MOWER REVIEW! 21 VS 30 Inch Push Mower!

Hey everybody, this is Lee with Augusta of Whatcom county, the office manager here. And so today we're actually going to do a little bit of equipment video. So recently we decided we were going to switch almost completely to trailerless setups. And so with the trailerless setup, we still wanted to do somewhat larger properties. Not necessarily, you know, 15,000, 20,000, 30,000 up square foot lawns like we have done in the past. But the reason we did that is because we want to simplify our services. We want to have everyone on trailerless setups. We, we want a new employee who's only been here two to three weeks to be profitable. Within two to three weeks, they can hop on a truck. All they need to know is how to drive a truck that has a mower mounted on the back, but still be able to do some of those larger properties, you know, 10,000, 15,000 square feet. And the 30x is going to be really comparable to that of the zero turn on those size properties. And this is the Honda 21 inch mower. And this is what we're transitioning from. We are still going to keep these in the fleet and they will still be our backups because they're just a great product overall. So basically we're just going to get into a little bit of comparison. Not going to get too much into the weeds on the specs, the horsepower, things like that. But we're just going to look at it. From the observation of things I've heard from the crew, what they like about them, what they don't like about them, and what works for us and part of the reason why we're switching to the 30x. So we'll hop here onto the the Honda first. So the Honda is going to have an in house engine on it. It's going to have the Honda HRC 216. I'm not sure the horsepower, like I said off the top of my head, not going to get too much into the specs on it, but very reliable motor, really nice. As far as replacement, we have had to replace these in the past due to some error on our part as well as to just mechanical wear and tear. But the nice thing about this whole motor itself, I mean that's gonna come with your motor, your crankshaft, your pull cord, everything that comes attached to the actual motor itself. You can get this whole thing replaced at our local shop for only 500 bucks. So that's really great. The overall value of this mower just kind of depends on where you are purchasing it. Anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 is kind of the range we found for these guys. Just a really solid mower this, that the folks like here at Augusta. And Honda is a great name that a lot of landscapers trust. You know, standard bagging system on the back of this guy. One thing that the crew really likes up here in Washington, we mow in really wet conditions. So the gas cap has a seal and valve on it that can be taken out and blown out to make sure that it's nice and dry on those wet days. To make sure you're still getting a good vacuum seal on the gas cap. They really like that feature as well as the whole air filter comes off really simply with those little wing nuts there. That. That way we can blow that out on cold, wet days as well. Really simple oil on the side here that we can check the oil in the field. So that's a really nice feature as well. And overall, the machine itself, really lightweight. So we really like that feature. Especially when you're mowing on a wetter property and you need to maybe lift up the back end a little bit. The lower weight is really nice to be able to make sure you're not leaving ruts and taking a little bit of weight off. And one man can pick this thing up and put it in the back of a truck if he needs to. But it's really light on ramps and other things like that. They are pretty fast. They have four independent adjusters, so you can adjust all four wheels differently, which is really nice. There's no single rod on the front or back hydrostatic blades. So turn off, turn on really quickly, which is really nice. A nice wide chute here in the back. I'll show you that real quick. So this is really nice for us in the wetter conditions. That's a really wide chute for a commercial mower that we found one of the widest on 21 inches. So we really like that, that, you know, when it's wet conditions, it doesn't clump up too fast. So we like that bag's really light, really sturdy. We actually haven't broken a bag at all this season. So I'm really impressed with the bag just overall. Couple of these Hondas are two years old, and we have not replaced a single bag yet, nor the frame. The only thing we have replaced on the bag, just these little pins. But those are, you know, 50 cents at our local supplier, so nothing big there. These bags are actually really sturdy. We really like that about the Hondas. And then last thing I want to touch on here with the Honda is going to be the throttle control. So. So this was the biggest flaw I saw when buying the Hondas originally. I really like that here you have a really simple stop, slow, fast and choke adjuster. That part is really nice. However, you can see here, this one is broken. So this orange one used to be a little bit longer, like this one, have a big pedal on it to be able to adjust. But it does have, I think it's like an eight different speed setting for the drivetrain, which is really nice. You. So if you want to go really fast, you push that all the way forward. If you want to go a little bit slower or you're going up, down a steep hill or something, you can obviously put it in the slower position. That is a really nice feature