Curious to hear Jags view on this as a lawn service owner.

I can't imagine all the equipment upgrades and trailer chargers (powered by fossil fuels) that will be required for lawn services to maintain their existing workload.

I can't see that 30M they are supplying going very far.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com...wers%3famp

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"Using a gas-powered leaf blower for one hour reportedly causes the same amount of pollution to be emitted into the air as does a 2017 Toyota Camry driving from Los Angeles to Denver, which spans roughly 1,100 miles, the AP reported, citing state officials."

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"Using a gas-powered leaf blower for one hour reportedly causes the same amount of pollution to be emitted into the air as does a 2017 Toyota Camry driving from Los Angeles to Denver, which spans roughly 1,100 miles, the AP reported, citing state officials."

"reportedly"

That is a very specific model of automobile to make a point, don't you agree?

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According to Google, there are 8,288 landscaping business in CA. That seems small, but let's go with it. With the 30M subsidy, that gives each business around $3,500 to upgrade their equipment from gas to electric.

First off, do they even make electric riding mowers? A lithium ion golf cart starts at 14K, so I can imagine a mower would be equivalent.

This isn't including the edgers, blowers, and weed eaters thst need to be upgraded. Not to mention an upgraded trailer to accommodate charging stations.

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A couple positives... imagine the 0-60 speed on those lawnmowers and how quiet they will be when mowing the yard. Just have to be rich and not care about lithium mines.

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Battery powered equipment might be an option for some home owners, but not for me.  When your "lawn" is measured in acres rather than feet and walkways that need a leaf blower is measured in miles rather than feet, battery power is just not efficient.  Give me my diesel powered mower and gas powered leaf blower any day.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

All this means is inevitably the rising costs get passed on to the customer. California residents are used to paying triple what everyone else pays anyway, so what is another bill they can't afford in the first place gonna hurt.

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Let's ban California, it's past time.

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“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

There was a bunch of talk amongst owners around here a few years back when California was looking to go that route. You’d have to have inverters in the trucks to charge batteries for the hand helds. I have no experience with any commercial grade battery powered trimmers/edgers or blowers. I can’t speak for run time or power. Any battery operated stuff I’ve used has only been while helping a friend or family member when I happen to arrive at there house at obviously the wrong time. Those lacked the power that were accustomed to. Now, there is a mower “Mean Green Mowers” that advertises 7 hour run times, which unless doing a massive commercial job, actually would last most people the day. Even if you’re working 10 hrs, that mower is usually running about a third to half of that time give or take. There are claims that tip speed is equal to a 26 or so Hp gas mower. There are specs they conveniently leave out like the deck guauge. Is it beefy enough to endure more than a few years? Idk. I don’t see a mulch kit option for them, so quality (clippings) would go down. One could buy a commercial gas mower for about 8500+ options and figure at least 350-400+ per 2 cycle with blower being closer to 500 and hedge trimmer 500 or more. So a gas set can be had for $10,000-12,000. That mean green mower alone will run 20,000-30,000 depending on which one you get. So the price of lawns get went up, on top of the price it already went up from the other BS like lack of labor and soaring costs of materials. Briefly read the article. Ca using 30m to help landscapers make the switch won’t go far. You’ll have the small guys leave the business. So no weekend warriors trying to make extra money to pay bills or put a kid through college. The big companies will get bigger, so on and so forth. Now, converting to propane would be a lot cheaper on the owners/businesses. There are conversion kits for mowers that I and most everyone else uses. You may have even seen commercial guys using them. Just like any other commercial mower just has the tank on the back and now runs off propane. There’s more to it, but that is a hell of a lot cheaper option than spending 25k on a mower.

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I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts. Just off the top of my head that is what I have. That, and I’m glad I don’t live in California

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I’ll throw this in there as well. In regards to the cost of the battery powered mower, most of theirs I saw were 52’s.  We also run 52’s but also keep 36’s on each trailer to get inside smaller gates.  So I guess that would add to both totals.  Insanely expensive.

And if propane is allowed, then you’d be still screwed with batter powered “2cycles”. The hassle of keeping batteries charged throughout the day.  I’d imagine it would slow down production with the lack of power, thus less lawns per day= less money coming in.

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Maybe this will encourage people living in that desert to get rid of their lawns, maybe save some water.

Also the stuff about LA to Denver probably is talking about some certain kind of pollution, not something like co2 output. Small engine stuff like lawnmowers are horrifying when it comes to certain kind of pollutants. Modern cars do an incredible job of removing most kind of pollution from exhaust.

