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Residency Evil posted:but what should I be doing other than mowing? You should utilize the lawn for barbecues and cocktails.
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Apr 17, 2019 05:27
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skipdogg posted:Yeah dude. Just pay someone to deal with it. It’s not an effective use of your time. I may be risking my goon card for saying this but I think it's better to go outside and mow the lawn yourself, because it's good to go do physical things outside. Spend an hour less that week on the forums and do yard work instead. e: To answer the OP's question, if you already have an established sprinkler system then buy a mower (I like corded electric but gas is fine, especially if you already have other gas tools, likewise a lot of battery systems let you run a lot of tools off of a common set of batteries) and a weed eater and go mow your lawn. Occasionally you should fertilize. Occasionally you may need to buy grass seed if you have balding spots. But the more correct answer is to turn your front yard into an elaborate garden that doesn't require mowing QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Apr 17, 2019 |
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Apr 17, 2019 07:22
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I like taking care of my lawn and it only takes an hour or so every week. My current toolset is: EGO 21" mower with high lift blade EGO string trimmer EGO bush trimmer Toro corded electric leaf blower/vacuum Scott's small broadcast spreader Fiskars weed puller Fiskars pruning shears Fiskars loppers Like 5 hoses 3 different sprinkler sprayers A bottle of round up A plastic insert for yard bags to help with dumping bagged clippings Soon to be added: Mantis 2-stroke tiller/aerator/dethatcher/edger Lawn levelling rake I alternate mowing/edging each week on the front and back yard and do misc tasks whenever. The spreader is really important to get down fertilizer, bug killer, and grass seed for overseeding. SpartanIvy fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Apr 17, 2019 |
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Apr 17, 2019 13:04
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I edge every week 
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Apr 17, 2019 13:19
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QuarkJets posted:I may be risking my goon card for saying this but I think it's better to go outside and mow the lawn yourself, because it's good to go do physical things outside. Spend an hour less that week on the forums and do yard work instead. I'll second this answer. If you're old, disabled, or have super-bad allergies or something, do what you have to do, but I'm not seeing the downside to a little physical work in the sun once a week if you're young and healthy. Bonus, you can also listen to podcasts while you work. I have a little over an acre of grass (and some woods), and I only spend max 2 hours a week: 45m-1hr to mow with the riding mower, 10-20m to weed wack the edges, and maybe 10-30m for misc cleanup (pulling weeds, blowing crap off of porch/garage, picking up sticks, etc.) There are a few more involved projects -- last weekend I laid 5 cu/yd of mulch, also fall leaf cleanup -- but those are only once or twice a year, and there's very little to do during the Winter.
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Apr 17, 2019 13:27
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Jealous Cow posted:I edge every week drat right, have pride in your work.
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Apr 17, 2019 13:55
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QuarkJets posted:I may be risking my goon card for saying this but I think it's better to go outside and mow the lawn yourself, because it's good to go do physical things outside. Spend an hour less that week on the forums and do yard work instead. I would normally agree with you, as I too do my own yard work, but for RE my advice is different. If he really wants to do it himself more power to him, but I’m assuming his free time is extremely valuable and paying someone to get 2 hours of free time on the weekends is probably very much worth it.
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Apr 17, 2019 14:00
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H110Hawk posted:Hire someone. It's like a housekeeper but outside. We have 0.015 acres of grass (and like triple that in yard, the rest is California native plants) and we hire it out. skipdogg posted:Yeah dude. Just pay someone to deal with it. It’s not an effective use of your time. Potrzebie posted:You should utilize the lawn for barbecues and cocktails. Yeah, I'm considering this, but part of me thinks I should at least get a mower just in case. My lawn isn't huge, and it would take 20-30 minutes max to mow. I haven't priced out lawn services yet, but what I really need is some high school kid. Are old Honda mowers good/reliable? Any models to watch out for on craigslist?
