Any recommendations for a cheapish petrol strimmer? It’s only for home use, but the garden is long and thin and therefore electric ones are too much faff. Also, any there obvious deals on products at the moment?

ryobi 36v battery electric. really impressed and on offer at b&q at the moment.

screwfix still doign the hitachi brushcutter ?

i got it for about 170 quid …. came with the 3 blade steel disk replaced it with a generic tap and go line feeder and its been the bollocks….

the old electric one was like waving a carving knife in comparison – please wear appropriate safety gear…..

I got a 36v battery powered electric one at the weekend and am well impressed, if you just want it for tidying up your garden I can recommend. I think it was a Bosch the one I got. Takes about 30mins to charge the battery and lasts pretty well.

I bought a new Kawasaki petrol brushcutter off the internet for just over £200.No problems at all with it and its had quite a bit of use.Buy high quality cord as the cheap stuff is a waste of money.

Cheers all for the advice, I will research further on the electric ones in particular.

I bought a challenge xtreme petrol one from argos this weekend and so far I’ve been impressed.

My garden was extremely overgrown and it got through it all with no fuss, best thing was that it was 69.99 which is the cheapest I could find.

It also feels very sturdy against the black and decker electric one it replaced

Bought a stihl strimmer for 160 quid yesterday. Very pleased.

Couldn’t recomend the ryobi petrol one i bought. Its a bitch to start, and now the line feeder has eaten the metal line guides. Must be better options.

+1 for a Kawasaki.

I bought a used one three years ago from eBay as a test to see just what it would be capable of. It’s still running! We have a long drive and paths through the woods which need continuous clearing through the summer and the old Kawasaki just keeps going. I had one issue with a carb diaphragm that was easily sorted and the part found online.

I use a fairly heavy star shaped cord, the strimmer head has two outlets. I think mine is around 43cc. I paid a little over £100 for it.

Budget for protective trousers, a helmet with a visor and ear defenders and a harness too.

Local farmer pulled me up yesterday for not having a full mask on cutting the road side and ditch….. Did have safety specs and protective boots and trousers on.

Mask was bought yesterday afternoon – i should know better….. Was to sunny to use my normal grinder mask 😉

Local farmer pulled me up yesterday for not having a full mask on cutting the road side and ditch….. Did have safety specs and protective boots and trousers on.

Dog dodo is the one to avoid if you are doing road sides, once sampled without a full mask, never forgotten, trust me 😉

We use Stihl’s at work, new ones don’t seem to have the build quality they used to, but the cord is very good, if you buy another make.

Stihl +1

Stihl

Review in this months which magazine

Stihl FS40 best petrol

Also GTech ST05 gets mention as light cordless and has blade instead of a line

I’d caution about getting a blade instead of a line if you’re just doing grass. The blade often pushes the grass flat (it’s meant for stiff brush cutting) whereas the cord will wip off the grass far more effectively.

Straightliner wanted “cheapish”.Stihl’s don’t really fall into that category.

ime unless your using it at least weekly – stihls can be tempermental.

we had 2 hedge trimmers – a 6ft pole trimmer we ALWAYS used and a 16inch blade that i used when we were doing big hedges = was always a bitch to start

same with the short bar chain saw we only used a couple times a year on big jobs – the long bar started first or second caw everytime but it was used often.

All were serviced yearly as part of a maintainance deal at the local dealer.

for the home user i think they are overkill.

I bought one of those cheap Argos petrol strimmers ~15 years ago (Sovereign IIRC). It’s still going strong and hasn’t missed a beat. I ‘service’ it yearly and have only changed the felt clunk and the priming bulb which eventually split. It’s still on the original plug.

For domestic gardening, it’s plenty.

Once again the hive mind of STW comes back with loads of helpful an sensible things to consider. Cheers all.

I have a Stihl, it’s a belter. I’ve used the Ryobi one that comes with extended hedge-cutter and cultivator attachments, and it’s brilliant for the money, but the Stihl beats it for power and reliability.

It seems to go a lot longer before it needs refueling too…

Two of these TESCO

or

1 Stihl FS40, I know what I bought 🙂

1 Stihl FS40, I know what I bought

Great lightweight strimmer, well balanced, nice controllable power delivery, easy to start, maintain, simple cord replacement (make sure it has the AutoCut C 5-2 and not the AutoCut 5-2).

Just one word of warning, if you are tall, say 6ft 2in or larger you might find it a tad short.