Strimmers? Any recommendations?

Mark M · 6 May 2018 at 19:14

Been looking at a black and decker one with a wheel on to do the grass edges too but the reviews on Amazon all seem to say that you have to buy the official cartridges and they are really expensive. I guess it’s a similar thing to printer consumables? Is there a strimmer that you can wind your own line onto that is equivalent to a B&D or better? Ideally looking to keep it to about £70 and happy to go with electric over petrol/battery if it gets me a better strimmer.

HardwareGeek · 6 May 2018 at 19:50

Which? has these highest scores for about £70

Bosch ART 35 HD - 83% - £82 - £95 - cons - Tricky to control on a vertical lawn edge
Ryobi RLT6030 - 79% - £59 - cons - Heavy, hard to replace the cutting line

Would imagine petrol and battery are gonna be more than £70ish

jellybeard999 · 6 May 2018 at 20:51

Neighbour has this one and was raving about how good it is the other day

https://www.screwfix.com/p/mac-allister-mgtp18li-18v-2-0ah-li-ion-cordless-grass-trimmer/5071r

Noticed a Makita petrol model on the Screwfix page for £100 also which may be worth looking at

Shoeyuk · 6 May 2018 at 20:59

Got one of these https://www.sgs-engineering.com/garden-tools/strimmers/sst520-52cc-petrol-strimmer find the big blade attachment handy for the medow our the back.

my only criticism is that I find it hard to balance as I’m a fairly short however my neighbour borrowed it and is 6 foot tall and found it fine.

rexehuk · 6 May 2018 at 21:38

I've got the titan multi tool and it's great. Can get that at screwfix also

platypus · 7 May 2018 at 13:45

jellybeard999 said:
Neighbour has this one and was raving about how good it is the other day

https://www.screwfix.com/p/mac-allister-mgtp18li-18v-2-0ah-li-ion-cordless-grass-trimmer/5071r

Noticed a Makita petrol model on the Screwfix page for £100 also which may be worth looking at

If you buy the Macallister one, budget in for replacing it in a years time.

toprock · 9 May 2018 at 16:51

Where do you guys usually use a strimmer? I use lawnmower on the lawn and up to the edges, then a pair of long handled edging scissors to neaten the border edge.

rexehuk · 9 May 2018 at 17:27

toprock said:
Where do you guys usually use a strimmer? I use lawnmower on the lawn and up to the edges, then a pair of long handled edging scissors to neaten the border edge.

When you garden is an ex quarry with rocks the size of your house. It's the only way in my garden!

Thebug · 9 May 2018 at 22:34

We have the 36v black and decker brilliant strimmer very powerfull can defiantly tell the difference from the £50 one we had before but costs around £120, wouldn't have another bosch one as the spool kept dropping off every few mins

uchuff · 10 May 2018 at 08:04

I’ve got the macallister one. It’s ok, cuts grass, but doesn’t really feel like it’s got much power compared to the old corded black and decker we got donated when we first moved in here. Also the moving end bit doesn’t click into place anymore. I’d probably look for a better one if buying again, but it does for now.

Squid Vicious · 10 May 2018 at 08:28

rexehuk said:
I've got the titan multi tool and it's great. Can get that at screwfix also

Little over budget but also have this and very pleased with it, strimmer, hedge trimmer and brush cutter all work well.

sovietspybob · 10 May 2018 at 10:55

I've got essentially the screwfix titan multi tool, it looks to be exactly the same thing but was from eBay for about £40 cheaper.

I find it very good but quite heavy when used just as a strimmer tbh, i have strimmed down 1/4 of an acre of waist high grass the year before last with mine. However i am quite tempted to get a Ryobi One+ strimmer as well as i already have other Ryobi stuff so have batteries so i could just touch up edges and around the bottom of the trees in my orchard without having to get all geared up and mix petrol etc.

I think it depends how much you need to cut?

GinG · 10 May 2018 at 11:40

I just use my £15 Bosch to strim the edges of our lawn...it looks like with inflation it is around £20 now on Amazon.

Am I missing out on using more expensive ones?!

iMacMart · 16 May 2018 at 12:22

Whats better petrol or battery, petrol being noisy and hard to get the right fuel/oil mix and battery as it heavier (i'd imagine) and wouldn't last as long

I'm in the market for a strimmer not looking to spend more then £150 I'd say

Sorry to hijack btw

rexehuk · 16 May 2018 at 13:13

iMacMart said:
Whats better petrol or battery, petrol being noisy and hard to get the right fuel/oil mix and battery as it heavier (i'd imagine) and wouldn't last as long

I'm in the market for a strimmer not looking to spend more then £150 I'd say

Sorry to hijack btw

I've had no issues with my titan... And mixing fuel isn't exactly rocket science! Just ratios.

As above it is a bit heavy when you run the max length strimmer, but does come with a harness which takes the load off.

Yaayuh! · 16 May 2018 at 13:19

I have both petrol and battery. I use the battery for 90% of the strimming because it's less powerful and less cumbersome. We have a lot of wood in our garden, a petrol strimmer will wreck and ruin it, so we use the battery powered one for the edging and petrol one for weed whacking the track up to our house.

The battery strimmer is just a Qualcast 36v thing we bought 4 years ago on a whim. One of the best purchases tbh. Battery is holding up fine, the wire reels are cheap, easy to get (from amazon usually, in bulk) and simple to change over.
The battery is a Li-ion and the auto-feed wire works a treat.

iMacMart · 16 May 2018 at 13:27

rexehuk said:
I've had no issues with my titan... And mixing fuel isn't exactly rocket science! Just ratios.

As above it is a bit heavy when you run the max length strimmer, but does come with a harness which takes the load off.

Read reviews about the ratio being hard to gauge but they are just reviews after all

Rossi~ said:
I have both petrol and battery. I use the battery for 90% of the strimming because it's less powerful and less cumbersome. We have a lot of wood in our garden, a petrol strimmer will wreck and ruin it, so we use the battery powered one for the edging and petrol one for weed whacking the track up to our house.

The battery strimmer is just a Qualcast 36v thing we bought 4 years ago on a whim. One of the best purchases tbh. Battery is holding up fine, the wire reels are cheap, easy to get (from amazon usually, in bulk) and simple to change over.

Will check those out!

ZXSpectrum · 16 May 2018 at 13:39

I hate these things with a passion. I don't know if its just me but my god. I have had auto feed lines, manual etc but they all stop working quickly. The twine gets tangled up inside the cartridge and doesn't feed causing it to snap. Often this happens every meter or so of edge. The ones with plastic tabs are better but they even have flaws with the little bits the tabs fix on snapping off.

just get some sheers.. lol

iMacMart · 16 May 2018 at 15:14

ZXSpectrum said:
I hate these things with a passion. I don't know if its just me but my god. I have had auto feed lines, manual etc but they all stop working quickly. The twine gets tangled up inside the cartridge and doesn't feed causing it to snap. Often this happens every meter or so of edge. The ones with plastic tabs are better but they even have flaws with the little bits the tabs fix on snapping off.

just get some sheers.. lol

OK so was yours petrol or battery :confused:

ZXSpectrum · 17 May 2018 at 09:00

I had a battery one with tabs but the battery died and had a couple of Bosch/B&D electric with twine..