Our Purchase: Noise And Air Pollution Fighting Machine
Well, I guess I can’t say that I am participating in Crunchy Chicken’s Buy Nothing Challenge for April. It’s not like we’re out buying willy-nilly. We really don’t just go out shopping and buy things on a whim. Everything is pretty calculated. I can tell you that I spent a good $700 on Saturday. I can’t tell you the last time we spent that much in a day on anything – probably when we had to put new carpet in our basement last fall.
The first item was a backup sump pump – nothing sexy, but needed. If you can’t guess, our basement flooded last fall and that’s the reason we had to replace the carpet. So I figured it was time to buy a backup pump. The second item was a yard of dirt/mulch combo for our new veggie garden. Now, on to the sexy purchase.
Goodbye gray skies, hello blue (yes, that’s from Happy Days for those of you keeping score). If you read my post on Saturday, you’d have read about how we took our gas-powered mower to a recycling event in Chicago. In return for the mower, they gave us a rebate of $100 towards the purchase of a reel-mower or a rechargeable/electric mower. That really softened the blow as these rechargeable mowers aren’t cheap. Another added bonus was that I didn’t have to try and sell my mower – I got $100 for it with no questions asked. Beautiful.
I knew exactly which mower I wanted to buy. So I convinced my wife that I should to go the local home improvement store for more than just the mower reason. I couldn’t wait any longer – the excitement of buying the new mower was killing me. Finally, I showed up to the store and the exact mower I wanted was being wheeled to someone’s car. I crossed my fingers and went in. Phew, there were two more left. I think I heard bells ring and there was a glowing halo around the prized beauty. Even better, when I walked up to it, the thing was on sale! Alas, we are the proud parents of a brand spanking new Remington Power Mower.
I’ve researched the various gas-alternative mower options available to me in the past, so I had some good ideas as to what I wanted. My yard is too large for a reel-mower. It is also too large for me to hassle with a corded mower all the time. So that narrowed my search down to rechargeable mowers. I had seen the Neuton mower and someone recommended it to me. I liked the fact that you could just drop in a fresh battery if you ran out of juice. I didn’t like that it was only a 14″ cutting width (they now have a newer one with a 19″ width). We happened to see an infomercial for the Remington Power Mower. So we looked into it. It had the drop-in battery option like the Neuton and had a 17″ width. Our old mower was 22″, so this is still a big step down in that department. The drop-in battery was a big selling point for us. Something the Remington Power Mower has that the Neuton is lacking is the corded option. If I want more power or don’t have a spare battery, I can plug it in like a corded mower and continue to cut the grass. It has a nice cord management feature to keep the extention cord out of the way, too. Oh – did I mention it’s about $0.10/charge. Remington has a full demo of their cordless Power Mower.
I almost forgot to tell you how quiet this thing is. Normally, we can hear someone mowing their lawn about 3 blocks away. My wife was in the back yard and couldn’t hear me mowing in the front. Rock star!
Now for some lawn mowing facts:
- Mowing your lawn (with a gas mower) for one hour creates emissions is roughly equivalent to driving your car for 100 miles.
- Another way to put it is that a gas mower emits as much pollution as 40 cars in an hour.
- Traditional mowers emit 5% of the nations air pollution
- Garden equipment users spill 17 million gallons of fuel each year. That’s more than was spilled in the Exxon Valdez accident.
- A traditional gas powered lawn mower operates at about 85 decibels or more
Source: People Powered Machines
Happy Days Theme
[audio:http://www.andyslife.org/misc/TV%20Themes/Happy%20Days.mp3]
If I lived on a street with grass to mow, I’d buy that mower. Is it quiet? Do you look like a toddler with a bubble mower walking around the yard in silence?
Greentastic!
very cool purchase jason, seemingly the creature needs a name, like marguerite’s bicycle ?? and perhaps a flame out – you know some graphics to vrooooom it out,Give it further distinction in the neighborhood – ha!!
i put my name a drawing for an electric neuton mower, they haven’t called me yet
and IF I ever move back to Michigan, I’ll check one of those out, or buy that 6 inch grass that never needs mowing. Thanks for being an active consumer and bragging up the good stuff.
Thanks, Mother Earth! It does need a name…hrmmm…I’ll have to think on that.
Citizen Shay – yeah – it is quiet. I forgot to put that part in my post – I’ve since updated. It isn’t silent, but if you were my neighbor, you probably wouldn’t wake up if I was cutting my grass at 7am.
[...] admin wrote an interesting post today on Our Purchase: Noise And Air Pollution Fighting MachineHere’s a quick excerptFinally, I showed up to the store and the exact mower I wanted was being wheeled to someone’s car. I crossed my fingers and went in. Phew, there were two more left. I think I heard bells ring and there was a glowing halo around the … [...]
at least you don’t have to water the lawns here in the Midwest, but it does grow. France has had these silent air floating mowers for years. i am stuck with an old but efficient noise polluter.
congrats on the one thoughtful purchase which will provide pollution free years of community service.
and a happy earth day to you, and some biodynamic vin.
greenaway to you, ns
When the highlight of your weekend is a sump pump and a mower you know you’re getting old.
The quietness is money. You need to pimp that mower and get an iMow, which will attach your iPod to the mower handle. Some PlasmaGlow LED lights underneath it to make it glow would be sweet too.
OOOooOh. Fancy!
Good choice
We love our reel mower for our 1/4 acre!!! The best parts are: we can mow at 7am on Saturday morning . . . Ok so we could if we were awake; the clippings mulch our yard; we avoid the stench, extra shower, and laundering of clothes because my hubby doesn’t smell like gasoline!!!