The Real Cost Using a Flymo Mower

Have you ever wondered exactly how much electricity your garden power tools are pulling from the mains? I am putting a standard Flymo hover mower to the test on a 20m by 7m lawn to find out the precise cost of cutting the grass. Using a plug-in energy monitor, I track the kilowatt-hours in real time to see if the final bill is as bad as we might think.

If you are trying to budget your household energy use or just looking for a bit of motivation to tackle your own overgrown lawn, you need to see the final scores on the doors.

The Real Cost Using a Flymo Mower



TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
Hello. Ever wondered how much power one of these takes? It's an electric mower. It's a really standard Flymo hover mower. But how much does it cost to run? I'm going to test this out on our garden behind me. It's 20m by about oh, I don't know, 7m. But how much does it cost to use one of these? Uh, obviously your circumstances will be different, your grass length will be different, but I just wanted to get a rough ballpark figure of how much power, how much energy this costs to run. And I've got all kinds of hazards in the garden. There's uh where our washing line is. I've put this cane on because every time we take the washing line up, we always forget where the the crucial hole is in the middle of the garden. I've also got all kinds of Casper's toys scattered amongst the grass. So, we've got some tennis balls, which are the absolute worst because they get trapped between the blade and the the mower motor. I've also got probably some presents from Casper where we've not taken him out and he's just done his business, done his thing. We also have this lovely apple tree and pear tree and they are starting to drop. It's not fully It's at the end of August, but the apples are starting to fall off the tree, and these don't go very well with the blade either. I've got some edging to do as well, but I'll probably do that after I've mowed the lawn. This is uh I guess this is the mow with me video I've always wanted to make. And I don't know if you can see the the length of the grass. I'm trying to show it as best as possible on screen, but I've managed to get away with only mowing the lawn twice this summer. Um, I... I could say that I'm doing it for biodiversity, you know, to help the insects and birds, but uh I can't get away with it for much longer. I do actually need to mow the lawn, especially up by the... the Hut cuz uh it's getting really long up there. I really don't want Casper squatting between the blades and scooting on this for much longer. He he also keeps getting grass seed in his hair, his hair? His fur. That's what dogs have. If you're a dog owner, obviously you know that is really not good. Some dogs have even had grass seed growing in their ears. So, we're now balancing the cost of energy on the Flymo mower with the cost of a vet bill. The way I'm going to be measuring the the energy use, the electricity use is with this plug here. I can hit the button and it cycles through the watts, the kilowatt hours. That is what we're charged for. And over here, we're on I worked it out from our latest build. It's 23p per kilowatt hour. So that will give us a total obviously not including the uh standing charge which seems to have doubled in the last year. But just for the electricity alone uh so it's zero at the moment thanks to my zero gardening. I am starting off in the near corner of the garden partly to be near the camera and partly because I can't face tackling the rest of the 20m ahead of me. Uh it's also shaded as well. So, I don't want to get sunburnt or heat stroked. Yeah, this is a really nice start in the corner of the garden. And it's also where the grass is the shortest for some reason. I don't know why. The hardest part here, I should really leave this to the trimmer, but I'm mowing over the stepping stones that my wife very, very kindly put down. It's beautiful path up to the happy hut. Even though the blade does hover over the stones really nicely, sometimes it just hits the wrong angle and the blade hits the edge of the stepping stones. I'm just going to stay in this corner, but I think the suspense is building up now. I really want to know how much this is costing before I tackle the rest of the garden. Let's take a look at the other power that took. Let's see. Okay, 0.074 kilowatt hours. Okay, we're well on our way. Have we racked up any money? 