Business / personal name
Hen World
Business address
NORTH END BOLTBY
County
North Yorkshire
Postcode
YO7 2DY
Primary telephone number:
01845537605
About you and your business ( please complete)
Responsible for garden and field development maintenance.
Business category
Domestic
Where did you hear about Landscape Juice
website
Comments
Hi Julie. That's not a problem at all. Thank you so much for the "report", It really is very much appreciated!
It really does sound like a good mower and up to the task. The only thing that worries me is the run time of the battery as they are very expensive and I would need at least two of them. Maybe even three if I'm doing multiple larger lawns.
I've got Stephen Muir coming next week to demo one as well as the Etesia battery mower. Hopefully his information and you're real world experience can help me make a decision!
Thanks again for you're time and effort on this.
Siôn
Hello Siôn, sorry to be so long in replying. I wanted to have a few goes with the mower before sending my "report". This mower has transformed my mowing life in that I no longer dread tackling the back field. The variable speed is great (I think speed 4 is a bit fast for me on such bumpy land). It doesn't seem to matter if the grass is wet, which I think would be important for contract work. There are also variable speeds for the blades, 3 are fixed and the fourth uses a "magic eye" which 'looks' at the grass thickness and varies the blade speed as the mower moves along.The handle is quite long and seemed strange at first and I thought it would be quite high - I am only 5' 4" but the adjustable height is excellent so it can be moved to be comfortable for me and 6 footers too. Although it was odd to be so far away from the mower I have discovered that this is good for getting under and around trees without getting caught up in them. The battery use is about 20% -30% for the field depending on how dry / wet the grass is. The mower can be driven without the blades spinning - good for transporting uphill. I also use the mower on my lawn, which is about a quarter of the field size, much smoother but on a slope and battery use is about 10%. The battery has also been used with a hedgecutter on a 1.5m high and 70m long hawthorn hedge which was cut on one side and across the top. It used 7%. Pic is of the field and I realise that it looks smoother that it actually is. Julie
Hi Julie. Thank you so much for the information! It's nice to hear about some first hand experience. I'm actually looking to start my own business but only using battery equipment and obviously the mower is the most important part. It needs to perform for the whole day without me having to change batteries every hour or so like I would have to with a domestic cordless mower. I'm confident about the strimmer and hedge cutter because I know they are used a lot by contractors who praise them and prefer them to petrol ones.
The cost doesn't bother me because, like you said, the running cost is a lot lower compared to petrol and I know it will pay for itself within the first year.
What was the quality of cut like seeing as the grass was damp? Did it struggle at all going through thicker parts?
Hello Siôn, I had a demo from Stephen Muir, the Etesia / Pellenc Business Development Manager. He came on a wet day and the mower performed very well. It is IP54 rated. Unfortunately I am not! After some thinking I bought an ex-demo Rasion Easy, which is the basic model with a drive, for the following reasons: It is their lightest model that has a drive; the swivel wheels help with turning around trees; the 60cm cut means not so much walking up and down my lawn / verge / field; the auto setting on the blades means that the blades change speed, depending on the thickness of the grass, so the battery is running at it's most efficient; it has variable speed - I definitely needed a slower speed to start with whilst I got used to it; it can be stored upended to save space. On my first outing this week, it cut a quarter acre undulating and sloping field on a day after it had rained, with quite long / thick grass and the battery (1200) went from 100% to 63%. It is likely that with shorter and drier grass it would use less battery power. I had been leaving the grass until the mower arrived. There is a bigger 1500 battery but although it has more oomph it is heavier. I cannot see me using up the battery in one session.The Pellenc mower came with a 2 year domestic warranty. Another advantage of the Pellenc is that I can use the same battery with their hedgecutter. The battery sits in a harness and this means the hedgecutter is very light to hold and that's very important to me. I haven't used it yet as it only arrived today. I had been using a Mountfield battery mower on my lawn and loved the fact that I could just take it out, put the battery in, press a button and it worked - no pulling cords or remembering petrol / oil. After each outing I charge the battery so it's ready for the next time. Unfortunately the Mountfield isn't robust enough for the field so I'm now selling it. What happened when I used the Mountfield was that both the battery and I ran out of power at the same time so I charged it whilst doing something else. And yes, it seems a large amount of money up front but the running costs are very low - like electric cars. For me it is about managing to keep going by lowering the weight of the machinery, thereby being able to manage regular grass and hedge cutting. Happy to talk further as I found it almost impossible to find a USER. Apparently this is because it is mostly councils and large companies that buy them.
Good afternoon Julie. I hope you don't mind me getting in touch. Like yourself, I've been trying to find information on the Pellenc mowers being used in the real world, but reviews and opinions are scarce as I'm sure you know. I've convinced myself that they could be a good alternative to petrol mowers. I've been in touch with Etesia to arrange a demo, but seeing as you've already taken the plunge I would be interested to hear how it performs and how long the battery lasts.
Thank in advance for your time.
Siôn Hughes