to have the variable speeds. However, these are plastic and they do break pretty easily. We have found overall back's pretty straightforward. Everyone knows engaging the blades, engaging the drive. So the nice thing about these guys is that you can also keep the blades disengaged while engaging the drive. So that is really nice as well. So that's the Honda. We still really like them. We're gonna keep them as backups. But let's move over to kinda what we're transitioning to, which is the 30x, that's our nickname for it. So this is gonna be the Exmark 30 inch mower. And this has the cooler Command Pro engine on it. So a little bit bigger, a little more powerful of an engine. Part of the reason we went to that is because we are in wetter conditions, we know we're gonna need maybe a little bit more power for those clippings. So this one's really nice as well. And got your air filter, nice large gas tank. So you can do pretty big properties with this guy without having to worry about refueling the gas. They burn really efficiently. So that's nice. The one thing that is different as far as just the exterior looking at here is the two front wheels are independent. You can adjust the height on those either way. But the back wheels actually are a singular adjustment. So if you do want to adjust the back wheels, they are singular. Another thing I will point out, the Honda does not have a side discharge function. The 30x does. So you actually can slip this cover off and install a side discharge. Excuse me. And that way if you don't have to bag clippings in your environment, that is a really nice feature for us. We do have to bag here in Washington. It's great feature if you're going to side discharge and we do side discharge a couple of larger properties. So it's great to have that. Whereas the Honda just does mulching and basically the clippings lay over the grass you have just cut. So overall this guy is going to be a lot heavier, not only in weight but also in the price tag. For this guy, you're looking at about 2,500 out the door at our local shop. Some places, you know, 22 to 28 we've seen online. For us about 2,500 like that. It has a nice rigid frame to it. You can pull here in the front, has side braces as well and the back is really sturdy and really nice. However, you aren't going to be able to lift this guy by yourself. You are going to want a second person. So if you ever needed to lift it, put it in the back of the truck. I would recommend getting a second person because it is pretty heavy. The nice thing about this guy, one of my favorite features is the double blade system underneath. So the double blades underneath are going to make that cleaner, more zero turn, like cut because you get two blades spinning, which makes a nice wider path. And obviously because it's 30 inches, you're getting 9 more inches of cutting space technically compared to the Honda 21. So we like that. That increases our route efficiency, that we can cut the smaller lawns a lot faster and still move really quickly with this guy on more zero turn properties. If you look at some of the zero turn properties, the biggest advantage this one is going to have over zero turn properties is when those properties have lots of oddly shaped garden beds, trees in the middle of the lawn, lawn ornaments, kids toys, trampolines, whatever it may be. This is where we take advantage of the 30x compared to a zero turn, a zero turn you have to make those three point turns. You get stuck between a garden bed and a tree, you have to get out, you have to weed whack this tiny little area. This guy can go just about anywhere the 21 inch can go, but cut so much faster and a lot cleaner. And overall we just really like this guy. Couple other features here. I'll show you the chute, just like I did the Honda. Nice hard metal backing here, so pretty much wide open bag there you can see. So that allows for quite a bit of clippings. And then the chute there also very wide, a little bit dirty, but overall very, very wide shoot as well. Wider. Just about as wide as the 21 though. So the 21 really isn't much smaller. Than this. However, the bag is a hair bigger on the backside here. Want to just show you this real quick. It does have a parking brake, which is really nice. So if you are on a hill, you can engage that and then it's not going to go anywhere. And then when you engage the blades, you just have to take the parking brake off and then you can engage your throttle. So overall, we really like them both. There are pros and cons to both. It depends on the market you're getting into. For us, we switch to something with a little bit more power that's going to be able to cut slightly bigger properties but still leave really nice clean lines. But if you're doing a lot of smaller properties and just want to start with something that's a little more cost effective, we're going to recommend, obviously swinging over and grabbing one of those Hondas. Just one of the most reliable mowers in the game today. This guy. You know, the cooler engine is a little bit newer. We have had some finicky issues we've had to work out with it. Overall, we really like it. But you can't beat the reliability of the Honda. They're a great mower. And the price tag you can't beat as well. However, we're switching to this guy because we're willing to pay that little bit higher price to simplify our services and really standardize all our equipment. I hope that helped out. Guys. Feel free to, like, share, leave a comment and subscribe. We'll see you next time.