Yard Work On My Mind

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The month of August had more than a little rain, especially on the weekends. This resulted in delayed yard maintenance.  Last Saturday, I was finally able to mow the lawn.  My plan was to spend Sunday trimming hedges and bushes.  Great plan that would finally get the front of the house looking good.  There was one problem:  When I pulled out my hedge trimmer, I realized that the battery was missing.

I have a lot of electric power tools:  string trimmer, edger, leaf blower, sander, chain saw, to name the ones that come to mind.  Unfortunately, as I aquired these tools, I often had to settle on what was available, rather than those that share a common battery.  The bulk of my tools are by Craftsman, with a 20v battery.  I have eight or nine of these batteries.  I also own a number of Dewalt tools (also 20v), and there are 3 or 4 batteries for this brand.  And then there's the hedge trimmer... Black & Decker (40v).  No other B&D tools, resulting in a lack of extra batteries.  I ended up ordering a pair of new batteries for this tool, receiving them Monday morning.

While I didn't have any time to use the trimmer on Monday, due to a Toastmasters meeting, nothing was stopping me from going out after work on Tuesday. I was able to trim a number of the bushes in front of the house.  I will continue for the next few days until I get it done.

The point of this post is not that I'm doing yard work.  Rather, I wanted to point out that commonality of tools is a desireable thing.  I never have a problem finding a charged Craftsman battery, and I have at least 3 chargers to restore them after use.  Same thing with the Dewalt batteries, although I only have a couple of chargers for them.  As much as I would like to replace the hedge trimmer with a Craftsman or Dewalt, the price on these is $120.  It made a lot more sense to spend $36 for two Lithium batteries.

If you are in the market for electric power tools, decide on a brand and stick to it, so every thing uses a common battery.


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