Weed Whacker Issues

In a classic example of getting what you pay for, I’m having some issues with the weed whacker, and it could very possibly stem from the fact that I bought a cheap one. It’s not a complete piece of junk, and for our purposes, it works fine, but I did get it cheap. I know my Mentor and the Amazing PR Man are shaking their heads and wondering when I’m going to learn.

Either way, I got the thing new at Britton’s, and as I mentioned, it was under $100. Now $100 seems like a lot to me, but if you know anything about power tools, $100 is a drop in the bucket. People who are serious about lawn care can easily spend a few hundred dollars on a weed whacker, if not more. If you’re talking a driving mower, you’re looking at thousands of dollars, so spending $80 on a weed whacker is nothing.

For my purposes, however, it’s been fine. I use it maybe four times a season, at most, because I don’t always trim after mowing, though I guess I should. I probably end up weed whacking once for every three mows. Either way, it’s not the end of the world. The tool I have is not powerful but does the job, and it’s been working fine, it’s just that some problems do arise. They are not insurmountable, they just make it a pain to use. The biggest thing is line extension. Normally you bang the head against the ground and it lets out a bit of line, so you don’t have to stop.

For whatever reason, mine gets jammed, so I have to turn the thing off and manually extend it. I know, you’re thinking I’m crazy, but for the most part, it works fine. In fact, I used it to trim the weeds growing through the cracks in the brick path, and it cleaned them out beautifully.

In the end, our weed whacker works adequately, it just doesn’t have all the bells and whistles, not to mention conveniences. I can live with all that, as long as it starts and cuts weeds. Let’s just hope that continues.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to blsfp for the pic.