6 ms·

The one that bothers me the most is landscaping trucks with trailers driving down the street (too fast!) bouncing over potholes with all of the mowers etc bangi

by lsllc 3y ago

The one that bothers me the most is landscaping trucks with trailers driving down the street (too fast!) bouncing over potholes with all of the mowers etc banging about in the back. Usually 6:30am-ish as they go to their first job of the day ... which usually starts with the mowers (and this time of the year the leaf blowers) around 7am.

denimnerd42 3y ago
ugh don't even get me started on landscaping crews. I want to start a business to displace all of these guys on my surrounding streets using solely electric equipment. I'll even run it at a loss just for my sanity. My neighbors are importing this crap to my neighborhood and some of them realize it and others are oblivious I guess. Here in my area they blow all year around even if there's no need for it.
- whyenot 3y ago
  Switching to electric is better for everyone. Almost everyone I know in the arborist/landscaping industry has some degree of hearing loss.
  - wutwutwat 3y ago
    Good luck cutting down a 60 year oak tree with an 18v electric chainsaw, or aerating a lawn going back and forth with a heavy steam roller-like machine with hallow spikes on the drum, or cutting inches into the earth while a second blade slices all the grass roots at the same time (edging) or digging fence post holes with an electric auger Commercial grade gas powered landscaping tools can't be replaced with consumer grade electric alternatives, or even consumer grade gas powered ones, not unless huge strides have been made in the tech and power output. Pro grade mowers are upwards of 10k and run hundreds of miles a day, every day, often in the rain. I don't see that being replaced with a EV type setup. Throwing gas in something is way faster and less error prone than quick chargers, battery swaps, or dealing with a bunch of electronics that are always deployed into dirty, wet, and unexpected envs
    - smileysteve 3y ago
      Why would you use an 18v chainsaw when 80v is the new norm? Jaws of Life are now battery powered instead of off a hydraulic system. There are certainly pro grade electric devices; industry has been using large ac motors for a while. Gasolind is certainly not easier than electric when talking about commercial vehicles with frequent starts and stops and heavy loads (a good reason why many fleets are more likely to use turbo diesels for the last 20 years). A diesel electric locomotive is a great example of heavy industry (and 2 very , and guess which system has higher maintenance costs.
    - jedberg 3y ago
      I guess we'll find out in a few months, when gas powered gardening tools are banned in California.
    - vel0city 3y ago
      > Good luck cutting down a 60 year oak tree with an 18v electric chainsaw Who said it had to be 18V? All my outdoor equipment is 56V. https://egopowerplus.com/18-inch-chain-saw/ https://egopowerplus.com/18-inch-chain-saw/ Good luck cutting down a 60 year old oak tree with a 2cc gas motor!
      - wutwutwat 3y ago
        Don’t have to have doubts towards the 2cc 2 stroke because they’ve been deployed successfully in the field by literally every one in that industry for north of 50 years.
        vel0city 3y ago
        Most chainsaws are like 40cc or above, nearly 20x larger displacement than a 2cc. I don't think I've ever actually seen a 2cc chain saw. It would be like pocket sized, suitable for cutting pencils. 2cc motors are used in hobby rc cars.
    - brewdad 3y ago
      Much like an EV can't be the only vehicle in most US households quite yet, we can still make a lot of progress in reducing pollution (noise and particulates) by getting rid of gas powered equipment where it makes sense. Cutting down a 60 year old tree is not a weekly occurrence. Aerating a lawn happens once or twice a year. Your other examples might happen once a decade or less at any given home. Keep the gas powered equipment where it's needed but the typical weekly lawn service can replace their mowers and leaf blowers today with only slight tweaks to their day to day operations.
- lsllc 3y ago
  Personally, as my garden equipment has needed replacement, I have been switching over to Ego battery-electric. Awesome equipment, very happy with it (I now have a mower, weedwacker, blower, chainsaw and hedge trimmer). The only real issue is that the blower doesn't last long on a battery, which is no problem for cleanup after mowing, but not so good for leaf cleanup in the fall. Since I now have multiple pieces of equipment, I do have a battery (and charger) for each including a large one for the mower that I can swap out as I'm working. By the time the last one is drained, I have been able to charge a couple of fresh ones.
  - thrill 3y ago
    I'm doing the same, and also with the Ego which works well. My wife makes me mulch the leaves and dump them in one spot so she can use the compost in the spring.
