electricrc68

well me and my friend started a lawn mowing/trimming business, and im just curious what weed wackers you guys use? we are saving up for two.....they are probably going to be used.

The_Shark

craftsman convertible, 32cc

very good trimmer, just a tad on the heavy side, extremly powerful, thick spool lines last awhile. avoid any featherlight model.

SyCo_VeNoM

think the popular one around here is a HPI Baja
run one of those on the lawn and you will have no weed issues... or a need for a lawnmower

DaveG55

If you are in this seriously then do not bother buying a used weedeater. It will be a waste of money. Save up and get 1 good weedeater instead of two used (read that abused) trimmers. My personal reccomendation is to buy Stihl or Husquvarna tools. For commercial use they are second to none. I cleaned abandonded and repossesed properties for 15 years and we mostly used Stihl (weedeaters, chainsaws, back-pack blowers, edgers, hedge trimmers) and those tools seemed to run forever and took an amazing amount of abuse.
Heck, I still own a Stihl chainsaw that's at least 20 years old and it was just this past spring that I had to rebuild the carb and replace the origional fuel lines. There are three points that are signifigant in that. First it still runs strong at 20 years old, second, the original carb and fuel lines lasted that long and finally, Stihl provides product/parts support for it to this day.

elven wizard

I like the 2 stroke .32 Craftsman high rpm. Really powerful to cut those thick stemmed weeds. Sometimes finicky when starting. Have lots of these. Redmax is also good, really reliable. Starts on one pull all the time. Lots of torq wish the rpms were a little higher on it. start / off sliding switch is a little to close to the holding handle and sometimes you'll accidently turn it off. Had a Eager Beaver, was a total piece of junk. Whole thing fell apart in a week. Only thing neat about it was the beaver icon on it. Had a Ryan and that was a great weedwacker. It ran and ran and ran.

secretsg

Honda HR173 with 100k under the hood.

flyallday

TMC - this is what most of the pros use, not cheap. I have one (I am not a pro) that I have had for 18 years. I used it to clear my 6 acres for fire clearance twice a year. Mostly mustard plant. Still works today.

Harry

electricrc68

okay thanks guys. well my friend's dad has a friend who is a contractor and he has a couple, so he might give us one. we really are going for used though. we can't afford a new one really. and its just a neighborhood business. i don't really see the need for a new one, but we will definately stay away from featherlight.

proanti1

My Feedback: (2)

The best weed eaters, hands down, are the ones made by Stihl. You can get the industrial 2 stroke models for like $110... and they last forever. We would go through the Yardmasters, Craftsmans, and all those crappy ones you get at Home Depot within a few months. If you are starting a business, you need something designed to be run for hours every day... the $75 Wal Mart special is not, and will burn up. Don't bother with 4 stroke, they dont have as much power as a good 2 stroke and over heat if used often.

electricrc68

well i mean, we are only planning on 3 houses for saturday, and 3 for sunday. probably only 4 or 5 hours a day.....maybe less. depends since its two of us working at the same time. but we are staying away from the walmart ones. we have a local lawn care shop we are going to check out too.

tommygun32

electric....this is what I used when I started my local lawn & garden maintenance endeavour...

Just make sure you are not stepping on someone else's "territory" or working area. Don't want to start a 'turff war" dude.

electricrc68

yep theres like one high school kid charging $25, (hes going to leave for college in a year) and we are charging $24, and another kid, but he stays in his phase of the neighborhood. so we are pretty much going to be the only ones left next year.

Dirty_Vinylpusher

I've done a lot of mowing in my life, both residential and commercial, and I've always sworn by the straight shaft brushcutter style trimmers with a full harness.
It takes a lot of stress off your arms and shoulders.

When I worked for the council many many many years ago, all we had was Stihl.
Top stuff.

I know you said you're only doing a couple of lawns a week, but it's still worth it to spend just that little bit more to get decent quality gear.
It saves you time in the end as it will get the job done faster and better and you'll spend less time repairing the machinery.

I bought a Homelite hedgetrimmer about a year ago as I prune the odd hedge or shrub here and there, and thought it would be a good enough machine for the job.
Last week I went to use it for the first time in a couple of months and the fuel lines had completely disintegrated.
What was left of them just crumbled like wet pastry in my hands.
It cost me an hour of my working day all up to go get new fuel line, set it all up and get it going again.





These days I don't do any mowing for other people, just my own yard, and have a bit of a monster creation I put together from stuff I collected at the scrapyard and recycle centre.