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Apr 17, 2019 14:02
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Residency Evil posted:what I really need is some high school kid. Good luck with that. The high school kids are too busy shitposting on forums and playing video games. You'd have to get lucky and have an industrious kid within walking distance of your house, because once you start throwing in transportation and everything else, you're not going to be saving much over the single-man company that does it professionally. Since you live in a somewhat-HCOL area, plan on at least $40/cut, which would be weekly during the Spring/Summer. If you find someone cheaper than that (i.e. under pricing the job), they'll probably be unreliable and leave you hanging at some point.
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Apr 17, 2019 14:40
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I live up 476 a ways, and yeah, it's $40-$50 a cut in this region. My neighbor has been trying for years to get a high school kid in our area to cut it, and they won't bother. I bought the Dewalt 40v mower, and it's okay. Our prior owners pampered the poo poo out of the lawn, and it looks nice, but jfc what a bitch to mow. I think I'm buying a gas mower this year. I have a quarter acre less the house, some trees, and a play set, and 15ah of battery isn't enough to do it in one go, unless I mow three times per week. 
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Apr 17, 2019 15:13
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Residency Evil posted:Yeah, I'm considering this, but part of me thinks I should at least get a mower just in case. My lawn isn't huge, and it would take 20-30 minutes max to mow. I haven't priced out lawn services yet, but what I really need is some high school kid. If you hire a service then owning a mower is superfluous. If you play local hooligan roulette then it's required. We gave our electric mower away to a friend. We pay $65/month for 2 cut-and-blows a month give or take. They do all the edging and general hedge trimming / cleanup. It's done by several guys who don't speak English and isn't reliable at all for other things. (Their boss does somewhat.) We're looking for a replacement now where we can give them extra money on demand for extra work. It took 6 months of half-assed pestering to have them sell us a pickup truck of mulch for the front yard. If you want to spend time outside in the sun working then plant more stuff. Based on your original post though it really read to me as "how do I win the war on dandelions my neighbors are starting to stare" not "gee I love mowing the lawn." Want to do it yourself check out this effort post: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3770037&pagenumber=71&perpage=40#post494292715
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Apr 17, 2019 15:40
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H110Hawk posted:If you hire a service then owning a mower is superfluous. If you play local hooligan roulette then it's required. We gave our electric mower away to a friend. 65/month seems super reasonable for that to be honest.
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Apr 17, 2019 15:54
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I was paying 35 every 2 weeks for a standard cut/trim/blow and at the time it was definitely worth it. I'm not familiar with northern grasses, the aroundtheyard forums are decent for learning about taking care of the grass. I'm a big fan of electric or battery powered equipment if it works for you. I hate dealing with small engines. I picked up some 60V battery powered equipment to replace my corded electric equipment and have been very happy. I only have a small residential lot to take care of though (maybe 4500 sq ft of grass), so I can mow the entire thing in about 30 minutes on a single 4ah battery.
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Apr 17, 2019 16:05
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Yeah that's about what our lot is size wise, so I was looking at battery mowers.
