Sidewalk & Driveway Edger

[RSKY]

I need an edger to go down my sidewalks and driveways. The walks are concrete and the driveway asphalt. It will also be used to dig small trenches to bury wire etc. It will not be used commercially.

I have looked at the stick edgers, Briggs powered edgers, and the electric ones. Does anybody have any advice for me? Any experience with them?

 

[1bush2hog]

If you have much to edge at all, I would steer away from electric, but then again, I hate power cords.

I purchased a Stihl handheld edger a few years ago and have been very satisfied with it. It does a good quick job, but not sure how it would work on trenching. It will put an edge around flower beds and such, just not sure how deep you are expecting to trench with it. Go to a dealer and try one out before you decide

 

[Birdhunter1]

It will take a very heavy duty walk behind commercial bed edger to be able to do shallow trenches to lay wire, I advise against buying an edger in the hoeps of burying wire. It will be expensive and you won't use it enough to justify it.
I have a walk behind commercial edger I use commercially and it does a great job on sidewalks and curbs that are overgrown, but for weekly maintenance I hate the hassle of having to lug it around and make adjustments on angles and depths. What i do to maintain an edge is turn my weedeater head 90 degrees so it is straight up and down and I use that to maintain an edge. It takes practice to be able to be steady and walk and keep it straight but after a while you get good at it. One thing you have to learn to do is not use full throttle and don't ride the weedeater spool to close to the ground or you will go through alot of line quickly.

And get a face shield and wear safety glasses when you do this, it will throw rocks if it finds them.

 

[CATMAN]

Have you considered a Mantis tiller. It has an edger option that you can buy for it. This would only be a good idea if you have a garden that the tiller attachment would be good for. I really like mine. I have the tiller, edger and dethacher attachments. Note: dethacther is narrower, but it beats driving to the rental yard to rent their commercial unit. That little engine always starts easy. Oh, one more thing I bought was the kick stand attachment and the plastic anti-tangle, anti-wrap bushings that goes between the gearbox and the tiller tines. Tiller tines are lifetime warrantied, too. I bounce those tines off the concrete driveway to till the flower beds and they are tough. This is just something to consider. Our local hardware store sells them and provides any maintanence/repairs if necessary. Mine as been trouble-free for 5 years.

 

[sklunk]

Another option -- the "combination" weed eaters with a split boom and changeable heads. I'm not talking about the cheap box store brands (Weed Eater, Ryobi, etc), something more industrial strength. I bought an Echo split-boom about 10 years ago. I have the normal string head as well as a saw blade head for brush and the type with 3 plastic fingers for thick weeds. A few years ago I bought the edger attachment for it. The entire setup has been working flawlessly for almost 10 years (and believe me, I abuse it !!). There are also other attachments (tiller, tree pruner, squirrel-cage blower) I can buy for it as I find a need in the future. I think Stihl makes a similar model too.

I agree with the statement that any of the edgers probably won't do much for trenching. That may take a dedicated machine and probably wouldn't be worth trying to do with an edger for the few times you would use it.

 

[TimS]

I found a little Jacobsen edger with a 3 horse Briggs on the junk pile at a Deere dealer. Got it for a few bucks, and 10 minutes work had the engine running - there's not a whole lot to go wrong with a 3 horse Briggs. It does a nice job on edges, but I don't think you'd be digging any trenches with it.

Tim

 

[RSKY]

Thanks to all of you for your replies.

 

[diyDave]

Suggest you rent a Turfco EdgeRite vibrating edger. It looks like a sodcutter with only one arm. There are a variety of blades that can be used for different jobs. If you want to see one, Google Turfco direct.

 

[Bird]

Personally, I just use my string trimmer. I rented a real edger one time in 1969, tried using a neighbor's edger just to see what it was like once in the late '70s, and just never could see them as being worth the time it would take to use them when I can turn the string trimmer 90 degrees and do the job just as well.