Stihl FS45 motor stuck on a straight shaft from an old Stihl FS80 (still keeping it Stihl ) and a modified handle.

proanti1

My Feedback: (2)

You need business cards. They dont need to be fancy, they just need to have the name and contact info. I had like 1000 made for $25 at Kinkos. You can get creative too, think up a good mission statement (ours was "Leaders in the turf war"), then put CEO or something behind your name. Me and 3 people would load all our equipment in my VW bus and bust out about 10 lawns each day. 10 Lawns at $25 each adds up really quick.

electricrc68

looks like a nice weedwacker.....and lawn!

electricrc68

yeah we made cards. we didn't get any calls yet, so if we don't by saturday, we are just going to go to peoples' doors and ask them while giving them the card. people in my neighborhood really just throw things out that don't look professionally enveloped. we only have 1 person so far.

Deadstick101

My Feedback: (5)

Echo gets my vote. At the end of the season always drain your tank, and run the engine dry.

Tx_RcFlyer

My Feedback: (7)

Look around at what some of the more established businesses are using.  They have been there, done that.  Here in South Texas, the weedeater and blower of choice seems to be Echo for commercial use.  They are dead reliable, run forever and start easily.  I was in the landscape and lawn maintenance business back in the early and mid eighties, this is all we used back then and the quality of the Echo line still seems to be there.  Even for home use I spent the few extra $$ for Echo products and they will probably out live me with regular upkeep.

elven wizard

I had and still have the weedwackers I mention above. The one line I haven't had yet was Echo. The lawnmower shop that repairs trimmers said the engine in the Echo are the best engines out there. Another small engine repair mechanic said the same thing about Echo.

electricrc68

thanks guys. didn't know there were these many choices!

The_Shark

i used a echo, easy starting, balanced but the power a little anemic compaired to the 32cc craftsman i use.

in the end it really matters how you take care of it (minus featherlights, eager beavers and other bargain brands) never WOT without giving it a few brakes in-between.

electricrc68

yeah pretty basic stuff for maintenance i guess.

The_Shark

when i was younger i did the same thing as you guys, i even bought my own 7hp lawn mower and weed wacker, i started off with a garbage picked and then repaired craftsman lawnmower, after i saved up enough money, i got a 7hp propelled craftsman, then got a HOBO reman poulan weed wacker (what a great unit) till my pops put 100% gas in it and toasted it, then i got a feather light, that wouldnt even start out of the box, then a menards toro, pull start broke on third pull, then finally i got a used craftsman, its been 4years or so and it still works great, and will go threw ANYTHING.

Dirty_Vinylpusher

A few tips:


1)
A straight shaft machine with a harness is the only way to go if you're gonna be using the machine for a few hours a day.
Set the harness up so the machine hangs pretty much at its pivot point, ie: when you let go of the handles it should be a little more heavy at the spool end.

This way, all you're doing with your arms is directing the machine, not trying to hold it and control it at the same time.

I'm sure people here will swear by those little bent shaft machines as great things, but as something you're gonna be using for more than 20 minutes, go for a decent setup.

They also have a slight gear reduction in the angle part by the head, which gives them a little more torque which in turn means you can use thicker cord which doesn't wear out as fast as the thin stuff.



2)
You're in the service industry.
Always ask if there's something else they need help with.
Maybe remove a couple of dead branches off a tree, move garden ornaments, whatever.
You have to sell yourself and be that little bit better than the next guy.
Quite often people will slip you an extra $5, and $5 here and $5 there is your fuel money for the day.


3)
Give everyone you work for a couple of cards and tell them to pass them on to their friends.
Word of mouth is the best advertiser there is.
Also place cards in the surrounding letterboxes from where you're working.




4)
Always make sure you clean up properly when you're done.
A little leafblower is a good investment.





5)
Go over the hard surfaces with the weedwacker and get rid of those little pesky weeds that grow in the cracks, rather than poisoning them.
Dead weeds are an eyesore.





6)
As there's 2 of you working together, get a good routine going.
You do the edges, your mate does the mowing and you clean up (or whatever)
The faster you get, the more lawns you can do in a day - the more money you make.





7)
Present yourself well.
Even if it's something as simple as wearing matching colour shorts, baseball caps and T-shirts.
Get some iron-on T-shirt transfers and make up some shirts with a picture of a lawnmower and your telephone number.
Again - be a little bit different from the next guy and get yourself noticed.

Wash your car regularly and don't arrive with the music blaring.




8)
Be outgoing.
Always smile when you're talking to people and NEVER wear sunglasses when you meet someone for the first time.




These might all seem like stupid/obvious things, but a little goes a long way.
I've been running my own landscaping and gardening business on and off for 6 years now and I'm still making changes to the way I do stuff.




Hope you do well.
There's plenty of money to be made out there.

electricrc68

thanks guys. thanks for the tips too vinylpusher! about the leafblower part, we are already thinking about getting just one. until then we gotta use brooms