    - lsllc 3y ago
      These days in the fall I use the blower to spread the leaves across the lawn, then I mulch the leaves with the grass using the mower with no bag on "mulch mode". Gets rid of the leaves and also fertilizes the lawn.
  - livueta 3y ago
    Ooh, cool: mind if I ask how well the chainsaw works? Taken down any trees large enough to require proper notch/hinge cuts? A lot of the battery-electric chainsaws I've looked at in the past looked like glorified pruning saws, but this one looks like it could be better.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      The M18 chainsaw can conquer trees up to and probably a bit larger than the bar length. However you need to keep the blade sharp.
    - foobarian 3y ago
      I've been using the Kobalt-branded 80V line (which they discontinued, sigh) but their 18" chainsaw is awesome. Lots of runtime and it cuts comparable to a midrange gas.
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  DC passed a ban on gas powered leaf blowers. It has been excellent Longer term I feel like two thirds of this job is very automateable. I fully expect a fleet of little mower bots to be rolling off some mothership vehicle in under a decade. There's still shrub trimming & gardening roles that seem infrequent enough to be manual. And for a while I expect there probably would be an onsite human, but eventually it feels like it'll be regular enough for many dwellings. I also wish this sort of thing were just done municipally. Trimming is once every other week. Bot swarm has a preprogrammed path. Rates are incredibly low for basic service. Shuttling gear & crew around for individual lawns like is bonkers inefficient.
  - ryantgtg 3y ago
    Los Angeles banned them in 1998. Nothing changed. No enforcement.
- hindsightbias 3y ago
  My QoL has dramatically improved since the ban on gas leaf blowers. The cafe people say I seem so much happier in the AM. Still a ways to go. Beer truck this morning had non white-noise backup horn. Nearly jumped out of my shoes.
- saalweachter 3y ago
  Please, for the love of god, teach your crews to back their trailers into customer driveways. It's always frustrating to me trying to get around landscaping trailers street parked on winding roads with no shoulders. Half the time you just have to hope that there's no one coming the other way too fast to stop. I can understand that in some places there's just nowhere to park, if the driveway isn't particularly long or already filled, but even when there's a hundred or more feet of empty drive no one ever seems willing to back in and get out of the street.
- varenc 3y ago
  For a landscaping service I imagine battery run time would be a challenge? The electric mowers I’ve seen can run 2-3 hours on a charge. That’s more than enough for personal use but won’t last the whole day if you’re a landscaper. And charging while they’re on the go seems hard as well. Perhaps there’s options with large swappable battery packs.
  - Grazester 3y ago
    Why no simply add more battery. I own a cast aluminum gas mower that weights about 80lbs. If these plastic owners 70lbs of batteries I bet they would last the day. That gas owner is 28 years old. I would if a battery operated plastic one would have lasted me that long?
  - adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
    swap-able battery is probably the answer here. You don't need the structural rigidity of a car and you have a truck/garage to store the other battery in.
  - cookingmyserver 3y ago
    There is a youtube channel that covers this. It works really well for him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93F08kdiOfE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93F08kdiOfE He can charge his mower while between jobs and while using other tools. I would say it works for companies that do mostly residential mowing in sunny places. If you were a larger landscaping business you would probably want at least two crews with different setups: Heavy duty gas equipment for larger yards or tough first time mows and a battery setup for residential "maintenance" mowing.
  - cowsandmilk 3y ago
    Nearly every landscaping brand has backpack based battery systems that set you up with tons of power. And you just toss in extra charged batteries as needed. Lawn care companies have historically carried gas cans, nothing blocks them from carrying batteries. https://opereviews.com/ryobi-40v-backpack-battery-system-review/ https://opereviews.com/ryobi-40v-backpack-battery-system-rev...
- klooney 3y ago
  I don't know where you live, but where I live it's an all under the table business, mostly done by people without papers, presumably for under minimum wage. It probably wouldn't pencil out to go straight.
  - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
    They might not have papers but it would be rare that they are not charging above minimum wage. Just my $0.02, as someone living in a medium COL city.