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How are they supposed to blow around the turds on the sidewalks and streets now?

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How are they supposed to blow around the turds on the sidewalks and streets now?

With their own clean farts.

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There was a bunch of talk amongst owners around here a few years back when California was looking to go that route.  You’d have to have inverters in the trucks to charge batteries for the hand helds. I have no experience with any commercial grade battery powered trimmers/edgers or blowers.  I can’t speak for run time or power.  Any battery operated stuff I’ve used has only been while helping a friend or family member when I happen to arrive at there house at obviously the wrong time.  Those lacked the power that were accustomed to. Now, there is a mower “Mean Green Mowers” that advertises 7 hour run times, which unless doing a massive commercial job, actually would last most people the day.  Even if you’re working 10 hrs, that mower is usually running about a third to half of that time give or take. There are claims that tip speed is equal to a 26 or so Hp gas mower. There are specs they conveniently leave out like the deck guauge.  Is it beefy enough to endure more than a few years? Idk. I don’t see a mulch kit option for them, so quality (clippings) would go down.  One could buy a commercial gas mower for about 8500+ options and figure at least 350-400+ per 2 cycle with blower being closer to 500 and hedge trimmer 500 or more.  So a gas set can be had for $10,000-12,000.  That mean green mower alone will run 20,000-30,000 depending on which one you get.  So the price of lawns get went up, on top of the price it already went up from the other BS like lack of labor and soaring costs of materials.  Briefly read the article.  Ca using 30m to help landscapers make the switch won’t go far.  You’ll have the small guys leave the business.  So no weekend warriors trying to make extra money to pay bills or put a kid through college.  The big companies will get bigger, so on and so forth.  Now, converting to propane would be a lot cheaper on the owners/businesses.  There are conversion kits for mowers that I and most everyone else uses.  You may have even seen commercial guys using them.  Just like any other commercial mower just has the tank on the back and now runs off propane.  There’s more to it, but that is a hell of a lot cheaper option than spending 25k on a mower.

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I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts. Just off the top of my head that is what I have.  That, and I’m glad I don’t live in California

Our dilemma is pretty much the same regarding this, though for different reasons.  My "green" way to solve this is to keep part of my "back lawn" cut down by grazing some cattle which is going to happen this next year.  I leased a few acres to a "neighbor" to graze some of his cattle on my property.  Of course it creates cow farts which supposedly is not "green", but it does raise grass fed beef which is better than most commercial beef.  I get cash (of course taxed as "income") and meat for letting the guy do it.

The law simply is not practical for some people.  For people that own a "postage stamp" piece of property with say a 1000 square foot lawn they can probably do it.  For the owner that owns acres of grass or the business that makes their living off of cutting many "postage stamp" properties a day, not so much.

Reality needs to be faced by liberals.  Fossil fuels are essential and are not going away.  Many farmers in our area are holding onto and maintaining older equipment because it doesn't require DEF which is a pain in the [BLEEP].

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

There was a bunch of talk amongst owners around here a few years back when California was looking to go that route.  You’d have to have inverters in the trucks to charge batteries for the hand helds. I have no experience with any commercial grade battery powered trimmers/edgers or blowers.  I can’t speak for run time or power.  Any battery operated stuff I’ve used has only been while helping a friend or family member when I happen to arrive at there house at obviously the wrong time.  Those lacked the power that were accustomed to. Now, there is a mower “Mean Green Mowers” that advertises 7 hour run times, which unless doing a massive commercial job, actually would last most people the day.  Even if you’re working 10 hrs, that mower is usually running about a third to half of that time give or take. There are claims that tip speed is equal to a 26 or so Hp gas mower. There are specs they conveniently leave out like the deck guauge.  Is it beefy enough to endure more than a few years? Idk. I don’t see a mulch kit option for them, so quality (clippings) would go down.  One could buy a commercial gas mower for about 8500+ options and figure at least 350-400+ per 2 cycle with blower being closer to 500 and hedge trimmer 500 or more.  So a gas set can be had for $10,000-12,000.  That mean green mower alone will run 20,000-30,000 depending on which one you get.  So the price of lawns get went up, on top of the price it already went up from the other BS like lack of labor and soaring costs of materials.  Briefly read the article.  Ca using 30m to help landscapers make the switch won’t go far.  You’ll have the small guys leave the business.  So no weekend warriors trying to make extra money to pay bills or put a kid through college.  The big companies will get bigger, so on and so forth.  Now, converting to propane would be a lot cheaper on the owners/businesses.  There are conversion kits for mowers that I and most everyone else uses.  You may have even seen commercial guys using them.  Just like any other commercial mower just has the tank on the back and now runs off propane.  There’s more to it, but that is a hell of a lot cheaper option than spending 25k on a mower.

