Lawn sweeper

[ArkCivEngr]

Looking for a good sweeper to pull behind the X495. Tractor Supply has a Huskee brand, 17 cu. ft., for $250. Appears pretty solid, but I've never had anything made by Huskee and haven't ever heard anything about them.

Any experiences/advice would be greatly appreciated. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[8561]

I have a Craftsman one that I use, it appears to be similar to the one you are looking at. I bought it because I got so sick of raking oak tree leaves. I've always been surprised at how well it worked for such an inexpensive and simple piece of equipment. It takes care of leaves very easily, but fills very quickly. It picks up a surprising number of acorns, I would say 50% or more. It also does a very good job with lawn clippings. The only thing about it is you have to go over the lawn twice for lawn clippings. With a side discharge lawn mower, there is nothing there to sweep if you try to mow and sweep in the same pass, so a second complete run around the lawn is necessary with the sweeper on. It does take some adjusting for the height of the brushes to get the hang of where to set it, but for the money, I've always been pleased with what it does.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

With such a nice machine as you have, why would a person not want a rear bagger? A bagger can mulch leaves giving you a headstart on a compost mulch pile. What advantage would a lawn sweeper have?

 

[ArkCivEngr]

The baggers I've seen that go on the X495 are rather bulky; one of them even has its own trailer. I have quite a few trees that I mow around, and extra bulk added to the mower doesn't seem like a good idea. The last time I looked into one of them--it was actually my Dad who did--the salesman said they didn't work very well.

 

[surfran]

My father used a lawn sweeper on our JD318 back when I was younger. He modified a hitch to offset the sweeper so that it would pick up the grass as it was cut and sent out the chute.

He ended up trading the neighbor the sweeper for his bagger as the neighbor had bought the 318 witha bagger but didn't like it so Dad got a good deal by trading the sweeper and some cash.

 

[nasdaqsam]

Ark,

For what it is worth my last two Deers had baggers and my new Kubota has one. The salesman is feeding you a line. All three of mine worked fantastic. Once I installed my first one I gave my sweeper to my brother-in-law and never looked back.

I agree the pull behind ones are bulky and hard to work with but the ones that mount right to the tractor work great.

If the cost is the issue the sweepers work OK but they do not pick up everything and need to be dumped a lot more often than the baggers. They do however work better than a hand rake. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

I just bought a new LT180 with a bagger and it works beautiful. There are two types of baggers, regular and power assisted. I went with a 42" deck so I could use the regular per my dealer's recommendations. I can easily recommend the same to you. It was about $400. The power assisted is around $800 if I remember correctly.

 

[Wannafish]

I bought the same Huskee this spring and have been very happy with it. Good thing too, cause the wife wanted me to rake rather than spend the money. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I use it on about 5 acres behind my 4010 with 60" MMM and it does a great job - sweeps up corn cobs, sticks, leaves, grass clippings, gravel.

Good luck!

 

[ArkCivEngr]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( need to be dumped a lot more often than the baggers. )</font>

Looks like the 3-bag power flow bagger system has a capacity of 14 bushels. I know I'm not supposed to make a straight conversion wet-to-dry volume, but that's about 15 cubic feet, which is less than the sweeper.

But then I read the name and it says "power flow". Does this mean that it compacts the clippings as it collects them? Obviously a sweeper would not be able to do this, but it the bagger could, then it would be able to hold more clippings with less capacity, which would seem to be what you're indicating.

 

[Junkman]

I know that my Cyclone Rake bagger packs them in so tight that sometimes you need a hand rake to start to get them out when dumping. I haven't installed the Kubota bagger on my BX yet, but I am willing to bet that it will be the same.. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif