Commercial lawnmower questions...
 

I'm thinking about starting a little lawn service side business for some extra cash, nothing big just about 10-15 lawns. I want to quite my part time job and stay busy between projects.

My question is who makes a decent commercial mower? I need the excersis so I figured I'd get a 36in walk behind. I'm doing this for extra cash so I don't plan on taking on any monster yards, I can afford to be picky.

I figure $1k to get all the equipment, IE trailer, push mower for little stuff, trimmer, blower, odds and ends. The largest expenses by far is the big mower, thats going to cost a few bucks.


Are Scag's any good?
http://www.scag.com/swz.html

My ROI isn't to horrible, 15 lawns at $25 a pop is about $375 a week. So after the first season its all gravy. I'm willing to shell out the cash to avoid a part time job, to me thats a worth while investment.

Scag's are great. Pretty much an industry standard. My friend has a JD walk behind that's pretty impressive too.

Do you really need a commercial mower for 10-15 lawns? Seems kinda overkill. I used to do some mowing back in highschool for extra cash with our lawn tractor, probably 7 or 8 a weekend, it never gave me any issues. Only went to adjacent subdivisions though, drove the mower there.

I want to get done fast, and I want to be flexable. I plan on taking on more or less clients depending on how the building side is. When I was a kid I would do 3-5 a week with just a 21in push mower but it took awhile. But when your 11 the money is fantastic!

Plus I could use a write off.

Its either a 30 hour a week job at Lowes or this. I'm thinking I could invest $5k-$6k to build myself a little side business and avoid that. Working in a big building for other people frankly sucks as far as I'm concerned. Also the idea of doing the same thing inside for 8 hours is pretty miserable for me. My goal is to make the same money with 1/2 the time investment, and have flexable hours. This way I can concentrate on building up the real estate business which is where the money is.

The plus side is that I can cut the lawns of some of the houses I want to buy and get friendly with the owners.:D;)

If I were you I'd probably go with a honda 21" commercial mower. I work with some guys who have a side business and this is what they use and it works great for them (and my dad has one of the hrx non-commercial ones and he loves it). I've used them both pretty often with much satisfaction. Their self-propelled mechanism isn't anything to sneeze at, you have to walk at a nice little clip in top gear. Plus, they're much lighter than the 36" you're thinking about. Even though the 36" has 0 degree turning radius it's still a big mower on neighborhood lawns (unless these are large neighborhood estate-type lawns you're talking about). But, if you're still set on a 36", Toro has good products, give them a looksy too.

Skag, Someting Z Gravley, Jacobsen are the mowers I use

i'll agree on the honda self propelled,they suck.my little local junkyard has had lots of em,they just do not stand up.don't know what it is about the self propulsion but they have issues with it.but the engines thats another story.they won't quit.

I mowed lawns for years and years....then the clients saw that I bought a Mercedes-Benz and the number of jobs very suddenly dropped off :rolleyes: I forget the make but we have several 1980s "Rear Bagger 21 inch" mowers with commercial grade motors that have proven to be bullet proof.


But yeah don't go too overboard on equipment and search for some good used equipment if you can. Depending on how much you charge per lawn it could end up taking you quite a while to pay yourself back (I used to charge $20-25 a lawn being a young kid...what is the going rate for professional companies?)

Agree that they suck. Um, no. I've seen many honda mowers beat to hell and the self-propelled mechanisms still worked. That's been my experience.

Honda.

If you can find a 2-stroke Lawn Boy that's the top of the heap for reliability. Our family has owned a few over the years. My 20 year old 2-stroke Lawn Boy runs flawlessly.

I can't vouch for the self-propelled model 2-stroke, nor the 4-strokes, but I wouldn't want a push-mower with that kind of acreage you're going to be cutting without the self-propelled feature.

Some guy was trying to buy a like-new 2-stroke Lawn Boy here last year - expecting to get it for $50.00!:rolleyes: What a laugh that was! Ha, ha!

You need a commercial riding mower of at least 48". It'll take you waaayy too long using a 36" walk behind. A good commercial mower will cut at 10mph or more. Walking speed is 3mph.

Fantastic!

Now where does he buy this mower "a commercial riding mower at least 48"," AND all the rest of his equipment including trailer all for his budget of "$!K?"

If he can't find what he needs at that budget he's not going to make it. That's th equipment the competition has, along with undocumented workers getting paid a minimal wage.

I fix lawn mowers for fun and profit on the side.

The honda self propelled mowers are a solid choice. I would stay away from anything with a Tecumseh engine. They are especially bad (found mostly in older Sears and Toro mowers). Luckily, that company is out of business now (good riddance).

I suggest you start easy with just one basic self propelled mower and a weedwacker. Do not get a trailer yet just in case you change your mind about the whole venture.

So, now you've got already got illegals on the jobs he can secure too? Where did that come from? LMAO!

So, getting back your "48" commercial riding mower" WITH all the rest of the equipment for "$1K" how does that fit anyway?

Look into lawnmower racing! Swap a couple pulleys/gears and yours can go fast too :D Don't expect to cut anything while going 10mph though.

It doesn't fit. Starting up a lawn mowing business is gonna cost more than a grand.
I guess your knowledge of lawn mowers in the North East is not quite complete.

Since you're working with a $1K budget try to find a well maintained, used commercial walk behind. There are lots of beat-on ones out there but you can find decent used units if you keep an eye out. Since you'll be starting off on a small scale, any of the big name commercial units should suffice. With that budget you'll be working with belt-driven units. Nothing wrong with them, tried and true design, but just keep an eye on the belts and keep a spare drive belt and main belt in your truck.

If you're planning on really making this a (semi-)long-term PT job the time savings with you'll get with a 36"+ mower really add up. Time is money. I mow an acre and a half, a third of which in mine. What took an hour and a half to just mow with my 21" push is a half hour with my 48" Bobcat walk behind (the one I blew up, was beat-on but free) and that includes trimming and blowing. You could easily double the amount of lawns you can bang out, or take 1/2 the time to do them when you consider travel time.

I expect you'll be doing some mowing while working on some houses so the last thing you might feel like doing after contracting all day is pushing a mower around so be as efficient with your time as you can.

And don't whore yourself out for $25. A 10-15K sq.ft. lawn around here is a $40 lawn minimum. At least that's what the insured guys are charging (don't know what your intentions are there), might even be higher in your neck of the woods. Don't forget to factor in your truck and equipment fuel and oil.

Keep in mind there are a lot of laid-off guys with pickups and mowers in the back scouring the neighborhoods offering cheap mowing, usually uninsured. This really pisses off the guys who are insured, pay their guys above the table and generally do things the right way. When the economy is good and jobs are plentiful they usually turn a blind eye. In the current climate they don't mind making a quick phone call to the Department of Revenue Services or the D.E.P. (if they're making fertilizer and/or pesticide applications).

If you do a quality job and really pay attention to detail, you'll get that $40+. And word gets around. What you might want to consider is networking with some banks and realtors and maintaining the lawns on foreclosed or otherwise vacant properties that are for sale. This is a growing market.

Thanks guys, actualy I was going to work with a $5k-$6k budget. I figured $1k for the small mower and other stuff and $3k-$5k for the big one. I'm heading up to Knights today to check out mowers, I think they have Toro and Scag.


Time is money, I'm looking to make decent spending cash as quickly as possible.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140391758255
This almost seems to cheap.

No employees just me, myself, and I.:D

Good luck to ya.

That's about the going price for a homeowner zero-turn rider, regardless of brand. You wouldn't want to use one of those if you're doing 40 lawns a week but for 10 or so it'd probably work fine if you keep up with the maintenance. The running gear is the weak link between the homeowner and commercial grade stuff.

If you've got $3K+ to spend, I'd still look into late model used or demo model commercial walk-behinds for the most bang for the buck. I wouldn't spend more than a few hundred on a 20-22" push mower either. In your case, it'd get relatively limited use (I'm guessing some finish trimming and smaller areas?). My POS $150 21" Yardman with a POS 4.75 hp Briggs is going on 10 years old and I beat the hell out of it both mowing as well as cutting back underbrush and saplings. Regular oil changes and sharpenings work wonders, I've only put one spark plug in it the whole time I've owned it and it still starts first pull. I'd love to kill it and replace it with something nice but it just keeps working. :D

Since your looking for some quick spending cash, start off with good used equipment, build up some capital and then if you decide to stick with it purchase some new equipment down the road. As you might imagine the resale value on much of this stuff isn't great. At $3000+ for a big mower you're looking at the end of July before it's paid for itself (and that doesn't include gas, oil, insurance, putting something in your pocket for yourself). If your lucky you'd have it paid for by the end of this mowing season.

I've seen a lot of guys come through my doors who started off small that way and now, years later, have a fleet of trucks and nice equipment.

I bought my used commercial 42" riding mower last year for 350.00 from a shop in Ypsilanti MI. One year warrantee on engine and belts.

They are around, but they won't come to you, some looking is required.

i have a Toro 21" commercial mower with kawasaki motor and love it.. wish i would have pick up a 2 stroke -but they are to loud. to bad it only gets used every other week. i've been thinking of getting into the lawn business again. i really want to start tree trimming. seems like that's where the money is -but need a trailer first.

My wife teaches at a big city school with a large Mexican-American student population. A student came in one day with a T-shirt that read: 'Let my People Mow'.

Now that's funny.

I've got a nice Exmark Viking hydro unit with 36" fixed deck collecting dust in my garage. ECS controls. I've kept it as a backup the last 4 years, probably only run a few hours since fall of '05.

Fantastic unit for small residential properties in the 1/2 acre range. Fits through most standard gates. Twice as fast as a sit down rider.

Too bad your a ways distance from me

David in MD

There is definitely a market for knowledgeable tree and shrub trimmers/pruners. There are a lot of landscapers who are hacks, very few know what they're doing and how to prune properly.

Too late now - since new sales of 2-stroke mowers have been outlawed due to their emissions.

What I mow with here at home I think would be worth a look. It's a Husqvarna Rider 155 (I think it's now been replaced, different engine, I think it's now Rider 175?) (mines a 15 1/2 hp Kohler).
Mines not a commercial version, although I think they do make commercial models. The one I bought a few years back would fit your large mower price range. I don't think, for your uses, that a commercial model would be needed. They have really beefy frames. They are not ztr, but turn radius is very small, a few inches. My deck size is around 32"-34", around there. Which I think would help with smaller lawns, I don't think "huge" is the way to go for peoples lawns, you would benefit more by having a rider, faster but still able to maneuver around obstacles.
The Rider is very low and able to get you under trees, and is front deck if you need to get under low hanging bushes, pine trees, things like that. It will be worth your time to at least look at their website.
http://www.husqvarna.com/us/homeowner/products/riders/rider-175/

Added benefit is it is just a hoot to mow with it! They make an AWD version, which is recommended for hilly lawns.

PS I have one of the last years of the 2 stroke Lawn Boys! Never gets used now. All you really would need, at least in my case, is the Husqvarna Rider and a weed whacker. What used to take me over an hour I now do in under 1/2 hour. Just really minor trimmimg needed after mowing, like around our landscape edging, mailbox pole, that's about it.

Gilly

Start measuring some gates. That will determine how big of a mower you can get. There are some gates where I can't get my 36" through.

I forgot the mention before, you may want to take a gander at Ferris walk behinds too. They seem to have a pretty good reputation.

This weekend I need to put a hitch on my truck and buy a trailer, I found some decent sounding mowers in the bargin news.

