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Lawnmower MPG

The question of lawnmower MPG is one that I see often. Unfortunately, there is no real way to determine the “MPG” on your lawnmower, at least not on the push mowers. You see, MPG can only be measured if the mower propelled itself. Since you are the one doing the pushing, the MPG is really determined by how fast you walk as you mow since this determines how much ground you cover as you burn a gallon of gas. In essence, you would be measuring your MPG! Obviously, some people will mow faster than others so those that walk faster will get better “MPG” since the mower will run less and they will cover more ground. This makes it impossible to determine MPG on your push mower. Now, if you are still determined to find out your push mower’s theoretical “MPG”, consider the fact that the average human walks at a pace of 4 miles per hour. If you mow for 1 hour and your mower uses say 1/2 gallon (this is about how much mine uses in an hour) then in 2 hours you would have walked 8 miles and used 1 gallon. So your MPG is 8 gallons to the mile! That’s worse than a Hummer! The easiest way to improve your mowers “MPG” then is to walk twice as fast or basically jog. Even so, your mower will still only get 16 MPG and you will be ready to keel over by the time you finish! Of course, nobody walks that fast or that far when mowing. So the actual theoretical “MPG” number is probably much, much lower.

So what’s the best way to conserve gas when mowing? Well, that’s easy, get an electric mower! They obviously use no gas, the electricity they draw is minimal and they do the job just as good. Other pluses include, no pull starting, very little maintenance , they are much lighter thus easier to push and they last a lot longer. If your local lawn and garden does not have a great selection, check out GreenGardenTool.com, they have some nice electric mowers in both corded and battery.