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Summary
Gas mulching mowers are popular and efficient for lawn mowing. They are slightly more expensive and heavier than other powered mulching mowers, but offer significant power for challenging lawns. Many gas mulching mowers provide up to 4 different cutting options, including mulching, side and rear discharge.
Mulching benefits the lawn by providing moisture and nutrients to the soil, resulting in a healthier, greener, and thicker lawn while preventing weeds and disease. It also saves time and money by eliminating the need for chemical fertilizers.
Choosing the right gas mulching mower may seem daunting, but this article includes what to look for when making your selection.
What Is Mulching And Why Is Mulching So Critical For the Health Of Your Lawn?
Mulching returns essential nutrients and moisture to the soil, promoting a healthier, denser, and greener lawn. It provides better results than other cutting methods, is environmentally friendly, and reduces your carbon footprint. You won’t need to stop to empty your grass catcher bag or dispose of grass clippings, saving you time and money. Chemical fertilizers provide short-term benefits and can be harmful if not prepared correctly. Mulching also prevents weeds and lawn disease, and helps maintain moisture in the lawn during drier seasons.
Best Mulching Gas Lawn Mower List
What Is Important To Think About When Purchasing A Gas Mulching Mower?
Two Types Of Mulching Gas Mower
You can purchase a dedicated gas mulching mower, that will provide better mulching results, or a gas mulching mower with additional cutting methods. The latter option will provide diversity and will accommodate the changing seasons and conditions of your lawn.
Sometimes with gas mulching mowers you need to insert a mulching plug at the back of the mower, these can either be supplied with the mower or purchased as an optional extra. Other gas mowers will have the option to switch between all the cutting methods without having to insert a mulching plug (by using a lever mounted on the deck).
Size Of Your Lawn / Cutting Width
The size of your lawn needs to be compatible with the cutting width of the gas mulching mower.
If you have a large lawn you will be looking to purchase a mulching mower with a cutting width around 21 inches.
If your lawn is on the smaller side, the cutting width should be smaller.
The larger the cutting width the more grass the mower will cut on a single pass, meaning that it will get the job done much quicker.
Of course, you do not want to purchase a mower with a large cutting width for a small lawn, as it would be harder to reach small corners and will be heavier to maneuver around your yard. Not mentioning the larger storage needed.
Cutting Height
Cutting height is another important area to consider. Some gas mulching mowers are provided with as little as 3 cutting height adjustments, where others have extremely generous range up to 10 cutting heights.
Depending on your lawn maintenance regime and type of grass you have, I would suggest that your gas mower should have around 5 cutting heights at least.
Also consider if you have one lever changing the height of all 4 wheels simultaneously, which is much easier and faster to do, or if you have to adjust each wheel separately. With some gas mulching mowers changing the height is extremely simple and smooth, with others it can feel a little trickier.
When cutting your lawn, do not forget about the 1/3 rule, meaning that you should only cut 1/3 of the total length of the grass during each mowing session. The reason for this is to ensure your grass is less stressed, maintains its moisture and remains healthier.
Mulching Blades
With mulching mowers, the blade has to cut the grass many times before the pieces are small enough to be returned to the ground. It means that the blade will become dull quicker compared to other cutting methods. Although gas mulching mowers are provided with good quality steel blade, the blade will still need to be sharpened or replaced periodically. Replacement blades are cheap and easy to replace. Sharpening can be done by anyone with basic DIY skills.
Before purchasing your gas mulching mower, you should check the availability of the replacement blades (not an issue with most manufacturers).
Just remember, that a blade on a mulching machine is designed differently to a mower that doesn’t have a mulching ability.
Other Cutting Features
As already mentioned above many gas mulching mowers provide flexibility of up to 4 different mowing features from the most common “cut & collect”, to “mulching”, “side discharge” and “rear discharge”.
What may be suitable for my yard may not be suitable for yours, but prior to purchasing your mower consider what other cutting features, if any, you may require.
Self-Propulsion
It is not a secret that gas mowers are not the lightest mowers available on the market. If your lawn is large or you have physical difficulties then considering a gas mower with self-propulsion is likely to be a good idea. Of course, they are going to be a little more expensive.
When considering self-propulsion, also consider if you need a variable speed option. Basically, this means that you can adjust the speed of the gas mower to suit your walking pace. There is nothing worse than feeling that the mower is running away from you. This feature is also convenient when mowing up or down a slope, where you may want to reduce the speed.
Vertical Storage
This feature is most probably not important for most, but if you are short of storage space you may want to purchase a gas mulching mower with this option. Basically, it means that the mower is folded flat and then can be tilted on its rear wheels for reduced vertical storage. This can be seen on the Craftsman 11A-U2V2791.
Larger Rear Wheels
Many gas mowers have the same size wheels, but there are some with much larger rear wheels. Why is this? Larger rear wheels will provide more stability and better grip for your gas mulching mower. As a result, maneuvering your mower will become easier with less effort required.
Hose Wash Port
This feature is not known by many homeowners. To be honest with you not many gas mowers have this feature. In summary, it means that you can connect your gas mower to your garden hose for easy cleaning. This wash port cleaning process will ensure that your mower’s deck is clean and debris free and the blade remains sharp and in the best possible condition.
Of course, this is not a must as it can be done manually, but for sure another nice to have feature.
Electric Start
On a few domestic gas mulching mowers you will have the option of an electric start.
This option is in addition to the recoil start. If you do not have the physical ability to pull the cord to start the engine multiple times, or simply find it easier just to push a button to start your beast, then you should definitely consider this option. There is no denying that a gas mulching mower with this feature will be around 15% more expensive.
Conclusion
You can see that there are many reasons why you should consider purchasing a gas mulching mower.
Of course, there are electric, cordless, robotic and manual push mowers with the mulching ability too, however the gas mower is undoubtedly the most powerful and effective on the market.
Once you have chosen your gas mulching mower, you will soon start to see all the benefits mulching provides including healthier, greener and denser lawn.
If you have any questions you would like to ask, feel free to use the comment’s box below – I will be happy to respond. Alternatively, you can head over to my easy-to-use lawn mower selection tool to quickly and easily shortlist your perfect gas mulching mower, by clicking the image link below.