---

I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts. Just off the top of my head that is what I have.  That, and I’m glad I don’t live in California

Our dilemma is pretty much the same regarding this, though for different reasons.  My "green" way to solve this is to keep part of my "back lawn" cut down by grazing some cattle which is going to happen this next year.  I leased a few acres to a "neighbor" to graze some of his cattle on my property.  Of course it creates cow farts which supposedly is not "green", but it does raise grass fed beef which is better than most commercial beef.  I get cash (of course taxed as "income") and meat for letting the guy do it.

The law simply is not practical for some people.  For people that own a "postage stamp" piece of property with say a 1000 square foot lawn they can probably do it.  For the owner that owns acres of grass or the business that makes their living off of cutting many "postage stamp" properties a day, not so much.

Reality needs to be faced by liberals.  Fossil fuels are essential and are not going away.  Many farmers in our area are holding onto and maintaining older equipment because it doesn't require DEF which is a pain in the [BLEEP].

Can’t agree more.  It may be a 1/4 acre, but when you do 20-30 a day it’s now 5-6+.  And electric power just won’t “cut” it. The average homeowner should be just fine.  Now, if I got out of the business and had to use electric [BLEEP], I’d be pissed off it took me an hour to mow trim edge and blow my own yard.  Those are 45 minutes of wasted time!

For a field or many acres in your situation, I would have recommended goats.  Those silly animals will even eat poison ivy.  But sounds like you’ve got a lot cleared.  And beef tastes pretty damn good.  That’s awesome that you worked out a deal for the meat.  Symbiotic relationships!   Like, well, in nature.   How much of the heifer do you get?

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Our dilemma is pretty much the same regarding this, though for different reasons.  My "green" way to solve this is to keep part of my "back lawn" cut down by grazing some cattle which is going to happen this next year.  I leased a few acres to a "neighbor" to graze some of his cattle on my property.  Of course it creates cow farts which supposedly is not "green", but it does raise grass fed beef which is better than most commercial beef.  I get cash (of course taxed as "income") and meat for letting the guy do it.

The law simply is not practical for some people.  For people that own a "postage stamp" piece of property with say a 1000 square foot lawn they can probably do it.  For the owner that owns acres of grass or the business that makes their living off of cutting many "postage stamp" properties a day, not so much.

Reality needs to be faced by liberals.  Fossil fuels are essential and are not going away.  Many farmers in our area are holding onto and maintaining older equipment because it doesn't require DEF which is a pain in the [BLEEP].

Can’t agree more.  It may be a 1/4 acre, but when you do 20-30 a day it’s now 5-6+.  And electric power just won’t “cut” it. The average homeowner should be just fine.  Now, if I got out of the business and had to use electric [BLEEP], I’d be pissed off it took me an hour to mow trim edge and blow my own yard.  Those are 45 minutes of wasted time!

For a field or many acres in your situation, I would have recommended goats.  Those silly animals will even eat poison ivy.  But sounds like you’ve got a lot cleared.  And beef tastes pretty damn good.  That’s awesome that you worked out a deal for the meat.  Symbiotic relationships!   Like, well, in nature.   How much of the heifer do you get?

I'll probably get me a few goats, but not necessarily for grass.  There is a massive vine problem in some areas (I think Kudzu?) as well as numerous saplings that need to stay in check.  However it's going to produce goat farts.  Are they as "bad" as cow farts?  I can't get them until I put the infrastructure in place for them (shelter).  The problem is that I don't like goat meat so I would have to get rid of them when they are ready for slaughter and I don't know if there is much demand for that.

As far as the deal with my neighbor, I'll basically get 2 cows a year.  How much beef it turns out to be will depend on their weight when we slaughter them.  It should be plenty enough to fill my freezers and give some to my other family members.

Once we are a bit more established chickens and pigs might be added.  Combine the animals and the trees/garden that we have planned we will almost be self-sustaining.

