Why do commercial mowers cut so fast and the lawn looks so great compared to my residential tractor or zero turn mower in Wadsworth Ohio?

Commercial Grade Mowers

Commercial mowers can cost as much as a compact car. In our area the mowing season is usually 30 to 35 weeks depending on the weather we have here in Wadsworth Ohio. A full time lawn care provider usually cuts somewhere between 70 to 100 lawns in a week in Wadsworth OH. A commercial mower will mow around 3000 lawns in a single year. Compared to a homeowner mower of mowing around 30 mows in a year. So a commercial mower does up to 100 years worth of mowing in a year compared to a residential model. Their steel will be 3 to 4 times thicker over residential grade mower. All other components are made for harsh commercial settings to take the abuse they need to take to provide a reliable service for the contractor and their customers.

Engineering of equipment

Commercial mower manufactures spend countless hours of engineering and millions of dollars designing the perfect mower decks. They are able to design completely different decks compared to residential models because of the thickness of steel and engines that are installed on commercial mowers. Even when a residential grade engine has the same horsepower rating as a commercial engine. The commercial engine will always have a higher blade tip speed and torque rating. A higher blade tip speed simply spins the mower blades faster and this is called blade tip speed. Usually 2 to 3 times faster over a residential model.

Commercial equipment will often have heavier blades on verses a residential deck with more blades spinning in the same size mower deck. By having multiple blades versus one and having a higher blade tip speed allows the deck to have more suction. Which in turn cuts the grass clippings into smaller pieces, more suction to stand the grass up better, leave stripes in the grass and will leave a more level cut. More torque gives it the ability to power through thicker or taller grass and is always helpful when it come to fall leaf clean ups.

Commercial mowers use individual hydraulic pumps and motors for each drive tire to power it. The same hydraulics seen in all heavy duty industrial or construction equipment. This makes the equipment reliable, agile and very fast combined with the commercial grade engines. Due to the quality of construction, added safety features and specific engineering of commercial mowers they have perfected hill side stability very well. This allows the operators to safely climb hills, banks and ditches that a normal garden tractor or residential grade Zero-Turn could not or should not due to the risk of sliding or rolling over.

Residential vs Commercial Equipment

So in reflection it's just completely unreasonable for a homeowner to purchase commercial grade mower but a necessity for a mowing contractor to purchase. Typical residential grade mowers are designed to hold up for about 300 mows and never designed to be bounced around in a commercial environment or on a trailer. Residential mowers would not hold up for a long in a commercial environment but a homeowner with a commercial mower will be passing on the mower 10 generations down in their family!

Even though a commercial mower is expensive at first for a contractor they get their monies worth out of it eventually. This why they can be very reasonably priced to customers because of the longevity of the mower and speed. The maintenance intervals also help the contractor because they need maintained less frequently than a residential mower. Many times it is cheaper to hire a mowing contractor to mow your lawn than doing mowing yourself. Plus hiring a professional with commercial equipment will produce better results on your lawn.