1p. So, as I say, your circumstances may be different. Your mower might be different. I'm out of breath. Just from this small corner of the garden, that cost me 1p according to my calculations, which might not be the best, but I've got a very good feeling about this because yeah, this could be under a pound. Now, it's time to tackle the slightly longer grass around the monkey bars. It's the monkey bars which uh it's one of the first videos I made on this channel putting up these monkey bars. It must have been oh like 5 years ago. Uh but I... I didn't bother cutting this part of the lawn last time which was a few months ago. This is the longest grass. It's also probably in the sunniest part of the garden. And maybe that's why these grass stems have lots and lots of seed on them. And that seed is just flying up into my face as I'm mowing around the monkey bars. I keep telling myself that the more mowing that I do here means the less trimming or strimming around the monkey bars or the edge of the trampoline and edge of the garden. So that's a good morale booster just to keep me going with trying to throw this flymo over as many square meters of grass as possible. And come have a look. Let's see what it looks like now. I think that looks much better. Uh, I've left that patch there because this is this is Casper's massive hole. Look at that. He every time we fill it in, he just I mean, you can stand up in it. It's an absolute trench. Uh, so I used the strimmer for around there. But most importantly, most tantalizingly, how much power did that take? So, let's have a look now. 186 W. So, that means it is done 4p. So that section by the monkey bar cost us an extra 3p. Tackling now the area that is that always grows the longest in a tuft. The area around where the laundry washing stick, what do you call it? Washing line. Rotary washing dryer stands. We've got the cane showing me where the hole is because oh my goodness, we've lost this hole so many times. We've got the cane today. I'm going to take the cane out and just push forward. See if I can get a few more meters in. I'm actually against the clock now because we're due we're supposed to go go-karting. We booked some go-karts at 3:00. I think we need to be there extra early for all the safety briefings. So, I think this might be the last section that we do for now. And what can I tell you? I so don't want to do the mowing right now that we've just taken off for a few hours down to team sports carting in Gossports. Oh my goodness. This is fantastic. Uh, these are electric go-karts. I think I might release this as a as another video. So, I've gone from riding lawnmowers. I think I can now go back to pushing the lawn mower. Wish I could sit on it. Anyway, better better finish the lawn now. The total so far is just 5p. So, 5p for pretty much half the garden. Definitely a third of the garden. And the bit I need to do now is this stretch here. Let's start the the mower up. The problem with this section of the garden is because it's between two trees. It is really dusty and there are lots of sticks here. Lots of little sticks that get caught up by the Flymo blade. It copes with it, but it's just not pleasant cuz you got these sticks that just fly around and the dust that it kicks up. But I think this is the second worst part of the garden for grass seed for Casper's fur. So, if I can just take this down, I won't have to do it again this year, probably. So, we'll look at the scores on the doors or the energy on the the meter. That was one penny to do everything you just saw. So, we're up to 6p's worth of energy. Next, I'm out of breath. I think it's from holding the hover up um from trying to, you know, avoid hitting the the sticks and the dirt. And I can see I've missed all kinds of patches, but generally I've got it down. Now, we're on to this section. uh the section around the hut. I am really glad my son is doing this section of the garden because this is I think probably the most challenging. I really need a break. So this timing could not be better. The other bad thing is as well as all the other challenges of the sticks and the balls is that Casper likes to dig holes. So we've got trenches, hidden trenches in here that you can fall down and that you have to get the mower over and not have the mower fall down it. And my son is doing a brilliant job of taking down all the nettles that have uh that have grown. I think as well as a trimmer, I need to get my weed whacker to pull them out by the roots. But I've not found gloves yet to cope with the nettles that it manages to get in any pair of gloves that I've bought. Uh so I'll leave that job until the winter, I think. Uh anyway, he's making mincemeat out of all this grass, which is I'm just so thankful that he can he can do this. I really needed the break right now. Yeah. So, so it's gone from 6p to 10p. So, we're now up to 10p and we're in the final section. So, all that's left now is just the corner, the tree corner, which is covered in apples and balls and sticks. Great. Yes, I've done it. I've done it. I'm finished. Let's find the final total. take you over to the power adapter. I'll put a link, by the way, I'll put a link to this energy monitor down in the description where you could uh get one on Amazon. So, the grand total is 13. 13p to do all of this. Wow. Most of it, as much as I could bear for 13, honestly, I thought it would cost a lot more than that. And maybe it's a sign of my particular mower not being that powerful. It might encourage me even to do this more often. No, I'm calling this a Dad Delivers success. What do you think? Are you putting off doing your garden? Say hi in the comments. It be great to hear from you and great to hear your attitudes to the garden. And thank you for hitting the thumbs up or the subscribe button. It really helps me to keep this channel going. And right here is what YouTube knows you want to be watching next.

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