The Cost Breakdown To Have Mower Blades & Hedge Trimmers Sharpened Professionally

If you enjoy doing your own yard work, you know the importance of maintaining your equipment. Without keeping your equipment in good shape, such as failing to sharpen your mower blades, you could be making common lawn care mistakes that are killing your grass. When you mow grass with a dull mower blade, it tears the grass rather than cutting it cleanly. This causes the jagged edge to turn brown and could cause the grass blades to dry out and prematurely die back. The same problem can happen when you are using other dull outdoor tools, such as hedge trimmers. Dull hedge trimmers tear the branches on bushes and hedges, rather than cutting them cleanly, which can introduce disease to the plant.

What is the best way to sharpen mower blades and hedge trimmers? You certainly could do the work yourself with tools that make it easy to safely sharpen your lawn mower blades and hedge trimmers. You also have the option of having a professional sharpen everything for you. Typically, a professional will charge you anywhere from $5 to $25 per blade for sharpening only. Expect to pay $25 to $100 to sharpen your mower blades when a pro is also performing a mower tune-up service at the same time. To sharpen your hedge trimmers, a pro may charge you anywhere from $25 to $60 for the service.

The timeline for sharpening mower and hedge trimmer blades depends on how frequently you use them. A lawn care pro may sharpen mower blades every week, but this person might be using the equipment for several hours per day. As a residential homeowner, you should sharpen the mower blades every approximately 25 hours of use. You should have a pro work on sharpening your hedge trimmer blades after roughly 50 hours of use.

Rather than trying to remember exactly how many hours you use each power tool, just make an estimate. If you usually mow once a week and it takes a half-hour each time, you could mow 50 times before needing a blade sharpening. If you use your hedge trimmers once a week for half an hour, you could use them 100 times before needing sharpening.

Under those guidelines, many people may not need to sharpen either device's blades more than once per year. To simplify the process, you may want to simply have the blades sharpened at the same time as you have the machine tuned up by a professional. Mower motors should have an annual tune-up at a minimum. The hedge trimmer's engine should be checked by a professional roughly every 50 hours to 100 hours if you don't feel comfortable changing spark plugs and lubricating the machine yourself. You could have the blades sharpened at the same time as these checkups.

If you are taking the lawn mower to a professional shop to have a complete tune-up performed, there's no need to remove the blades from the lawn mower to sharpen them. If you can transport the mower intact to the location where the professional sharpener operates, you'll save time versus removing the blades yourself. However, you may have to pay a few extra dollars if the blades remain on the mower. For a riding mower, the sharpening company may charge you an extra labor cost if you leave them on the machine. Ask the business that is doing the sharpening for you whether it charges more if the blades remain on the lawn mower or if you should bring them in separately.

When dealing with your hedge trimmer, you also might be able to save some money by bringing the blades to the professional separately from the machine. A typical trimmer has two screws near the back of the unit. Just remove these screws to release the blades. However, you might prefer to take the entire unit to the repair shop. You could save some time by not having to remove the blades yourself. Additionally, replacing them requires proper alignment to avoid potential poor performance, so be certain you know how to reattach the blades again if you remove them yourself.