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Apr 17, 2019 16:07
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I hear the Kobalt and the Ego mowers are good. I just bought the 80v Kobalt blower and trimmer, they work really well... wish I had done it sooner, but we bought a cheap trimmer/blower set when we moved in and it lasted 3 years until it the battery died so I figured it was time to upgrade. I say that because the Kobalt 80V system works on their mower too, as does Ego's equivalent battery system. So if you're going to get a battery mower, you should look in to the other lawn tools in the battery's ecosystem as well. Kind of limits you a bit, but the alternative is having a pile of different battery systems to maintain. You WILL need a string trimmer, and a blower seems dumb but they're actually very nice to have. That said, I have a nice Honda gas mower for my 0.20 acre lot, but I bought it a couple years ago when I wasn't really sold on electric mowers yet. I wasn't about to get a corded mower, and battery technology wasn't quite there I don't think. The mower will last forever and will have some resale value should I ever decide to go electric. I absolutely refuse to get anything 2-stroke because I don't want to have to keep a separate gas supply. But for anything less than 0.25 acre, you shouldn't need gas tools except maybe the lawn mower. I don't mind doing minor lawn work like mowing and trimming, but "landscaping" is something I hate. Our house still has the original (1999) contractor grade shrubs for foundation cover, so they're all wildly overgrown. You have to hack at them at least twice a year to keep them in check, and even then they still grow like crazy and get ugly real quick. Ripping them out is on our to-do list, but sadly it's pretty far down there... plus the HOA is really bitchy about it, they send out yearly reminders around this time that all landscaping changes need to be approved by the architectural committee 
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Apr 17, 2019 18:27
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Droo posted:If I were you I would cut enough drywall out to put a proper electrical box in there, and splice the wires together inside the box. You can then put a solid cover on it. Not much more work than what you were planning, it would satisfy code as far as I know, and your outlet would still work. I ended up doing this and everything is working now. One more hole to patch in the wall but hey I'll just consider it practice. Looks like my drywall is 3/4" which is apparently really unusual so I'll have to get creative with the patching. Current plan is to just use joint compound to make a 5/8" section a little thicker.
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Apr 17, 2019 20:40
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Mowing is my zen, I look forward to the weekly yardtime
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Apr 17, 2019 20:57
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I wish all I had to deal with was mowing. But I have an uphill battle in front of me with my yard. When I was under contract last summer the sellers stopped taking care of anything in the already lovely yard. This was also monsoon season so when I moved in it was completely overgrown weeds. If I could till and just tear everything up that would be ideal, but you can't do that in the desert so it's just a lot of work.
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Apr 17, 2019 21:56
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I really enjoyed mowing at first, but after I ran over a yellow jacket nest and got stung about 13 times I decided to hire it out.
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Apr 18, 2019 00:35
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Bought a bench vise and file today to sharpen the lawnmower blade. People charge for that? It took me 5 minutes.
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Apr 18, 2019 01:11
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Fallom posted:People charge for that? It took me 5 minutes. New thread title material
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Apr 18, 2019 01:17
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Fallom posted:Bought a bench vise and file today to sharpen the lawnmower blade. People charge for that? It took me 5 minutes. I love free bench vises and files.
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Apr 18, 2019 01:19
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poo poo POST MALONE posted:I love free bench vises and files. Bring your sling blade by and I'll do it for $50
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Apr 18, 2019 01:20
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I only have a kaiser blade.
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Apr 18, 2019 01:26
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Fallom posted:Bought a bench vise and file today to sharpen the lawnmower blade. People charge for that? It took me 5 minutes. Pssh, I just buy new ones
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Apr 18, 2019 02:42
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Lawns are evil. I say this as a lawn owner, but my Tear it out and replace it with native plants. They'll be appropriately adapted to your climate, easier to maintain, vastly less wasteful, and will attract native insects and birds. Lawns are bad: https://permaculturenews.org/2016/06/03/why-our-lawns-are-bad-for-the-environment-and-how-to-change-them-for-the-better/ Justifying a lawn based on having kids is silly. Here's a case against lawns, written by the McMansion Hell lady: https://www.curbed.com/2019/3/13/18262285/mcmansion-hell-kate-wagner-lawn-care-mowing
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Apr 18, 2019 02:54
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Absolutely get rid of your lawn if you can
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Apr 18, 2019 07:59
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Bought a mower. Over under on time until we get a lawn service?
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Apr 18, 2019 11:23
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I've never owned a new gas mower in my life, buy that poo poo used usually a broken mower just needs new spark plugs and a bit of seafoam run though the engine. I also have an old fashioned manual mower that I like using but lately I forget to mow as often as I should and it won't work when the grass is too long. I'd like to just landscape away half the grass in the yard but that's not something I have motivation for currently
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Apr 18, 2019 12:53
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Residency Evil posted:Bought a mower. Over under on time until we get a lawn service? 45 days past the third time you mow.
