"jane" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 8 Jun 2005 08:58:25 +0100, "Richard" wrote:

~Hi. It's fairly important that any trimmer I buy cuts quite a lot of
~grass, because often I'm cutting down the grass of the whole garden,
not
~just trimming the edges.
~
~I was wanting a cordless trimmer, and was going to buy a Black and
~Decker strimmer, which would have cut 36 sq mtrs, and would have
lasted,
~well I think about 20 minutes or so. I decided against that because
I
~thought one charge might not see me complete the front garden, so I
went
~and bought a Bosch ACCUTRIMM. Now, this has blades rather then a
line,
~and I believe is therfore much more efficient that the strimmer.
Now,
~I'm not sure how many sq mtrs of grass this will cut, but it mentions
~800 mtrs for light grass, I think it was 300 mtrs for medium, and
about
~80mtrs I think for long grass. All that's mentioned is metres, no
~mention of sq metrs.
~
~Before I open the box on my Bosch, did I do right in buying the
ACCUTRIM
~trimmer? I've a front and back garden each about 50 sq metres in
area.
~I wonder if the ACCUTRIM might do them both with one charge, if the
~grass is say medium. Maybe not, but I'm hoping that the ACCUTRIM is
at
~least as good as the the B&D strimmer in how much grass it will cut.
~TIA. Rich.

I once had a cordless strimmer. It would cut most grass for the first
few minutes then would perceptibly slow down until it wouldn't have
cut anything including melted butter.
Even at full charge when new it couldn't really cope with stalky
grass. I was doing half a plot (bought it for the allotment paths) and
then having to go home, charge for 8 hours and then go back to finish.
After about 6 months the accumulated charge was so little, that I
could only get about 5 minutes before it was no use. Tried all the
tricks to get it to recharge but no use.

I junked it and bought a cheap petrol line strimmer. Two years down
the line I use it regularly, it's way more powerful than the electric
ones (even corded!) and not very heavy (I bought it the year I did my
back in and it was easy to use even afterwards). Fuelwise it costs
maybe a couple of quid a season for unleaded and two-stroke oil and a
few quid for line. I wish I'd bought it to begin with. Though you MUST
have hearing and vision protection for a petrol strimmer!

I would say that you'd be better off with a petrol strimmer, honestly.
My cheapo McCulloch (Argos do them) can cope with stony ground (the
blades on the Accutrim I can see having severe problems with stones
blunting them) and long grass if you strim side to side and don't let
it get tangled up...

Sorry to be so negative about cordless, but I wasted £50 on one and
I'd hate for anyone else to get caught out when they have a chance to
swap for what is in my opinion a better product. If you have the
cash, Stihl do very good ones.


Thanks for your experience.

I'm hoping someone with an ACCUTRIM can pipe up and give a usage report.

I'm not cutting rough ground, so I should not have a stone problem. In
fact, if I keep up with the lawn, I should then only need to use the
trimmer to trim, rather than cut the whole plot. It's just that I do
tend to find myself letting the grass get too long, and then I have to
use a trimmer/strimmer to cut the lawn.