Another Year

[jekjr]

We started running commercially in August of 2012. It was something that I had wanted to do for several years but just could not make myself jump in. I had cut grass off and on small scale since I was a kid. I was 55 years old at the time. There were numerous people that told me that there were more people in the area that cut grass than there was business and that we would not be able to make a go of it because of competition.

Starting up the decisions on what equipment to buy were hard to make. After doing all of the research I could do and looking at my budget I decided to go with a Kubota ZG222 48" mower. Not knowing what I really needed as far as handheld equipment I bought a Cub Cadet string trimmer from Tractor Supply. Then I bought a hand held blower that was Weedeater Brand. I bought a 8' open trailer to haul my mower on and was ready to go to work.

By 2013 I had gotten enough work that I hired a guy to help me and bought a second Cub Cadet trimmer and the attachments for it. (Both were split pole units so that you could run attachments on them.) I then realized that I was going to need a second mower as well. I bought a Kubota ZD 326. Then I bought a 16' V nosed cargo trailer to haul it all.

The Cub Cadet trimmers were excellent for a while but started having carburetor problems and there was nobody around that wanted to or could work on them. I took one back to Tractor Supply and they got the guy that worked on their equipment to pick it up and take it with him. It stayed gone two weeks and when I finally got it back it did not run any better than it did when it left. I honestly do not believe that he put a wrench on it. Anyway when you run them commercially they basically have NO warranty so I was on my own.

I purchased a Stihl string trimmer to keep me going. I purchased it from the John Deere dealer. It ran great for a while but developed carburetor problems soon and the John Deere Dealer was in no hurry to get it fixed. As far as they were concerned you take a number and we will get to you when we can get to you. The other local Still dealer was basically the same way. I had not bought it from them and therefore it was on a back burner.

I had gone with Kubota mowers for several reasons. First off several of the larger commercial folks in our area were running Kubota mowers. I saw several people trading other mowers in for Kubota but at that time I had never seen anybody trading Kubota mowers in on anything else.

By 2014 it had grown to a point that I had two workers and we were running two mowers and a weedeater. I bought my second Stihl weedeater. We had a new dealer come on line locally that started selling Echo equipment at that time and I bought an Echo trimmer that had a split pole to accommodate other attachments as well. The second Still trimmer ran less than 4 hours and the motor locked up on it. I carried it back to the Stihl dealer. It had a rod bearing seize up and they did warranty it but it took over three weeks to get it back. So I bought another Echo unit. Because we at times needed two units running and even at times three I bought still another Echo.

I also demonstrated my first Scag mower in 2014. I was shocked at the difference in the cut especially on Pensacola Bahia grass. I bought the Scag because we needed a back up mower plus we needed at times to run a third mower.

The Scag was doing such a good job for us so when the ZD 326 Kubota was 2 years old and had 800 hours on it I traded it in for my second Tiger Cat Scag. At that point we had two Tiger Cats and a ZG222 Kubota that we ran as backup. I was able to acquire a bagging system for the 222 and therefore utilized it for leaves in the fall and winter.

In the Spring of 2016 I purchased my third Tiger Cat Scag.

Today we have those same three Tiger Cat Scags, and five Echo units. Four of those are split pole units that we use to weedeat, edge, trim shrubbery, and pole saw.

We have three 266 Echo units and two 225 units. One of the 266 units is a solid shaft unit as I stated above the other ones are PAS units that accept multiple attachments.

We also have a large Echo Back pack blower and an 802 Shindiawa back blower. The Shindiawa was purchased in Jan 2014. The Shindiawa blower is incredible. The Echo is fair compared to the Shindiawa. If we purchase another blower it will be the Shindiawa.

The only Echo Equipment we have had issues with was a 280 PAS unit. We ran it about a month and it started having fuel issues. It went back to the shop numerous times. It would leave the shop running fine and start acting up sometimes within a few minutes. After numerous repairs the dealer replaced it with another unit identical and it still had the same issues. After numerous trips to the shop with it we traded it in on a smaller unit and have had no more problems with that unit. Not sure what the issue was with the 280 units. Echo seemed to think that it was the fuel I was running but we were running 8 to 10 different units out of the same fuel cans so I can not make myself believe that was the problem.

Here is it 2018 we are running the same three Tiger Cats. The oldest now has around 1700 hours on it. The second has around 1000 hours on it and the third now has over 700 hours on it. We still have the original Echo 225 that was purchased in 2014 as well as the others and have had few problems with them.

We cut 20 plus acres of grass some days and in the middle of the summer we maintain 90 properties on a 2 week interval.

In my personal opinion I have never operated a mower that will out cut a Tiger Cat Scag with a 52" deck and 22hp Kawasaki with fresh blades in Bahia grass.

IN the peak of bahia grass season at times we change blades on mowers at times three times a day.


Hope that helps some of you guys getting started or home owners questioning what works and what does not.

I do not believe that anybody reading this will punish equipment any more than we do and this is what works for us.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Interesting.
Glad to hear you are doing well.
All of my commercial customers run 2 trimmers per operator, generally with an GX25 or 35 power head and for that reason I keep 2 power heads in the shop for service exchanges.
FWIW it takes about 2 hours to do a full diagnostic on a small 2 stroke engine and tracing an intermittant problem can be next to impossible because few have heavy grass they they can run the trimmers under load for 1/2 hour to simulate your working conditions.
There is only one reason why you seize a big end and that is running a mix that is too lean and to that end I sell my customers different size & colour containers for fuel.
Plain unleaded goes into a 20 L ( 4 gallon ) red container and 2 stroke mix in a 5 L ( 1 gal ) orange or green container.
I took a while but eventually I convinced all of them to buy individual 1L ( quart ) mixing bottles for each of the chain saws and hedge trimmers and these were named Stil, Husky etc and mix single tank loads as needed.
For the home owner, running a 30:1 Stihl on a tank of 40:1 husky fuel for an hour is not a problem.
For a contractor, doing the same under a much heavier load for longer can be a disaster.
The other problem is evaporation.
Most custom built trailers have hooks or U stands for trimmer, pole saws etc that sit along the top of the trailer wall where they are in the sun all day and also get full wind force.
This can evaporate a lot of fuel, leaving behind the heavier factions like oil on 2 strokes and Heaven only knows what on strait fuel which now days is definately not petrol as we used to know it.
Since moving their hand helds inside the enclosed section of the trailers, they have been experiencing fewer problems and a lot easier starts.