by lsllc 3y ago

denimnerd42 3y ago

ugh don't even get me started on landscaping crews. I want to start a business to displace all of these guys on my surrounding streets using solely electric equipment. I'll even run it at a loss just for my sanity. My neighbors are importing this crap to my neighborhood and some of them realize it and others are oblivious I guess. Here in my area they blow all year around even if there's no need for it.

whyenot 3y ago
Switching to electric is better for everyone. Almost everyone I know in the arborist/landscaping industry has some degree of hearing loss.
- wutwutwat 3y ago
  Good luck cutting down a 60 year oak tree with an 18v electric chainsaw, or aerating a lawn going back and forth with a heavy steam roller-like machine with hallow spikes on the drum, or cutting inches into the earth while a second blade slices all the grass roots at the same time (edging) or digging fence post holes with an electric auger Commercial grade gas powered landscaping tools can't be replaced with consumer grade electric alternatives, or even consumer grade gas powered ones, not unless huge strides have been made in the tech and power output. Pro grade mowers are upwards of 10k and run hundreds of miles a day, every day, often in the rain. I don't see that being replaced with a EV type setup. Throwing gas in something is way faster and less error prone than quick chargers, battery swaps, or dealing with a bunch of electronics that are always deployed into dirty, wet, and unexpected envs
  - smileysteve 3y ago
    Why would you use an 18v chainsaw when 80v is the new norm? Jaws of Life are now battery powered instead of off a hydraulic system. There are certainly pro grade electric devices; industry has been using large ac motors for a while. Gasolind is certainly not easier than electric when talking about commercial vehicles with frequent starts and stops and heavy loads (a good reason why many fleets are more likely to use turbo diesels for the last 20 years). A diesel electric locomotive is a great example of heavy industry (and 2 very , and guess which system has higher maintenance costs.
  - jedberg 3y ago
    I guess we'll find out in a few months, when gas powered gardening tools are banned in California.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    > Good luck cutting down a 60 year oak tree with an 18v electric chainsaw Who said it had to be 18V? All my outdoor equipment is 56V. https://egopowerplus.com/18-inch-chain-saw/ https://egopowerplus.com/18-inch-chain-saw/ Good luck cutting down a 60 year old oak tree with a 2cc gas motor!
    - wutwutwat 3y ago
      Don’t have to have doubts towards the 2cc 2 stroke because they’ve been deployed successfully in the field by literally every one in that industry for north of 50 years.
      - vel0city 3y ago
        Most chainsaws are like 40cc or above, nearly 20x larger displacement than a 2cc. I don't think I've ever actually seen a 2cc chain saw. It would be like pocket sized, suitable for cutting pencils. 2cc motors are used in hobby rc cars.
  - brewdad 3y ago
    Much like an EV can't be the only vehicle in most US households quite yet, we can still make a lot of progress in reducing pollution (noise and particulates) by getting rid of gas powered equipment where it makes sense. Cutting down a 60 year old tree is not a weekly occurrence. Aerating a lawn happens once or twice a year. Your other examples might happen once a decade or less at any given home. Keep the gas powered equipment where it's needed but the typical weekly lawn service can replace their mowers and leaf blowers today with only slight tweaks to their day to day operations.
lsllc 3y ago
Personally, as my garden equipment has needed replacement, I have been switching over to Ego battery-electric. Awesome equipment, very happy with it (I now have a mower, weedwacker, blower, chainsaw and hedge trimmer). The only real issue is that the blower doesn't last long on a battery, which is no problem for cleanup after mowing, but not so good for leaf cleanup in the fall. Since I now have multiple pieces of equipment, I do have a battery (and charger) for each including a large one for the mower that I can swap out as I'm working. By the time the last one is drained, I have been able to charge a couple of fresh ones.
- thrill 3y ago
  I'm doing the same, and also with the Ego which works well. My wife makes me mulch the leaves and dump them in one spot so she can use the compost in the spring.
  - lsllc 3y ago
    These days in the fall I use the blower to spread the leaves across the lawn, then I mulch the leaves with the grass using the mower with no bag on "mulch mode". Gets rid of the leaves and also fertilizes the lawn.
