The folks at BobVila.com rounded up their favorite weed whackers, and one model stood head and shoulders above the rest.
"In my backyard test, the Makita outperformed the rest of the pack. It felt light and agile but easily chopped through the toughest weeds and grass without bogging down during my string trimming tasks."
Product reviewer Mark Wolfe is talking here about the Makita XRU15PT1 LXT cordless string trimmer. It runs on two 18-volt 5 Ah lithium-ion batteries, generating up to 6,500 revolutions per minute with its brushless motor. An automatic drive control can scale down speed as needed for extra power or additional runtime, which Wolfe said maxes out at about an hour and a half.
Electric yard tools are a great upgrade to consider if you're still relying on gas-powered appliances. For starters, it's a lot cheaper to charge up batteries than it is to fill up cans of fuel. Estimates suggest that over the course of a decade, a user could save around $370 by switching from a gas-powered lawnmower to an electric one, for example.
Electric options are also typically lighter and quieter than their gas-powered counterparts, making for a more enjoyable landscaping experience. Operating at a lower volume, battery-powered tools are also less likely to stress and disturb wildlife. And isn't the whole point of lawn care to tend a beautiful outdoor space, home to pollinators, birds, and critters?
Many older gas-powered tools use a two-stroke engine, which can be quite damaging to the environment and threaten your carefully cultivated ecosystem. These mechanisms also produce localized pollution that can impact the health of regular users in particular, those who are often up close to the machine.
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One hour of using a gas-powered blower produces as much pollution as 15 hours of driving, according to one report. And the particulate emissions that handheld gas tools generate have been linked to serious health conditions such as cancer and fertility problems, according to another.
For all these reasons, some municipalities have even taken steps to ban gas-powered leaf blowers.
It's worth noting that most trimmer line is made of plastic. If you want to avoid leaving microplastics throughout your yard, you'll want to explore the biodegradable options that are available.
Other reviews of the Makita XRU15PT1 have generally been positive.
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If you were to switch from a grass lawn to a more natural option, which of these factors would be your primary motivation?
Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. |
Making it look better 🌱 "This trimmer is fantastic," said one Redditor.
"This is a solid tool with excellent ergonomics and surprisingly good performance," another reviewer wrote. "There are some minor issues with set-up but in use this is an absolutely great machine."
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