What kills me right now is that I'm burning whole trees (mostly hickory and oak).  I have more wood than I know what to do with it.  My wife wants to sell firewood and that's fine, she has the time for it (she retired this year).  I don't have the time for it right now.

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

Can’t agree more.  It may be a 1/4 acre, but when you do 20-30 a day it’s now 5-6+.  And electric power just won’t “cut” it. The average homeowner should be just fine.  Now, if I got out of the business and had to use electric [BLEEP], I’d be pissed off it took me an hour to mow trim edge and blow my own yard.  Those are 45 minutes of wasted time!

For a field or many acres in your situation, I would have recommended goats.  Those silly animals will even eat poison ivy.  But sounds like you’ve got a lot cleared.  And beef tastes pretty damn good.  That’s awesome that you worked out a deal for the meat.  Symbiotic relationships!   Like, well, in nature.   How much of the heifer do you get?

I'll probably get me a few goats, but not necessarily for grass.  There is a massive vine problem in some areas (I think Kudzu?) as well as numerous saplings that need to stay in check.  However it's going to produce goat farts.  Are they as "bad" as cow farts?  I can't get them until I put the infrastructure in place for them (shelter).  The problem is that I don't like goat meat so I would have to get rid of them when they are ready for slaughter and I don't know if there is much demand for that.

As far as the deal with my neighbor, I'll basically get 2 cows a year.  How much beef it turns out to be will depend on their weight when we slaughter them.  It should be plenty enough to fill my freezers and give some to my other family members.

Once we are a bit more established chickens and pigs might be added.  Combine the animals and the trees/garden that we have planned we will almost be self-sustaining.

What kills me right now is that I'm burning whole trees (mostly hickory and oak).  I have more wood than I know what to do with it.  My wife wants to sell firewood and that's fine, she has the time for it (she retired this year).  I don't have the time for it right now.

Just guessing goat and cow farts are more acceptable than my farts.  

If you guys can sell the oak and hickory, I say do it.  Sounds like youve got plenty and the means to split it.There are guys like me that get off on either using it in an Egg or a smoker or just flat out burning it and cooking off it in a fire pit.  But “location, location,location”.  I’m sure your “neighbors” do the same. That or use their own. So I’m sure an ad on crackheads list for firewood to sell to us city folk would be in order.  Good luck dealing with those yahoo’s.  I say burn it and have a bonfire or get together.

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There was a bunch of talk amongst owners around here a few years back when California was looking to go that route.  You’d have to have inverters in the trucks to charge batteries for the hand helds. I have no experience with any commercial grade battery powered trimmers/edgers or blowers.  I can’t speak for run time or power.  Any battery operated stuff I’ve used has only been while helping a friend or family member when I happen to arrive at there house at obviously the wrong time.  Those lacked the power that were accustomed to. Now, there is a mower “Mean Green Mowers” that advertises 7 hour run times, which unless doing a massive commercial job, actually would last most people the day.  Even if you’re working 10 hrs, that mower is usually running about a third to half of that time give or take. There are claims that tip speed is equal to a 26 or so Hp gas mower. There are specs they conveniently leave out like the deck guauge.  Is it beefy enough to endure more than a few years? Idk. I don’t see a mulch kit option for them, so quality (clippings) would go down.  One could buy a commercial gas mower for about 8500+ options and figure at least 350-400+ per 2 cycle with blower being closer to 500 and hedge trimmer 500 or more.  So a gas set can be had for $10,000-12,000.  That mean green mower alone will run 20,000-30,000 depending on which one you get.  So the price of lawns get went up, on top of the price it already went up from the other BS like lack of labor and soaring costs of materials.  Briefly read the article.  Ca using 30m to help landscapers make the switch won’t go far.  You’ll have the small guys leave the business.  So no weekend warriors trying to make extra money to pay bills or put a kid through college.  The big companies will get bigger, so on and so forth.  Now, converting to propane would be a lot cheaper on the owners/businesses.  There are conversion kits for mowers that I and most everyone else uses.  You may have even seen commercial guys using them.  Just like any other commercial mower just has the tank on the back and now runs off propane.  There’s more to it, but that is a hell of a lot cheaper option than spending 25k on a mower.

---

I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts. Just off the top of my head that is what I have.  That, and I’m glad I don’t live in California

Converting to propane is an option? That's better for the environment somehow?

