63 Facts About The Lawn Mowing Business That Will Blow Your Mind or Put You to Sleep.
A macro, micro and personal observation about the small niche industry that you might find interesting.
Macro facts about the lawn mowing business.
- Common manufactures that make mowers are: Toro, Craftsman, Husqvarna, Stihl, and Honda.
2. The most common push mowers are 22-inch in blade length.
3. Given a 15-point data of lawn mowing seasons from cities in Alaska, to Florida, the average mowing weeks is 33 weeks.
4. Briggs & Stratton are a third party company that makes engine parts for Toro and other similar style push mowers.
5. A Toro 22-inch, self propelled, gas powered mower, brand new, currently retails at $399 at the time of this writing.
6. The mower mention above is 117 lbs in weight
7. 87 unleaded gas is used for fuel for the mower.
8. 91 non-oxygenated gasoline can also be used for better performance, and promises of first pull starts, but burns more fuel.
9. 50:1 or 40:1 oil gas mix is used for trimmer and leaf blower or 2-cycle engines.
10. Insurance for the business: you will need two types of policies: general liability and equipment coverage.
11. Most push mowers have a 7-point height adjuster.
12. A, B, C, D, E, F, G are its indicator on each wheel.
13. Old mowers have no letters and you will have to count and match the notches for an even height.
14. The lowest is A which is roughly .5 inch cut. G is roughly 4.5 inches high cut.
15. Front self-propelled mowers work by a belt that works in conjunction with spinning gears from pistons.
16. Rear self propelled are used by a motor activated by the push bar.
17. The oil tank reservoir in typical push mower is 20 oz.
18. Grass get its green color from a natural chemical in its plant cell, chlorophyll.
19. During a nice hydrated condition, grass grows at a rate of ⅕ inch per day.
20. During a dry season grass turns a spotty orange to bright yellow.
21. The iconic, usually red shell the the engine sit on is called, the deck.
22. According to Ring Central, the entire lawn care industry is estimated at $98 billion dollars with lawn mowing alone can be added up to $503 dollars per year.
23. Englishman, Edwin Beard Budding invented the first lawn mower in 1830.
24. Kentucky bluegrass is the most common type of grass in America, however that could vary state by state.
25. Merriam- Webster describes a lawn mower as: a machine for cutting grass on lawns.
26. Wikipedia describes a lawn mower or lawn cutter as a machine utilizing one or more revolving blades to cut a grass surface for even height.
Micro facts about the lawn mowing business.
27. Most of my clients choose the bi-weekly payment option.
28. 70% of my clients choose the two-payment installment plan.
29. In Minnesota, a person does not need to be licensed by the state to provide lawn mowing service.
30. In Minnesota, a person does need to be licensed to fertilize someone else’s lawn as a business.
31. In Minnesota, a person does need to be licensed to provide landscaping services.
32. 76 qt is my preferred bin container to hold my other gear equipment.
33. My mower is a Toro 20-inch Super Recycler.
34. Battery powered blower and trimmer are pretty good against gas powered blower and trimmer, in my opinion.
35. I’ve never bought any of my big equipment brand new, ever.
36. The average price for a good lawn mower on Facebook Marketplace is $80.
37. I usually cut a ‘C’ on all my lawns which is bout 1.5–1.75 inches tall grass height.
38. I walk about a 3–4 mph, speed walk behind the mower.
39. For my ramp, 2 x 8 wood stud is drastically much heavier than a 2 x 6 wood stud.
40. I earn revenue by selling lawn mowing contracts.
41. After interviewing all my clients, the most important thing to them aside from actually preforming the service is: good communication.
42. The most common obstructing items on a lawn are: lawn chairs, gutter extenders, signs in yards and utility flags.
43. Silky makes fantastic folding serrated saws.
44. Most of my clients prefer online payments.
45. PayPal and Venmo are equally used.
46. I work off of a 22-week seasonal cycle.
47. Taking an average of all my urban lawns the cutting surface is: 3400 square feet.
48. Taking average of all my suburban lawns the cutting surface is: 7800 square feet.
49. Surprisingly, online tools such as Canva, HelloSign and Google spreadsheets are very valuable to use.
50. My flyers must always contain my clear offers.
51. In my opinion an urban lawn is characterized by: smaller lot size, row line formation next to house, close to metropolitan city, sidewalk and a detached garage.
52. In my opinion, a suburban lawn is characterized by: larger lot size, more curvy streets, further from metropolitan or capital city area and an attached garage.
53. The most common types of lawns are: urban, suburban, farmland and commercial.
54. I only work on urban and suburban lawns.
55. 40% of my clients wants their clippings to be bagged.
56. If I type ‘how many residential lots in Minneapolis’ Google shows me: 14,000 lawns.
Non-related facts about the lawn mowing business.
57. Favorite drinks while on the job is: water and crystal Gatorade.
58. So far, we’ve never had a running dog come chase after me or my children while mowing.
59. Believe it or not, our old minivan’s air conditioning was not working anymore and even blew out hot air! Coming from a lawn job in August, it was memorable and miserable. We always had the windows down.
60. One time I broke a client’s equipment, I will write a more full story on Medium in the future.
61. The most common questions my children ask me before mowing is: ‘Which lawns are we mowing today again?”
62. When I mow solo, the thing I dislike is opening the ramp kit boards.
63. One of my favorite parts running a small lawn mowing business with my children is the funny conversations we have riding back home.
If you need a more visual aspect of what I do, check my YouTube channel where I cover lawn mowing topics almost daily.
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