For some homeowners, lawn care is an essential task they must perform on a regular basis while others do it as their pastime. Regardless of which league you belong to, a good number of different types of lawn care equipment are required to take effective care of your lawn. Using the right equipment for the
task would not only make lawn maintenance convenient but help you get a lush, healthy lawn as well.
Though lawn care isn’t considered hazardous by most homeowners, the CPSC or Consumer Product Safety Commission throws a different light on it. According to it, each year over 230,000 people are treated for injuries associated with lawn and garden tools. And these are typically triggered by failing to use safety equipment, neglecting to wear protective gears, using slippery or wet footwear, among others.
Fortunately, a lot of these accidents can be avoided by prioritizing safety in your lawn care regimen. In this post, we’re going to discuss how to maintain the utmost safety when handling common lawn care equipment so that you can take care of your lawn in a hazard-free way.
Lawn Care Equipment – Essential Safety Tips
Before delving deeper into the tips, we think it’s important to take a quick look on different types of lawn care tools. There’re two types of tools commonly used in lawn maintenance. The first one is simple, low-tech hand tools such as rakes, shovels, pruning shears, etc. And the second group is power
tools such as lawn mower, lawn aerator, grass trimmer, leaf blower, among others. While the first group of tools can be safely used by following some general precautions, you’d need to follow some specific guidelines when using power tools. We’ll start with safety precautions for power tools and then move on to the general guidelines.
How to Safely Use Powered Lawn Care Equipment
Lawn Mower
When it comes to effective lawn care, lawn mowing is one of the essential tasks that need to be performed. Lawn mowers are highly powerful tools and account for a significant percentage of injuries every year. The sharp blades of the tool rotate at a high speed triggering a potential risk of accidents. Additionally, they can send bacteria and dirt deep into a wound, if you’re suffering from one, increasing the risk for infection. Keep the following tips in mind when performing lawn mowing to stay safe.
Hedge Trimmer
Hedge trimming is an essential task to keep the bushes even. Though hedge trimmers are easy to operate, they can cause serious damages if you don’t follow safety precautions. It isn’t rare to get the hands and body parts of the operator injured when using a hedge trimmer. Since you need to hold this tool for long periods, hedge trimming often becomes a tiring task. So, try to use a lightweight, portable trimmer with padded handles to stay comfortable throughout the task. Here’re the safety tips you should follow.
Lawn Aerator
When it comes to helping your lawn absorb essential nutrients, lawn core aeration plays a crucial role. But core aeration is not only a time-consuming and fatiguing process but needs professional expertise as well. The process involves jabbing steel equipment into the ground, which essentially leaves several safety concerns such as damaging your own feet. Homeowners, who perform DIY lawn care projects, sometimes inadvertently damage cables, septic lines, and irrigation systems that eventually bring unnecessary expenses. These are the main reasons why lots of homeowners prefer to hire a reputable lawn care company to do this job. If you still want to take the DIY route, keep the following tips in mind.
Weed Trimmer
If you want to reach the spots that you cannot by performing lawn mowing, you need to use a weed trimmer. It lets you cut tall grass and weeds that can be found in corners and edges. Though weed trimmer is a lightweight tool, it can be highly dangerous if you don’t take proper safety precautions.
Whether from flying debris and rocks or the trimmer head’s strings – danger can come in different forms and can harm both the operator, as well as, the bystanders. Here’re the safety tips you need to follow
when using a weed trimmer.
Leaf Blower
A leaf blower is a perfect addition to any homeowner’s lawn care equipment. This versatile power tool not only helps you clear a ton of leaves quickly but can be useful for clearing light snow, sandy decks, dirty walkways, etc as well. While a leaf blower certainly makes lawn care much easier, it also comes
with several safety concerns. The use of leaf blowers without safety measures may lead to cuts, bruises, eye injuries, hearing loss, breathing problems, among others. Follow these tips to use your leaf blower safely.
It’s also important to understand that the quality of power tools commonly used in lawn care varies drastically. While you don’t need to buy the best models, it’s always a good decision to buy high-quality tools. Such a tool not only works more efficiently but is less prone to cause damages as well. Ideally, you
should buy these tools from reputable brands to stay assured of the quality. And it’ll also be easier to get replacement parts if you need them.
Lawn Care Equipment – General Safety Tips
Here’re the safety tips you should follow when operating any kind of lawn care equipment.
Closing Thoughts
Creating a lavish lawn and keeping it in excellent condition throughout the year is no easy task. While the above-mentioned lawn care tools can greatly help you in accomplishing this task, you also need to have adequate expertise to leverage their full potential. As we’ve mentioned earlier, severe injuries
from lawn care equipment aren’t uncommon. And a huge percentage of these typically happen due to improper handling and neglecting to follow adequate safety measures. While the safety measures we mentioned above will definitely help you avoid most of the injuries to a great extent, you should always
leave the job to experts.
At Kozeny’s Lawn Service, we’re committed to providing the best lawn care service in Mehlville, MO, Oakville, MO, Arnold, MO, and other areas in St. Louis along with low prices and outstanding customer service. If you want to know more about how you can make your lawn maintenance breeze, contact us
to talk to one of our experts and to get free lawn care and landscaping estimate.
Kozeny's Lawn Service LLC