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There was a bunch of talk amongst owners around here a few years back when California was looking to go that route.  You’d have to have inverters in the trucks to charge batteries for the hand helds. I have no experience with any commercial grade battery powered trimmers/edgers or blowers.  I can’t speak for run time or power.  Any battery operated stuff I’ve used has only been while helping a friend or family member when I happen to arrive at there house at obviously the wrong time.  Those lacked the power that were accustomed to. Now, there is a mower “Mean Green Mowers” that advertises 7 hour run times, which unless doing a massive commercial job, actually would last most people the day.  Even if you’re working 10 hrs, that mower is usually running about a third to half of that time give or take. There are claims that tip speed is equal to a 26 or so Hp gas mower. There are specs they conveniently leave out like the deck guauge.  Is it beefy enough to endure more than a few years? Idk. I don’t see a mulch kit option for them, so quality (clippings) would go down.  One could buy a commercial gas mower for about 8500+ options and figure at least 350-400+ per 2 cycle with blower being closer to 500 and hedge trimmer 500 or more.  So a gas set can be had for $10,000-12,000.  That mean green mower alone will run 20,000-30,000 depending on which one you get.  So the price of lawns get went up, on top of the price it already went up from the other BS like lack of labor and soaring costs of materials.  Briefly read the article.  Ca using 30m to help landscapers make the switch won’t go far.  You’ll have the small guys leave the business.  So no weekend warriors trying to make extra money to pay bills or put a kid through college.  The big companies will get bigger, so on and so forth.  Now, converting to propane would be a lot cheaper on the owners/businesses.  There are conversion kits for mowers that I and most everyone else uses.  You may have even seen commercial guys using them.  Just like any other commercial mower just has the tank on the back and now runs off propane.  There’s more to it, but that is a hell of a lot cheaper option than spending 25k on a mower.

---

I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts. Just off the top of my head that is what I have.  That, and I’m glad I don’t live in California

Our dilemma is pretty much the same regarding this, though for different reasons.  My "green" way to solve this is to keep part of my "back lawn" cut down by grazing some cattle which is going to happen this next year.  I leased a few acres to a "neighbor" to graze some of his cattle on my property.  Of course it creates cow farts which supposedly is not "green", but it does raise grass fed beef which is better than most commercial beef.  I get cash (of course taxed as "income") and meat for letting the guy do it.

The law simply is not practical for some people.  For people that own a "postage stamp" piece of property with say a 1000 square foot lawn they can probably do it.  For the owner that owns acres of grass or the business that makes their living off of cutting many "postage stamp" properties a day, not so much.

Reality needs to be faced by liberals.  Fossil fuels are essential and are not going away.  Many farmers in our area are holding onto and maintaining older equipment because it doesn't require DEF which is a pain in the [BLEEP].

The cow farts are unfortunate but on the whole what you're doing is very green.  Much better to let a flatulent meat producing animal eat the excess grass than a gas powered machine.

FWIW, the progressives aren't trying to make fossil fuel go away. They are trying to reduce use and offset.

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My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

"Using a gas-powered leaf blower for one hour reportedly causes the same amount of pollution to be emitted into the air as does a 2017 Toyota Camry driving from Los Angeles to Denver, which spans roughly 1,100 miles, the AP reported, citing state officials."

Ugh! This is just terrible journalism.  Really bad.
First of all, pollution is an ambiguous term.  Some people just mean CO2 when they say pollution.  Using a leaf blower for one hour produces less CO2 than using a Camry for one hour. Simple math; fuel consumed is always proportional to CO2 emitted. Obviously they are talking about other polluting chemicals, which are all bad for different reasons.  But which ones? NOx? Sulfates? Carbon Monoxide?
Second of all, are we talking about a four stroke leaf blower, or two? Because that makes a huge difference.

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My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

Given the fact that it hasn't rained in CA in 5 years and 25% of the ground is covered in ashes, they shouldn't have a problem with grass growing.

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I tried to look up curb weight for these mowers. The only weight I got was from a 74” model. I was thinking they would weigh more than normal. The 74” model weighs a whopping 1800 and some odd pounds. That’s about a thousand more than my 52”. I couldn’t find weights for the battery 52. But 1800 and change is super heavy to be running across a lawn week in and week out. Surely the 52 models weigh less. But I’m guessing still far more than the alternative. Having said all that, tire width would have to be found out as well. The wider the tires the less weight per square inch is applied to the lawn. But at that weight and assuming no absurdly wide “Tweels” in this case, that would tear up some lawns. Especially in the wet conditions we’ve seen here in NE FL

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