- livueta 3y ago
  Ooh, cool: mind if I ask how well the chainsaw works? Taken down any trees large enough to require proper notch/hinge cuts? A lot of the battery-electric chainsaws I've looked at in the past looked like glorified pruning saws, but this one looks like it could be better.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    The M18 chainsaw can conquer trees up to and probably a bit larger than the bar length. However you need to keep the blade sharp.
  - foobarian 3y ago
    I've been using the Kobalt-branded 80V line (which they discontinued, sigh) but their 18" chainsaw is awesome. Lots of runtime and it cuts comparable to a midrange gas.
jauntywundrkind 3y ago
DC passed a ban on gas powered leaf blowers. It has been excellent Longer term I feel like two thirds of this job is very automateable. I fully expect a fleet of little mower bots to be rolling off some mothership vehicle in under a decade. There's still shrub trimming & gardening roles that seem infrequent enough to be manual. And for a while I expect there probably would be an onsite human, but eventually it feels like it'll be regular enough for many dwellings. I also wish this sort of thing were just done municipally. Trimming is once every other week. Bot swarm has a preprogrammed path. Rates are incredibly low for basic service. Shuttling gear & crew around for individual lawns like is bonkers inefficient.
- ryantgtg 3y ago
  Los Angeles banned them in 1998. Nothing changed. No enforcement.
hindsightbias 3y ago
My QoL has dramatically improved since the ban on gas leaf blowers. The cafe people say I seem so much happier in the AM. Still a ways to go. Beer truck this morning had non white-noise backup horn. Nearly jumped out of my shoes.
saalweachter 3y ago
Please, for the love of god, teach your crews to back their trailers into customer driveways. It's always frustrating to me trying to get around landscaping trailers street parked on winding roads with no shoulders. Half the time you just have to hope that there's no one coming the other way too fast to stop. I can understand that in some places there's just nowhere to park, if the driveway isn't particularly long or already filled, but even when there's a hundred or more feet of empty drive no one ever seems willing to back in and get out of the street.
varenc 3y ago
For a landscaping service I imagine battery run time would be a challenge? The electric mowers I’ve seen can run 2-3 hours on a charge. That’s more than enough for personal use but won’t last the whole day if you’re a landscaper. And charging while they’re on the go seems hard as well. Perhaps there’s options with large swappable battery packs.
- Grazester 3y ago
  Why no simply add more battery. I own a cast aluminum gas mower that weights about 80lbs. If these plastic owners 70lbs of batteries I bet they would last the day. That gas owner is 28 years old. I would if a battery operated plastic one would have lasted me that long?
- adgjlsfhk1 3y ago
  swap-able battery is probably the answer here. You don't need the structural rigidity of a car and you have a truck/garage to store the other battery in.
- cookingmyserver 3y ago
  There is a youtube channel that covers this. It works really well for him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93F08kdiOfE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93F08kdiOfE He can charge his mower while between jobs and while using other tools. I would say it works for companies that do mostly residential mowing in sunny places. If you were a larger landscaping business you would probably want at least two crews with different setups: Heavy duty gas equipment for larger yards or tough first time mows and a battery setup for residential "maintenance" mowing.
- cowsandmilk 3y ago
  Nearly every landscaping brand has backpack based battery systems that set you up with tons of power. And you just toss in extra charged batteries as needed. Lawn care companies have historically carried gas cans, nothing blocks them from carrying batteries. https://opereviews.com/ryobi-40v-backpack-battery-system-review/ https://opereviews.com/ryobi-40v-backpack-battery-system-rev...
klooney 3y ago
I don't know where you live, but where I live it's an all under the table business, mostly done by people without papers, presumably for under minimum wage. It probably wouldn't pencil out to go straight.
- DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  They might not have papers but it would be rare that they are not charging above minimum wage. Just my $0.02, as someone living in a medium COL city.