Different people tend to have different views of common chores. For example, some people find mowing the lawn to be relaxing. Others find it to be tedious. But not many people think of lawn mowing as a strategic endeavor. And to be fair, that was true for most of history. But today one has some very significant choices to make when it comes to lawn care. And chief among them is a decision about what lawnmower and class of lawnmower to use.

To begin, it’s important to make a solid distinction between personal and commercial mowers. At first glance one might find the distinction rather counter intuitive. After all, most people think of lawnmowers as a simple tool. It’s hard to imagine, say, forks coming in personal and professional classes. A tool usually does a single thing. And it will do that single thing in a manner fairly similar to any other similar item.

But lawnmowers have become shockingly complex over the years. Hand powered mowers have given way to devices which are similar to, and sometimes even surpassing, the complexity of one’s car. And this transition in complexity is the crux of why a distinction is made between personal and professional mowers. On one side of the divide are less complex and durable mowers. And on the other side are the more complex and durable mowers.

The durability concern is in large part due to how often one might use mowers in different situations. Someone who’s using a mower for personal use is expected to do so on a fairly infrequent basis. Personal mowers are made under an assumption that one will only mow the lawn once a week at most. And in general this is probably going to be closer to twice a month. Furthermore, this will only occur during warmer months when new growth occurs. And on top of it all the scope of most homeowners property is fairly small. This means that the mower won’t actually be operating very long after it’s started up.

It’s best to think about it in terms of operating hours. A personal mower has a lower amount of operating hours. But the actual duration it’s usable might still be fairly long due to the fact that it’s only started infrequently. That can’t be the case for a commercial mower though.

A commercial mower needs to have an extremely high number of working hours. This is because the same time span involves much more use for a commercial mower in comparison to a personal one. However, this brings up an important point to the terminology. Labeling them as personal and commercial often gives the wrong impression. Some professional locations won’t need to mow grass very often. Meanwhile some homeowners have larger estates with difficult to manage conditions. But home owners who want to make the leap to commercial mowers often have a hard time jumping into the market. It’s fairly easy when one understands a few important points though.

One surprise is that many commercial mowers forgo use of a steering wheel. The alternate controls allow for better adaptation to a zero-turn work cycle. zero turn lawn mowers will, in turn, allow for a more precise and fast performance. However there are models which incorporate a more familiar steering wheel design. The next thing to keep in mind is that they’re often rated for the size of a job. This usually scales from five to twelve acres. The nature of that area needs to be taken into account as well. An acre of flat soil and an acre on uneven and rocky hills are very different things. One needs to carefully consider the stated capabilities of a commercial mower in relation to need. But at the same time, one can see the obvious benefits here when compared to a personal mower. A personal mower seldom takes these aspects into real consideration as they’re meant for a one size fits all market. A commercial mower allows one to better tailor the tool to the job.