As winter comes to pass, you might be eager to get back outside into the warm weather and continue working on your lawn as everything starts to sprout back up. As tempting as it may be to just run out and fire up your lawnmower and other lawn equipment, that’s a very poor decision that could lead to your equipment dying out far sooner that it’s supposed to.
Clean Oil?
In fact, you need to prepare your equipment for the new season carefully. The first thing that you’re recommended to do is to change your mower’s oil. Some mowers don’t have oil, such as higher end electronic ones, but any gas powered ones certainly do.
You need to carefully get the old oil out and dispose of it properly before putting the new oil in. This is important because over the winter your oil will have become stale and won’t be fresh enough anymore to keep everything properly lubricated, meaning that the engine can die out if you try to start it on the old oil.
Another good idea in the same vein is to change out any gasoline that you might’ve left in it over the winter. While it’s better to drain the gas before winter, you may forget. Old gasoline isn’t nearly as good as new gasoline, especially if it’s been sitting out in the cold for a long time.
Be sure to dispose of your old gasoline responsibly. One part of keeping up the maintenance is that you need to sharpen the blades. After mowing your lawn many times over, the blades will eventually become dull.
Dull Blades?
Dull blades won’t cut evenly, or in some cases, at all. While you don’t need the blades of a lawnmower to be razor sharp, it’s best that you have them with a bit of an edge as compared to a dull plank of steel.
Some may opt to completely replace the blade if they don’t want to go through the effort of sharpening them at the start of every spring. Finally, it’s a good idea to give your mower a thorough cleaning.
Not only does this keep it looking nice, but it can also prevent certain bits from getting clogged up. In the blade well you might find a lot of grass and dirt built up that can slow down the operation later on, and in the air intakes you can find grime built up that could cause an excessively hot engine.