Our store is the area’s best place to look at riding lawn mowers for sale. Daytona Outdoor Power’s riding lawn mower selection enables you to come into our store and compare zero turn mowers, lawn tractor style, walk behind mower style, and stand on mowers. It’s a large showroom with many models for you to look at.
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A lot of people just starting a lawn business are unable to buy several riding mowers of various sizes. They buy sit on lawn mowers so that they can get through longer days of riding mowers instead of walk behind mowers. Be aware of accounts that have narrow passageways like small residential gates. Most riding mowers won’t get through.
Zero Turn Mowers (ZTR)
Zero turn mowers give you the best maneuverability. With a zero turn mower’s zero degree turn radius, you will spend less time making 3-point turns. You won’t even have to make round light bulb shaped turns. Zero degree turning radius (ZTR) means that 0 turn mowers can do a military “about face” on a dime. So, without wide rounded turns, you’ll have less overlap at the beginning and ends of your cutting rows.
Of the riding mowers, ZTR mowers are preferred and here’s why. They can cut faster than a lawn tractor and can still eliminate some trimming with their ztr compared to lawn tractors.
When we sell these, we like to bundle with free tools for you.
Then there’s the engine consideration of a zero turn mower. Their high performance engines can cut at higher speeds enabling you to cut lawns faster. The blade systems under Zero-turn mowers spin faster and cut at higher speeds while still cutting at high quality. They need those faster spinning blade systems because the vehicles themselves are equipped to move faster. They have more hp, so they can drive faster than other mowers. If moving over the lawn faster, they need faster spinning blades to keep up.
If you mow with zero turn mowers, there is usually less time trimming to finish up because in many cases you can mow right up to the edge of trees, flower beds, and other landscaping obstacles. This is true especially if the cutting deck sticks out wider than the wheelbase and works like the Husqvarna clear cut deck system.
The main difference with Zero turn mowers to which you will have to adapt is the use of steering levers or handles instead of a steering wheel. A ztr has a very slight learning curve to make ’em go forward, left and right.
Garden Tractors or Lawn Tractors
These look like a mini tractor. They’re fun to drive but somewhat slower than zero turn mowers. These days, they go a lot faster than they used to though. If you haven’t tried one in years, try one now. The thing about these is their easy to drive. Unlike ZTR’s, on garden and lawn tractors you steer with with a normal steering wheel. Controls vary from model to model, but the basics of making ’em go is similar. You have controls to raise and lower the cutting deck, and the deck sizes vary from 40″ to 54″.
Walk Behind Mowers
This page is about riding mowers as opposed to walk behind mowers or push mowers, like these ones that follow.
Size is an obvious difference between a residential use walk behind mower, and a commercial walk behind mower. Still, we’re not going into detail on these here in this article because this is about “riding” lawn mowers.
Stand On Mowers
Similar to the walk behind mowers, these stand-on mowers are powered with gears to move forward but do not have a seat. They provide a “stander” platform so you can ride along instead of pushing. On some you stand, on some you kneel. On the Husqvarna V548 pictured here, the platform that you stand on can be flipped up out of the way so you can walk behind for specific maneuvers. Positioning the operator between the wheels instead of behind the wheels places weight in a more appropriate location for enhanced traction. It reduces the operator effort in staying perfectly balanced, especially during zero turn maneuvers.
In a commercial setting, anything that is access restricted requiring a 42 inch deck or less, a stand on mower would be better than larger riding mowers. Plus, stand-on mowers have easier access, and that’s a big deal because professional lawn care crews are on and off their machines a heck of a lot. With these, you just walk right into it. No crouching, twisting and stepping around controls.
The flip-up platform allows operator to handle difficult terrain and areas of limited maneuverability in a fast and efficient manner
One concern is that walk behind mowers with sulky or stand on mowers are harder on your back after a while. If you stand on a stander or a sulky all day, knees and back begin to feel it from the vibration and bouncing. Oh, and if you’re balance challenged, fugetaboutit.
Deck Sizes of Riding Lawn Mowers For Sale
If you have to cut a lawn with a lot of hills, bumps and ruts then use a lawnmower with a small deck width so that it is less likely to scalp the grass on the uneven lay of the land. Regardless of how wide a deck is, if you run the middle of the mower over a hump, you’re going to scalp that spot of the lawn.
Some makes of ztr do not get close to fences or decks because of the wheel base being the same width or wider than the deck. Many zero turn mowers have no deck overhang whatsoever. Without a deck overhang (where the deck is wider than wheelbase) it is impossible to cut close to a fence without rubbing the back tire on it.
Husqvarna’s fabricated Clear Cut™ deck takes care of those drawbacks.
Lawnmowers with narrow decks are certainly better for narrow access areas such as gates into back-yards. Often, gates are 38 inches wide. Unless you’re willing to spend a long time walking a regular lawnmower around a large backyard just because that is the only equipment you had that would fit through the gate, you’d better get a smaller deck mower.
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