Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

Mid-Season Mower Maintenance

Thursday, July 16th, 2015

By David Martin, Exmark customer service manager

Maintenance: mower cleaning

Minimize the use of water when cleaning your mower. Instead, use compressed air whenever possible.

Now that mowing season is well under way, the last thing you want to happen is for your mower to experience downtime. The following maintenance tips will help you keep your mower running in tip-top shape.

Maintenance: mower blades

Sharp, balanced blades are critical to the performance of the cutting system. Check and sharpen blades if necessary.

  • Check the operator’s manual to see what might need to be greased. Keeping the right parts greased is an important step in extending the life of a mower.
  • Check the air filter (inner and outer) and change it if necessary. Never use compressed air to clean a filter. The powerful air stream can compromise the filter’s ability to effectively filter the air coming into the engine.
  • Depending on how many hours the mower has been running, consider changing the fuel filter. Consult your owner’s manual or http://www.exmark.com/Service-And-Support/Maintenance/Schedules/ for the recommended replacement interval.
  • Check and, if necessary, change the spark plugs.
  • Blow the debris off the unit:
    • Remove the belt deck belt shields and blow off all foreign material.
    • Blow the grass off the areas around the pumps and wheel motors (overheated oil leads to shorter component life).
    • Blow through the openings in and around the console or remove the console mounting screws to get debris out of this area.
  • Check for loose hardware.
  • Verify torque on wheel motor castle nut and tire mounting lug nuts.
  • Verify oil changes are being performed at the proper intervals, and perform the service if necessary. NEVER, under any circumstances, exceed the manufacturer’s recommendations by more than 100 hours. Significant damage will result that will reduce the machine’s lifespan and compromise productivity.

Learn more about how to effectively service and maintain your mowers and lawn care equipment at http://www.exmark.com/Service-And-Support/Maintenance/Service-Tips/.

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ECS Controls: Why They’re Better

Thursday, June 11th, 2015

Landscape maintenance is a tough job, and during the season downtime is lost revenue. That’s why it’s important to take every opportunity to make it more sustainable for operators and their bodies. It was precisely for this reason that Exmark developed the exclusive ECS (Enhanced Control System) controls for its wide-area walk-behind mowers.

Why ECS is Better

Exmark ECS Controls -- Turf Tracer

The improved ergonomics of ECS controls increases control while reducing operator fatigue.

ECS controls improve the ergonomics of walk-behind mower controls when compared to traditional pistol-grip controls. ECS places the arms in a more neutral position to keep the operator’s joints in a more natural state. The elbows rest naturally against the body, while the lower arms extend easily to grasp the controls, reducing arm strain and hand fatigue significantly. Thanks to ECS, operators will experience less upper body pain after a long day of work.

Back, neck and shoulder pain is reduced thanks to the improved ergonomics of the ECS controls, and the hands are positioned closer to the machine center, keeping them out of harm’s way when maneuvering in tight spaces. Padded operator handles reduce vibration and the ECS controls feature a shorter grip distance for enhanced control and reduced hand fatigue.

Learn more about ECS and Exmark walk-behind models it’s a standard feature on at Exmark.com.

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Understanding Productivity

Thursday, April 9th, 2015
Exmark mower production costs

Over a mower’s lifetime, its up-front cost represents just 16 percent of the total cost an owner will pay.

Whether you’re a landscape professional or the owner of an acreage, the productivity of your mower matters. And while productivity isn’t the only way to judge a great commercial mower (things like durability, comfort and cut quality are very important too), the knowledge of the productivity potential of the mower you’re using, or the mowers you’re considering, is valuable information to have. In fact, on a day-to-day basis a mower’s productivity is likely more important than its purchase price for many users, especially those earning their living maintaining lawns.

How do you determine the productivity of your mower or turf care equipment? It’s relatively easy to do if you know the size of your equipment and how fast it is designed to run.

Exmark publishes equipment productivity charts for its mowers and turf management equipment on its website. There, you can compare the productivity of the equipment you’re using today with the productivity you can achieve with a new Exmark machine.

For example, here is the productivity chart for mowers:

ExmarkMowerProductivity

Click to enlarge.

While productivity numbers at 100 percent efficiency may look impressive on the sales floor, it’s virtually impossible to actually achieve 100 percent efficiency in the real world. Most folks mow at closer to 80 percent efficiency, so Exmark includes that number on its productivity chart to give you a better idea of the real world productivity you can expect from your new mower.

Learn more about what you can expect from the best commercial mowers and turf management equipment at Exmark.com.

 

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Zero-Turn vs. Lawn Tractor: Other Factors to Consider

Tuesday, January 20th, 2015

Quality of Cut: A professional’s calling card

Exmark Pioneer E-Series zero-turn riding mower

An Exmark zero-turn mower makes it easy to give your lawn a professionally maintained appearance.

Landscape professionals earn their living delivering a consistently superior cut quality for their customers. That’s why Exmark has worked hard to engineer the best cutting decks on the market.

Exmark’s patented flow-control baffles and exclusive blade designs deliver an unmatched quality of cut that’s optimized for the increased cutting speeds Exmark mowers are capable of achieving. When it comes to quickly making tall grass short, with a beautiful finished appearance, no lawn tractor can match an Exmark Lazer Z zero-turn rider. That’s one reason landscape pros choose it two-to-one over the next leading competitor.

Durability: The definition of commercial-grade

One thing we’ve learned in our more than 30 years of building mowers for landscape professionals is that stamped steel decks just don’t cut it when it comes to the demands of mowing sun up to sun down. That’s why every zero-turn mower we build comes standard with a heavy-duty fabricated steel cutting deck. Each of the lawn tractors in this comparison feature stamped steel cutting decks.

Exmark UltraCut Rear Discharge cutting deck

Exmark UltraCut cutting decks use high-strength steel that’s fabricated and welded for unmatched durability.

Fabricated decks are stiffer, stronger and more durable than stamped decks, even reinforced models. And with features like no-maintenance sealed bearing spindles and hex-style blade drivers, the Exmark durability advantage extends to the components as well as the cutting deck itself.

Exmark zero-turn commercial mowers feature state-of-the-art powerplants with gasoline, diesel and propane fuel options. With commercial-duty features such as multi-stage canister-style air filters, pressurized lubrication, oil coolers and cast iron cylinder liners, the engines powering Exmark mowers are as cutting edge as the mowers they power.

Our exclusive unitized hydro-drive components and welded, heavy-duty tubular steel unibody frames are two more features that help Exmark machines deliver the durability landscape professionals need to stay productive and profitable season after season.

Bottom Line: Choose the tools the pros use

When compared head-to-head, it’s clear a zero-turn riding mower offers the most compelling combination of productivity, maneuverability and quality of cut available today. And while innovations such as four-wheel steering and four-wheel drive have helped to increase the productivity of high-end lawn tractors compared to earlier models, at every price level examined, Exmark zero-turn riding mowers are clearly the more productive machines.

When it comes to durability, Exmark scores big with true commercial-duty frames, cutting decks, drive systems and engines designed to stand the test of time.

Bottom line: an Exmark zero-turn riding mower very well could be the last mower you need to buy.

Dig Deeper at Exmark.com:

  • Learn more about the advantages of an Exmark zero-turn riding mower.
  • Learn more about how to determine mower productivity.

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