Exmark WB mulch kit?

[Acute Cut]

I DID do the search and read till my eyes were cross eyed. Perhaps i was searching for the wrong thing. I dont know.

The question is this:
I have a 52" Exmark WB hydro. I have been contemplating putting one of them thar fancy shmancy mulch kits on there. How do yall like em? I talked to one local guy that has a fixed deck and he loves his. He has had to put spacers under the spindle though to give him more room above the blades. His is a 48" fixed deck belt drive though. So now i am wondering if i should get it for mine or not? I dischared most of last year. I (Or more likly my employee) have put some grass siding up. lol. I got a couple of complaints of grass in bark too. These complaints are mostly due to bad employees. Go figure.

Thanks for the help guys.
Acute Cut

[joshua]

acute, i have a metro hp 48" and use the mulch fit for it and my lazer they are the next best thing next to the mower, they work unbeleivable. it is a great investment, o would buy one if i was you , you won't go wrong with it.

[Island Lawn]

My dealer kind of steered me away from it.
Things are very sandy here, and he thinks that the mulch kit knocks alot of sand around. Dulls the blades, wears out the baffles, etc.

48in. Metro HP

[Edited by Island Lawn on 03-11-2001 at 08:02 PM]

[thelawnguy]

I have a TT which has had only the kit on it since new (96). Huge timesaver IMO even if u need to do a quick double cut in the spring still beats bagging cleaning out beds washing cars and siding etc.

[Mowman]

Last year I demoed a Turf-Tracer HP that had one installed. I was totaly impressed with it. If I was to buy an Exmark product I would invest in the mulch kit. I passed on the WB and bought a Walker w/ sidedischarge, and many times I have to Double Cut to get rid of the clippings. Do not get me wrong I love my Walker, I only wish they made a mulch kit for the 54 inch deck that I have. I feel that Exmark has the BEST MICRO-MULCH KIT on the market today. So go for it, you will not be SORRY.
Mowman

[Acute Cut]

ok,. well thanks for the info guys. I think that i will go ahead and get the mulch kit. It will save me from trying to clean wet grass off of the sides of the houses and get the rocks to stop shooting little kids in the eyes. (bad joke, sorry)

If it doesnt work out then yall will know via a post about my mulching woes. Also, it is only like 180$ investment. I am not going to lose my shorts if it doesnt do what i want it too.

Acute Cut

[mowerman90]

Here in Central Florida almost no one doing Residential lawns side discharges. The reason is that the mulching kits work sooooo well. Our season is such that we don't get extremely heavy grass until around July (almost every day we get an afternoon thundershower,makes it grow like crazy). That is the only time of year that we may have to double cut a few areas where it's really heavy grass. Other than that all my lawns look like they've been bagged. By the way, I have a 52" Grasshopper that I use Exmark blades on because I think they are the best on the market!

[Island Lawn]

My dealer also tells me not to worry about having super sharp blades... they use an angle grinder and a vise.
They have told me that its not the sharp edge, bit the angle that counts.

I dont agree w/ em on this.

And now I am re-thinking their advice on the mulch kit...

[HOMER]

You need to slap him upside he head! I would re-think my dealer if he was giving out that advice!

[Roger]

I've had an Exmark 36" Viking (hydro) for nearly five years. Two years ago I bought a mulch kit, less the blades. I had used a Snapper Ninja blade very successfully on my old Snapper 21" mower that I opted to use 2-18" Snapper Ninja blades on my Exmark. I had seen one contractor use an Exmark 48" mower with full Exmark mulch kit and was not satisfied with his result. Perhaps the Ninja blades would do better.

I bought the combo primarily for one yard. At that time I had many yards requesting bagging, but one that didn't require bagging was growing fast, and I was having a hard time keeping clippings out of the nicely mulched beds.

The kit was used for a few times during the growing season, and then again for leaves at the end of the season. Last season, I didn't mount it one time.

Why? First, it took my 20-25 minutes to mount and another 20-25 minutes to dismount the kit - too long for a mowing job that required about 1 hour of mowing. SEcond, the quality of cut was not what I liked. The lift is less than my usual hi-lift blades and the Ninja blades left a small streak down the middle. Third, I couldn't use the mounted items except when the grass was dry. Early morning dew often leaves the grass wet until late in the morning, and the mulching works very poorly when grass is wet.

Last season I used double blades and explained to nearly all my bagging customers, "...no more bagging." The properties that formerly required bagging were OK in discharge mode. The major problem was keeping clippings from beds, a problem the mulch kit solved.

I expect that I have the kit investment in permanent retirement. I believe that very few contractors in my area do mulching on a regular basis. I formerly had one working a property next to my customer, using a Gravely. He lasted part of a season because of the very poor results, primarily because of damp conditions.

Oh yes, the kit as I configured it did extremely well for mulching leaves in the Fall. However, double blades did nearly as well. When very heavy, I used double passes over the leaves.

Roger

[mowerman90]

After reading Rodgers post I thought I should mention that rain, even heavy rain or morning dew has very minimal effect on mulching with my Grasshopper using the Exmark blades. Logically, one would think that everything would get gummed up when in the wet but for some reason it doesn't.

[rixtag]

Acute, I have a 36 metro and since using the factory mulch kit I will never go back. I agree that it takes too long to change back and forth but leave it on and never bag. simple enough for me.

Rick

[Kevin]

Use it all the time. My 48" is basically the trim mower so it saves time not having to worry about discharge into the beds. Gators may leave aliitle streak of grass behind, as far as I know exmark does NOT have an OEM gator. Use the micro mulch blades. Imhop.

[Island Lawn]

HOMER
The road to He11 is paved w/ good intentions.
I believe that my dealer just dosent know any better!
I dont think anyone around these parts know better!
AND
I'm not so quick to just flat out tell people their wrong when they are so very sure they are right.
They way I see it, my little "Lawnsite secrets" are part of my competitive advantage.

I DO agree w/ my dealer (& others here) that changing from one to the other is not worth the effort

Mowerman90
You must mow your fair share of sand, How do things hold up?

[mowerman90]

Island Lawn

I haven't mowed any Bihia for over 8 years, so no I don't mow any sand. I mow only Floratam (St Augustine) It grows so thick that sand or weeds for that matter don't get through it. The scrubs that mow Bihia down here are all the time patching holes in their decks and buying new blades and air cleaners.

[Island Lawn]

SOLD!
I ordered the mulch kit today!

In hindsight, I think my dealer was talking about the scrub yards.
He seems to speak scrub fluently.

[Acute Cut]

Looks like Island Lawn and i are on the same page here. I ordered one and had it on last night. I mowed three lawns today with it. I did have some bogging in grass that was wet and was slightly taller than the rest. Over all it did pretty good. I will give my full opinion on it after i mow some more. The thing i did like today was that i felt alot safer than just discharging out the side. I always worried about ppl and property. I also did not have to worry about covering a fence or house with wet grass. That was a big plus/bonus. If feels wierd mowing next to a house/fence and haveing the discharge shoot aiming at it. Will take some getting used too.

I also had some problem with some leaves not getting sucked into the deck. It was blowing away from the front as i mowed. When i was done i had a pile on top of my mower. I did raise the back level up to 5 (The front was at 4) but did not notice any difference. Not sure what to do about it.