On Sun, 24 Jul 2011 16:29:30 +0100, john thompson wrote:

We need to buy a strimmer for a very overgrown garden and will need the
stronger type I believe called a 'brush cutter' for some heavier work.

How big a garden? What is the garden overgrown with, just tussocky
grass, nettles or brambles?

Nettles will make a small petrol one struggle an ordinary electric
just won't cut it. Brambles being "woody" need a disc/blade based
cutting head.

If you don't envisage needing a brush cutter machine in the future
I'd hire to do the clearance and buy a petrol one for keeping things
in check afterwards.

I used an B&D electric one once, feed it more than half a dozen
blades of grass (blades not stems...) and it would struggle. Maybe
you can get electric ones with decent sized motors (1kW) that would
do better. Petrol is noisey and you have to faff about with fuel/oil
mixtures but you have complete freedom and no cable to get tangled in
the way etc.

--
Cheers
Dave.