I have a fairly nice lawn mower I bought a couple of years ago and want it to last as long as possible. What’s the best way to keep it operating for years to come?
“The biggest thing is to service it regularly,” advises Craig Addie, owner of Cleve Addie Inc. of Little Rock, which services and sells outdoor power equipment. “Make sure you annually change the oil, change the air filter and sharpen the blade.”
After that, Addie suggests buying quality gasoline sold from major brands such as Exxon, Shell and Texaco. And buying gas containing the least amount of ethanol.
“Ethanol is only good for two [groups of] people — farmers and me,” the mower repairman says, referring to the corn that is used in the gas additive.
“It’s alcohol,” Addie says of ethanol. “And outdoor power equipment is not designed to run on it; it gathers moisture and moisture causes corrosion.”
“From my experience with it, it eats up rubber and plastic and damages primer bulbs and fuel lines.”
In many states, the standard gasoline at the pump has 10 percent ethanol, known as E10 fuel, explains an article, “Ethanol and Its Effects on Outdoor Power Equipment” on tractorsupply.com. The article advises never purchasing gas with more than 10 percent ethanol for outdoor power equipment. An option for those who live in a state that mandates ethanol blends (usually states in the Corn Belt) is to buy “nonoxygenated” fuel, an ethanol-free fuel that has been approved for use in outdoor power equipment and recreational vehicles such as boats, motorcycles and off-road vehicles.
For a list of Arkansas gas stations selling ethanol-free gas, search the Internet for websites such as pure-gas.com, which offers a list of stations in the U.S. and Canada offering ethanol-free gas.
What about washing off a mower after cutting the grass?
“If you mow the grass when it’s wet, make sure you clean off the underneath of it,” Addie says, “because that will cause rust to develop. But if the grass is dry when you mow, you really don’t have to worry about that.” Do you have a decorating or remodeling question? We’ll get you an answer from an authority. Send your question to Linda S. Haymes, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, P.O. Box 2221, Little Rock, Ark. 72203 or email:
lhaymes@arkansasonline.com