Lawn equipment maintenance - not sure where it will end up.....

So unless you are a condo or are an apartment dweller or can afford to have someone take care of your lawn you most likely have a couple of lawn related devices that need maintenance every year.  I have a number of items, the oldest, and most reliable, is a little 20” push mower that I bought brand new in 1991 for 79 bucks.   I also have a Snapper, with hydrostatic drive, a 38” deck and powering all that is 16 horse Briggs and Stratton industrial/commercial single cylinder engine, it is a 1997 model.  I also have a Troy Built Stick edger, that is a piece of shit but I can’t get it to stop working completely so I can’t discard it – yet.  I have a gas powered hedge trimmer as well, an old lawn-boy model that needs some work right now, it is about 12 years old.  I also have a backpack blower that, once properly tuned, will blow wind out of a modified nozzle at over 500 miles an hour – that thing is bad ass!!  The newest addition to the fleet is an Echo string trimmer that I bought about 4 years ago, it is a fine machine and has not given me one problem, yet. 

First and foremost it seems ridiculous that I need (or want) all those gadgets just to maintain my surroundings in an approved (by society) way that will not get me in trouble with the homeowners association.  I have written about that before, here is a link "lawn implements"  I have also written about my lawn mower by itself, here is link to that one "mower with hood scoop"  Ya know, after reading those two again I realized that I laughed all the way through - at the things I will write about, and I do know that something is wrong - I just do not care.  As a kid I occasionally worked on farms and I think I have more implements than some of the farmers I worked for. 

So when one’s stable of equipment is as large as mine it takes quite a bit of maintenance to keep them all running and happy.   Some folks may be able to take their machines to the shop every year to get “tuned up”, me I spent all the money I have buying them so can’t do that.  I have to maintain them myself so every year I spend a few bucks and a few hours and perform preventative and corrective maintenance on all of them.  As if late it seems to be getting ridiculously expensive to purchase the materials, I suppose the shops are charging more as well these days.   I spent, between two different stores, 80 bucks to buy some air and fuel filters, some spark plugs, edger blades and trimmer line and a quart of oil – 80 freakin dollars!!  I am still pissed off about it and that was yesterday I spent that money. 

I am upset at several things, the cost yes but also at the way these big box stores operate.  When I speak of big box stores in this case I am talking about Lowes and Home Depot.   I am also upset with the green revolution and what it has done to the cost of spark plugs and air filters.  Maybe I am just upset that I don’t make enough money to take my equipment someplace or to just have someone else maintain my yard.  Not sure but I think there is something more to that then I might want to admit. 

Anyway, I am not able to get all the pieces parts at one store, each of the BB stores carries certain brands and sometimes they match what I have, sometimes they don’t.  They change the brands they carry so often that it makes it impossible to plan on them having the thing you just bought from them yesterday.  They look for the products they can make the most margin with and that is what they are selling that week.  So I spend about 40 bucks at Lowes and that gets me the air filter for my lawn mower, the edger blades, tow of fuel filters and spark plugs for the 3 of my machines.  Not a normal old ordinary 99 cent spark plug, oh no you can’t buy those anymore as they do not burn 100% of the fuel and when they are used it creates unwanted emissions, more than my old Jalopy I am told but do not believe.  You have to buy the eco-friendly models that cost 6 bucks a pop – yeah for a lawn mower spark plug.  I remember when I was a kid we used to take the ones from a car we just tuned up and used them – for free!        

Next stop the Home Depot where I find no one to assist but do find the rest of the items I need.  The other spark plug, the trimmer line (titanium the box tells me although I doubt there is any titanium in the string) and one more air filter.  I have it all except the filter for the blower, evidently neither place carry that brand anymore so therefore they do not carry the replacement parts, silly bullshit in my opinion.  So on my way home I also stop at the auto parts store for a can of carb cleaner, it is half the price that the BB stores charge for it.  As I am riding along in silence I started to wonder how it can be that the air filter for my lawn mower costs more than the air filter AND oil filter combined that I use for the Jalopy – and those are Fram models not the knock off brands.  Mowers used to have a foam element for the air filter, once a year it would be pulled out, rinsed in leaded gas using our bare hands and then the gas and dirt were wrung out, right there in the grass and then that little wad of foam was reinstalled and voila’ another year of clean air was supplied to the mower.  And the thought of a fuel filter was unheard on a lawn mower or yard implement. 

So this morning I am sitting in the garage, surrounded by my 80 dollars’ worth of goodies getting ready to perform some maintenance.  So all the carburetors come off and get thoroughly cleaned and inspected for loose or broken parts, thank God today none were found.  After a couple of hours all the new parts were installed and all the machinery was looking cleaned up and ready for prime time.  I immediately set about mowing, edging, weed eating and blowing my yard.  Everything came out looking fabulous so I suppose the money was well spent, I am not sure I am 100% over it but I am getting there.  And what choice do I have really, to neglect routine maintenance will only shorten the life of the equipment and since I complaining about the 80 bucks you can guess that I do not have the cash to replace any of those items, so 80 bucks it is.

What do you spend to maintain your lawn equipment, or what do you pay to have it done?