If the lawn is to small for sheep to deal with you need a flymow to avoid the wheel tracks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRE3cyAtFj8&feature=related

In the mid 70's I lived in Malaysia and flymows were the word when it came to steep lawns- a rope on the handle and you swung them like a pendulum as you lowered them down the bank- slopes too steep to use a push mower or a tractor.

How about a Flymow Rider, now how much fun would THAT be?:cool:
http://www.entertonement.com/clips/sdgzbvrcwj--Jetsons-CarThe-Jetsons-

theres a fly-mo advertised on a local craigslist for $100.also you can check pretty much all john deere dealer inventories at www.machinefinder.com .just pick catagory:lawn&garden and then you can pick thru the list of manufacturers.or leave manufacturer blank and enter your zip code and it will list closest to you first.

TSC (Tractor SupplyCo)
 

TSC had a 1-year interest free deal when paid in full - on their Bad Boy brand 27 HP 60" Zero Turn Mower Kohler Courage Pro engine/Hydraulic drive system transmission/2 year limited warranty $4,999

I would say that it would be ridiculous to try to start a home lawn mowing business with a 60", would not work with most home lawns. Those things are for parks and golf courses, baseball parks, and probably around large commercial sites. 32-34" should be ideal. Fast yet able to get into tight areas. A 60" would be like taking a semi to the grocery store.

Gilly

Well now......that's where a push-mower comes in - to handle those tight areas........

*Anybody use or heard of the Bad Boy brand of zero-turn mower out there? They look pretty darn stout!

60 is way to big, I wouldn't take the lawn if it needed a 60.

The big money is in the bigger lawns. Less downtime hopping from job to job that way. And the customer is expecting to pay more for the work.

However, you make a good point - if there are no large lawns in your travel-scope...

No actualy its not, and I'm not looking for big money. I'm just looking for spending cash, big money is in RE.


Big lawns just means a lot more work for not that much more pay, and more travel.

I also believe the big money is in the big commercial sites, but they are probably already using a large landscape firm to do the work and might be hard to convince them to change, or even meet with the person making the decision.Once they get cofidence in the outfit doing the work, they will be hesitant to change. Now if you see a site where they do a lousy job, obviously not mowing well or showing up when it should be done, then there might be a chance. Although the company might be telling them to only mow once a week and we all know some times once a week isn't often enough.
Gilly

my wife and i are landscaping our house -almost done. i'm thinking about putting a sign out front bc several people have asked me if i would be interested in side work. i'm to busy at the moment trying to make our house livable.

Large commercial properties can bring big money but they do take considerable resources. Most of the mowing whores are in the commercial market, at least around here (the rest of them are in the mid-level residential). Everything commercial goes out to bid, low bid wins. Low bidder generally does a crappy job, gets fired, contract goes up for bid again and repeat. You might be able to sweep in if there are obvious problems with their current contractor.

High end residential, not necessarily large either, is where good money (margins) can be made but it does come with more attention to detail. My turf and ornamental customers who take care of high end properties are doing very well, have their work schedules booked out for a month+ (for those doing more than just lawn care) and many are adding employees. Just the opposite on the mid-level side where the things have stagnated. Guys can only seem to keep booked for two weeks out. Those aforementioned mowing whores are part of it, but a lot of the middle- to upper-middle class folks don't feel the stigma and are willing and able to take care of their own lawns when money it tight (as is evidenced by my garden center/hardware store customers who are thriving with sales to homeowners who are doing just that).

Man these companies would save a lot more money in the long run if they weren't so cheap and just got a good landscaper the first place.


How would you rate Brickman? (I see a lot of their trucks driving around a lot and they seem to be nation wide)

Brickman bought up a bunch of local smaller landscape companies in my area quite a number of years back.
At first they were very slow to pay their bills. Now they rank as one of my better accounts.
A good company IMHO.

For a semi-national they have a pretty decent rep. for work and not being lowballers.

Unlike the national CHEMical LAWN product applicator company that recently changed their name. Although, unlike Brickman, they're only into applications and not maintenance. We sell a lot of product in the fall to fix what they did over the summer.