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Apr 18, 2019 14:00
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skipdogg posted:Is there a medical reason you're using Potassium Chloride instead of Salt in the water softener? Potassium is like 30 bucks a bag. Salt is 5 or 6. The only people I know that use Potassium are old people on severely salt restricted diets. Even then it's cheaper to just use bottled water for cooking, or buy an RO system, instead of putting Potassium through a water softener. Our system looks like this one: link to tank picture although I'm not 100% sure it's the same model, it looks exactly alike from what I can tell. The control valve at the top is a Performa HE and when I googled it I found this PDF (link to instruction manual) which has a diagram on the KS15HE on page 14 which looks like the front of mine. I went through the menu and recorded the results, which are making me wonder if this is my leak because the time is two hours ahead (it showed 9am when it was actually 7am). The regen is set to factory default of 2am and hardness at default of 16. The salt amount said 1064 and I didn't see how to get to the salt amount setting (the manual says you dont have to gently caress with the salt amount). So this thing is starting (maybe) at midnight and not 2am because the clock is off, and the city says I'm blasting through water between 2 and 3am. The tank is maybe 20-25 gallons. edit: I forgot about the bypass switch on the valve, I could use that and unplug it overnight to see if the city records a difference. I sure hope their "smart" meter isn't hosed or I'm chasing shadows. Mizaq fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Apr 18, 2019 |
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Apr 18, 2019 15:23
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That looks like a demand based regeneration softener. It by default should regenerate every 15 days, or when it calculates you'll run out of soft water If it was regenerating every day you'd be blasting through potassium as well. 15 to 25 pounds a day. Looking at the manual, a regen cycle is probably using about 100 gallons of water, which is pretty normal. I'd say the water softener is probably not your issue. If you can look at your water meter, go back the last 15 days and look for about 100 gallons of usage at midnight or so, which would help confirm it. If you're using 200 to 300 gallons every night, that's probably something else.
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Apr 18, 2019 16:02
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Mizaq posted:I sure hope their "smart" meter isn't hosed or I'm chasing shadows. Landscape irrigation system? Crazy neighbor using a hose? City "smart" meter applying the full day of water use to just that 1 hour block?
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Apr 18, 2019 16:10
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Question for you fine folks. I have an attached garage with a drywall fire barrier but the other 3 walls were unfinished. I could be maximally safe and put up drywall but putting plywood in would make tool storage/wear and tear a ton easier. Building code says walls adjacent to the living space must be drywall so I should be okay, no?
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Apr 18, 2019 19:27
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I have a bunch of solid oak flooring left over from doing... my floors. I was thinking about nailing it up to the walls in my brewing area so it doesn't look so skanky in the garage. Any reason why I couldn't?
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Apr 18, 2019 20:40
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It's worth keeping some flooring around in case you need to replace any of the floor you just installed. But I don't think you'd want to keep more than a box for that purpose.
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Apr 18, 2019 20:54
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Will definitely do that. I'm not sure how to attach it to the walls though, there's no way nails into the drywall will work.
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Apr 18, 2019 21:16
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You'd have to either provide a backing board (or furring strips) that's nailed to the studs, or nail the flooring itself directly to studs. Probably the former, because the latter means that every floorboard needs to touch at least two studs and I don't think most floorboards are long enough for that.
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Apr 18, 2019 21:20
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I could be wrong, but it just seems like there would be a lot of weight sitting on the bottom sections of wood by the time you got to the ceiling. I'm not sure those little flooring nails would hold up to that.
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Apr 19, 2019 14:09
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It's a garage, just use screws right through the face of the flooring into the studs. Space them aesthetically. Other guy on plywood in the garage, call up the local building department and ask. I like your style though, having fully nailable surfaces on all walls is awesome for a utility space.
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Apr 19, 2019 15:44
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