If you’re a homeowner, you’re likely obsessed with mowing your lawn. That being said, it’s important that you also take the time to take care of your mower effectively. To help you out on this journey, here’s a handy nine-step guide on simple lawn mower maintenance needs every homeowner is likely to deal with:
Know When to Call a Pro
Although a lot of lawn mower maintenance can be done from home, this is not always the case. If you’re feeling lost, intimidated, or unsafe when approaching your lawn mower, it’s best to call a professional lawn mower repair service in your area. They can ensure you’re ready to mow in no time!
A 9-Step Guide to Simple Lawn Mower Maintenance
1. Check on Your Air Filters
If you want your mower to run smoothly, and you want to avoid grass clumps in your undercarriage, you have to keep your air filters clear, clean, and functional. Knowing when to replace them is key as well. As you gain experience mowing your lawn, you’ll get more and more insight into when and how to change your air filters. Always buy top-tier brands to ensure your filters last for a long time as well. This will make your lawn look professional and sharp!
2. Handle Your Oil
Just as you would with a car, changing your oil from time to time is crucial. Especially for push mowers, changing the oil every fifty hours of use or so is highly recommended. If you fail to change the oil often enough, your mower will start to perform poorly, and you’ll be using way more gas than normal. Additionally, this could lead to issues with the motor that could effectively total your mower.
3. Keep Your Blades Sharp
For a perfect, even cut, you’ll need your mower’s blades to be nice and sharp. By sharpening the blades where they’re dull, and by ensuring that you’re not damaging them by mowing over rough terrain, you’ll get the most out of your mowing efforts, after all. If you want to, it’s fairly simple to sharpen blades with the right tools, but many people go straight to lawn mower repair services to get this job done.
4. Use Quality Fuel Treatment
If you want your lawn mower to run efficiently, and not become a gas guzzler, you’ll need to treat your fuel from time to time. Gasoline can go stale fast (in as little as a month even), so using fuel treatment when you have extra gas that’s been sitting in your mower for a while, is a great way to save money and keep your mower in tip-top condition. Just make sure you find a brand that’s right for the specific time of motor your lawn mower uses.
5. Clean the Undercarriage
One of the core mistakes homeowners make with mowers (especially push mowers) is failing to take care of the mower’s undercarriage. Especially if you mow frequently, or are mowing grass that you’ve let get particularly high up, you’ll need to take frequent breaks to ensure grass clumps and other mower-hurting obstructions are not building up in the undercarriage. Always use caution when cleaning the undercarriage, and professional products, to ensure you get the job done right.
6. Check the Spark Plugs
If you’re using a product with a motor, you always need to stay aware of your spark plugs (and a mower is no different in this regard). Taking the time to check the state of your spark plugs a few times a year can keep you mowing consistently and efficiently, after all. Thankfully, if you do have issues with your spark plugs, they are easy to replace and repair. And they’re fairly cheap to buy as well!
7. Store Your Mower Properly
Whether you’re storing your mower for the season, or just a week, storing it properly is essential to keeping it in working condition for the future. Especially in the wintertime, you need to ensure it’s placed somewhere where it’s on its side, drained of fuel, and ready to sit dormant for a few weeks (if not months).
8. Always use the Right Fuel
Every mower has different needs when it comes to fuel and oil. To ensure your mower is running as efficiently as possible, you’ll need to research what products to buy. If you simply look up the make and model of your mower (and its motor), an employee at a mower repair service should have the ability to point you in the right direction.
9. Keep Up-to-Date with General Maintenance Needs
Lastly, you must dedicate yourself to checking on your mower’s general maintenance needs from time to time. Every other mowing session, you should be performing a quick spot check to see if any potential issues are affecting your mower. The sooner you get them fixed, the better.
