Lawn mowers and gardening equipment pollution: Why are ICE engines still legal in California?

[Big Earl]

We had an electric corded mower for the mulch side of the house, but I had to wait to get a clean powered mower for the back yard to replace the gas powered one. I finally was able to get a cordless electric for the non-mulch back yard lawn:

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Yes, I know, the lawn needs better care. It probably needs fertilizing. The fact the rear lawn gets all its clippings thrown out can't help, but it's full of so many weeds the idea is not to spread the seeds.

It will be a few weeks before we get to try it. If it does anything remarkable, I'll probably post about it. In terms of energy use, it hardly shows up on our graph:
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The slight bump in use from 6:30PM to 7:30PM was the EGO charging; it is basically background noise against the constant murmur of other items that are on in the house. It's fully solar powered for today!

I'm going into my second year with the EGO self-propelled mower from Home Depot and I love it. I get about 50 minutes of mowing out of a battery charge, which works out well for me. This is enough to do my entire lawn as long as I don't let it get too long. If it's long and I have to go slowly, it takes two charges. Recharge time is about 30 minutes, which is just enough for a lunch or beer break before going out and mowing some more.

I've even used it to mow the 1+ acre of grass median that runs down the middle of our street. That takes a few charges, but it's sooo much nicer than huffing gasoline exhaust and listening to that racket for hours on end.

 

[Chaserr]

Every snowblower I've owned has had problems with thick, slushy snow. It goes with the territory. I've found that silicone spray in the chute helps.
Here's our front entrance and the small battery powered SnowJoe blower which was used to clear it.
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That post is why I bought one but I got the larger 80v XR. It's a downgrade over what you have, apparently a big downgrade.

 

[iPlug]

Thinking of this thread topic the last few weeks on runs through my neck of the woods. As witnessed from nose and lung disagreement, the cool air seems to allow exhaust from the gas powered equipment crews to stay suspended in the air for prolonged periods of time.

Battery electric lawn equipment is getting more capable and affordable each year, so was hoping to see some news for the new year on tightening emissions requirements on new lawn equipment in our State, but have not heard of anything.

 

[AudubonB]

I took a nibble and received yesterday (took from 2 Dec - 20th!) a 56V EGO leaf blower. This came with a 5.0Ah battery - and thank goodness that's on a backpack-style carrier. I would counsel all not to pick up anything with EGO's smallest pack - 2.5Ah. I would have liked the 7.5Ah alternative, but they are really spendy and the 10.0Ah are stratospherically priced.

Testing out the fully charged battery to exhaustion in a super soggy, sodden-leaved day suggests those 56V are up to the task. Company claims it can put out 600cfm at something like 240mph. Still, that 7.5Ah one would have been nice....I got about 25 minutes of continuous work done.

 

[SageBrush]

I took a nibble and received yesterday (took from 2 Dec - 20th!) a 56V EGO leaf blower.

Impressive performance, but I am partial to a rake

 

[AudubonB]

Understand and partially agree. Am planning to use a rake to "fluff" these end-of-season stuck-to-ground rotting leaves, and them blow them to their pickup spot, to the neighbor's lawn or wherever.
But a rake is death to established perennial beds; useless in extracting leaves from complex shrubbery like Berberis and so forth.

 

[landis]

I would counsel all not to pick up anything with EGO's smallest pack - 2.5Ah.

This one was a gift from my son in December. I was able to clean up the leaf stragglers, and was quitting just as the 2.5 was exhausted. With the lighter weight of the 2.5, i didn't feel any need for the backpack power option.

I am pleased that it joins its 4AH brother that came with an EGO mower which was a fathers day gift in 2018, about a month after picking up my Model 3. I am expecting the 2.5 to have just about enough run time for the 4AH to recharge.

My yard is about 4AH * 1.8 in size, but this was never a problem mowing since i appreciate resting while the battery recharges. With a second battery, i'll need to come up with other reasons to take a break. ;-)

I have been enviously looking at the EGO single stage snow blower so that i can banish the gas can from my house. I have a gas powered one I need to use several times a year (in reasonably temperate southeast PA climate.) I appreciate it may not be very interesting for folks with real winters.

 

[mspohr]

This one was a gift from my son in December. I was able to clean up the leaf stragglers, and was quitting just as the 2.5 was exhausted. With the lighter weight of the 2.5, i didn't feel any need for the backpack power option.

I am pleased that it joins its 4AH brother that came with an EGO mower which was a fathers day gift in 2018, about a month after picking up my Model 3. I am expecting the 2.5 to have just about enough run time for the 4AH to recharge.

My yard is about 4AH * 1.8 in size, but this was never a problem mowing since i appreciate resting while the battery recharges. With a second battery, i'll need to come up with other reasons to take a break. ;-)

I have been enviously looking at the EGO single stage snow blower so that i can banish the gas can from my house. I have a gas powered one I need to use several times a year (in reasonably temperate southeast PA climate.) I appreciate it may not be very interesting for folks with real winters.

