little bit. The after market 4 line head really is crap for fine edging work. It kicks but in the brush departments but really tears things up with finer work. To fix the problem I removed 2 of the lines from the 4 line head to make it a 2 line head and it seemed to help. I just need to keep in mind when doing said finer work that the 4 line head sits about 6 inches lower than the factory head.

[Steve]

Steve I remembered one more dislike. Remember my little trailer? This thing just barely fits on it. So close that I am betting a cop would stop me for overloading the trailer.

Can you take a picture of this?