Starting a Lawn Care Business – Commercial Mowers, ‘Ride On’ Mowers and Other Equipment

To succeed in the lawn care business you need to have the right commercial equipment. Having the right equipment makes you more professional and productive.

While you can start out in lawn care with a basic push mower that you can cart around in a station wagon or with a small trailer, it is the operators with small trucks and commercial mowers that distinguish themselves as the ‘six figure’ operators.

This article looks at some of the basic equipment that you will need to be successful cutting grass for a living.

Your largest purchase when it comes to equipment will be your vehicle. Look at the dimensions and weight of some of the commercial mowers that you are interested in and make sure that you have a truck or van and trailer that can take the load securely as well as making packing and unpacking convenient. Once you have decided what equipment you will purchase you should consider having racks installed into the vehicle for safely storing and locking the equipment.

In terms of lawn mowers, the basic ‘walk behind’ lawn mower is an industry standard and comes in many varieties ranging from the typical consumer lawn mowers up to some quite advanced commercial types. These mowers are practical, maneuverable and good for most residential jobs. Some commercial ‘walk behind’ mowers are able to tow a small platform called a Velke which allows the operator to stand on a small platform and be slowly pulled along by the mower, thus saving on energy.

For more serious lawn care business operators ‘Ride on’ mowers are the next logical step up. While not quite as flexible as ‘walk behind’ mowers in that they are not suited to hilly terrain and smaller areas these mowers generally make the operator much more productive on an average lawn surface. ZTR (Zero Turn Radius) mowers are the best when it comes to ‘ride on’ mowers due to their power, features and maneuverability (they can turn on a dime).

For a one man operator, owning a combination of a ‘walk behind’ mower and a ‘ride on’ mower is best for maximizing productivity on all lawn shapes and contours.

Other required lawn care equipment includes trimmers and edgers, necessary for cutting grass in places that the lawn mower cannot reach such as along concrete driveway edges and around letterboxes. Blowers are also useful for removing grass clippings and leaves from paths, driveways and pavements to leave a customers property looking neat and tidy.

Lastly, you should make sure that you have the appropriate safety equipment including safety glasses, hearing protection, gloves and work boots with a steel cap in the toes.

While not all of this is essential for a new operator starting out in the grass cutting business you should aim to have a commercial lawn mower or ‘ride on’ mower sometime within your first year of business so that you are productive and distinguish yourself as a professional, giving you the best chance of making ‘six figures’ in the lawn care business.

Source by Steve Sutherland