We have real winter's in the Sierra's. I have SnowJoe blowers (battery and plug in). Work great.

 

[iPlug]

...was hoping to see some news for the new year on tightening emissions requirements on new lawn equipment in our State, but have not heard of anything.

I may have spoken too soon:

California’s latest pollution push: Banning gas-powered mowers and blowers

California's latest pollution push: Banning gas-powered mowers and blowers

 

[mspohr]

I may have spoken too soon:

California’s latest pollution push: Banning gas-powered mowers and blowers

California's latest pollution push: Banning gas-powered mowers and blowers

Running a lawn mower for an hour generates as much smog-forming pollution as driving a 2017 Toyota Camry from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, according to the California Air Resources Board, which works to keep the air clean. A leaf blower is worse — all the way to Denver. Daily exposure to the fumes also increases cancer risks, a 2018 air board study found.

Pathetic excuse follows...
Besides the cost of buying a new machine, change can be hard, she acknowledged. Landscapers “have been doing the same thing for a really long time, and asking them to change how they do their job, that’s a big ask.”

 

[mspohr]

Opinion: WeHo's Curbed the Noise. But What About the Unhealthy Soot of Those Ubiquitous Leaf Blowers?

Opinion: WeHo’s Curbed the Noise. But What About the Unhealthy Soot of Those Ubiquitous Leaf Blowers?

The federal EPOA tells us that about 30% of the fuel used in these machines exits the exhaust port in the form of unburned particulates (soot) and VOCs of varying degrees of toxicity- and we all breath that exhaust.

 

[iPlug]

Pathetic excuse follows...
Besides the cost of buying a new machine, change can be hard, she acknowledged. Landscapers “have been doing the same thing for a really long time, and asking them to change how they do their job, that’s a big ask.”

Yep.

In a marketplace where every property owner and landscaping crew is subjected to the same regulations, there should be few who go out of business.

Costs to landscapers and owners might go up a bit by internalizing the negative pollution costs. But since the competition will have to bear the same costs, no one has a market advantage.

 

[dgpcolorado]

I live in the mountains in a forest, so no lawn. However, this article might be of interest to those who do have lawns:

Best and Worst Battery-Powered Lawn Mowers

 

[Ulmo]

I just thought of a simple way to reduce the attractiveness of highly polluting tree cutting and landscaping engines: only allow their use on one weekday during the week. They could still be used, but it would be annoying to schedule, causing the interest in electric motors to rise. We could close our windows for that one time of week in the meanwhile, and open the windows again when that time period is over.

 

[David_Cary]

I am all for banning ICE lawn equipment. It would be hard for companies to make that work. The capital cost for exchangeable batteries will be pretty high and then the mobile charging.
Small companies will go out of business. Large companies will need to raise prices and they will be able to do since competition will decrease.
People and companies will change out landscaping to lower maintenance stuff. People will start doing their own maintenance again.
So low skilled folks will lose their job.
So absolutely the right thing to do - I can't wait. But lets not pretend there won't be considerable pain.
Just like lets not pretend that consumer preferences aren't changed forever by the pandemic. Restaurant count is going down - which also employs low skilled workers. And it goes on and on.
And the appetite for pain right now with 18% unemployment I suspect is incredibly low.

 

[swaltner]

I’ve considered getting a Ryobi riding lawn mower, but don’t know if I want to get a system that uses flooded lead-acid batteries. I had tried a ZTR mower from Hustler, but it just didn’t have the battery capacity to mow my 1.25 acre lot.

I’ve been considering switching from my current Ryobi One+ (18V) power tools to EGo’s 56V system. I came across this teaser announcement on the Ego web site.

 

[mspohr]

I’ve considered getting a Ryobi riding lawn mower, but don’t know if I want to get a system that uses flooded lead-acid batteries. I had tried a ZTR mower from Hustler, but it just didn’t have the battery capacity to mow my 1.25 acre lot.

I’ve been considering switching from my current Ryobi One+ (18V) power tools to EGo’s 56V system. I came across this teaser announcement on the Ego web site.

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I had bad experiences with eGo kit a few years ago. Motors burned out and batteries died. Hopefully things have improved.

 

[Merrill]

I have EGO products, blower, mower, hedge trimmer and a string trimmer and all work great.

 

[Big Earl]

I have EGO products, blower, mower, hedge trimmer and a string trimmer and all work great.

We have the self-propelled mower, string trimmer, blower and chainsaw. No issues with any of them. I even use my mower to cut the one acre median in front of my house (it takes a few battery charges), so it probably gets significantly more use than most. My dad had a battery die on his blower but EGO replaced it promptly. That EGO zero-turn mower might be in my future.

 

[ThomasD]

As long as you can keep charging the batteries and are able to have a lot of them if you are doing large jobs. They would be better than Gas But in certain situations gas is better. Such as if you have a lot of trees to cut or you are out where there is no electricity I see both as being equally useful in most situations. I would need a lot of batteries to clear debris after a storm Such as Hurricane Irma