Eat a bag of decks: tools needed to stop getting screwed

[Dicey]

100% agree. We do our part by having no lawn. Works great and saves on the water bill, but it's going to take forever to recoup the landscaping costs. Oh well, at least it looks good great. We do use a blower occasionally, but it's battery operated and reasonably quiet.

I don't understand our obsession with large grassy lawns.  They are great for small children (we have one) but even still, we're moving towards landscaping a large chunk of our property into edible gardens and native plants.  I wish more people would do the same.

I think I remember reading that manicured lawns were a sign of prosperity.

[nereo]

Maybe a couple decades ago?  Now large expanses of lawn are shared between the Working and middle class. Prosperity (at least to me and with peoples exterior property) is marked by landscaping, a lush garden and hardscaping.
Grass is cheap.

[BTDretire]

Only a simple piece of advice that may help. Get one of the long square tipped bits and use it like a punch.
Insert it in the square and hit the other end with a hammer, you're just trying to push the wood down that's under the threads. Just creating a smidgen more space around the screw threads before you try to back it out.

[Dicey]

Maybe a couple decades ago?  Now large expanses of lawn are shared between the Working and middle class. Prosperity (at least to me and with peoples exterior property) is marked by landscaping, a lush garden and hardscaping.
Grass is cheap.

Nope. Here in CA, grass won't grow without being watered and water ain't cheap. Neither is land. What you describe sounds more like the backyards of high end homes here, plus pools, of course.

[JLee]

I don't mind construction noise (as long as it's during a reasonable hour), but one sound I've come to *hate* is the drone of 2-stroke yard tools, particularly during the weekend, as every homeowner aroudn me seems to be cutting the grass and whacking weeds and whatnot.  Now that we have an electric lawn mower I think most everyone should get one, and/or all new lawn mowers ought to have much tighter noise restrictions.  There's seriosuly no need for ear-damaging level of noise just to have a well-kempt lawn

Especially leaf blowers...aaagh.

[nereo]

Maybe a couple decades ago?  Now large expanses of lawn are shared between the Working and middle class. Prosperity (at least to me and with peoples exterior property) is marked by landscaping, a lush garden and hardscaping.
Grass is cheap.

Nope. Here in CA, grass won't grow without being watered and water ain't cheap. Neither is land. What you describe sounds more like the backyards of high end homes here, plus pools, of course.

Yeah, that is true.  WHen I lived in California (during a drought, no less) it was the affluent houses that had large, well maintained yards.
ARound here, there’s a bizarre trend for less affluent individuals to have homes with enormous expanses of grass.  Of course that only works when land is cheap and grass can grow without extensive watering (both of which are true). 

It’s no uncommon to see a double-wide sitting on a 2 acre plot with nothing but grass on it, and some guy driving a riding mower around each weekend cutting it.

[lthenderson]

Glad you all don't live around me. I have a two acre lot and in the summer, I try to get the outside work done as soon as possible before the heat sets in. Due to the size, electric machines just aren't practical so I go with gas powered. My nearest neighbors are both more than 150 feet away though. One is rarely there and the others are early risers and afternoon nappers so it works out alright... I think. Nobody has told me differently and we talk in the street quite often and exchange food gifts now and then.

[lthenderson]

In light of Nereo's post, I should add that my 2 acre lot is comprised of about 1 acre of trees and another 1/3 acre of unmowed area that I'm trying to regrow into timber as well.

[nereo]

Glad you all don't live around me. I have a two acre lot and in the summer, I try to get the outside work done as soon as possible before the heat sets in. Due to the size, electric machines just aren't practical so I go with gas powered. My nearest neighbors are both more than 150 feet away though. One is rarely there and the others are early risers and afternoon nappers so it works out alright... I think. Nobody has told me differently and we talk in the street quite often and exchange food gifts now and then.

A key point there is that your nearest neighbors are 150 feet away.  Here in our neighborhood there’s at least 7 homes within 150’ of ours, and potentially as many as 13 (would have to measure...).  Basically what happens when eveyrone’s got 1/4 acre (or smaller) lots spaces grouped together.

Curious whether you’ve looked closely at the newer electric tools or just assume they wouldn’t work.  My mower runs for a good hour before needing a re-charge, and the recharge time is fast enough that with two batteries I could basically go non-stop all day, only needing to take 2 minutes every hour to swap out batteries.

I *still* think we need to drastically increase the noise and emissions on yard tools though.  Maybe allow it for properties that are on > 1acre lots.  But for those of us “in town” weekends are a never ending drone from one neighbor or another.

[lthenderson]

Curious whether you’ve looked closely at the newer electric tools or just assume they wouldn’t work. 

Not lately and I know they've been getting a lot better judging on my cordless hand tools. Someday, if not already, they might be an option for even people like me with larger areas to care for. I do have a couple hangups on them in general though. As someone who does a fair amount of woodworking and construction, I already have a pile of batteries and the last thing I want is to add to them with yard tool batteries. Second, I dislike the life cycle of batteries. They wear out and most likely end up in landfills. Some are rebuilt but I think that is the minority of all batteries. They change formats and styles fairly regularly leading to tools where replacement batteries can't be found that now need to be replace with the old ones going to the landfill. I have some gas tools that are twenty years old, still work fine and will be serviceable for the rest of my life.  Hard to justify getting rid of them for something with a much smaller lifespan.