Electric mowers can come in two flavors: Corded, and battery-operated. Legend says that the battery operated ones have come a long way. We had one 10 years ago, and you had to REALLY keep up on your lawn, or the battery-op mower just couldn’t hack through the grass, especially in the early summer when it rains a lot and the grass goes insane. Corded ones have plenty of zip and power, you just have to make sure you don’t run over the extension cord. We never had a collection bag on ours, so I don’t know about that part of it. You also never have trouble starting one up, and you don’t have to tinker with stupid stuff like spark plugs or small engine repair. Or gasoline, for that matter. They also tend to be lighter, weight-wise.

Gas lawn mowers are what most people have…these are small engines that run on gas, so you’ll have to keep that around. Most of them have collection bags which will need to be emptied two or three times per mowing, even in a small yard like ours. They still require maintenance; my hubby isn’t very handy (ok, he’s a handyman’s idiot), and I know nothing about small engines, so I have to take my mower to someone competent to have the blade sharpened and engine tuned and the whole thing lubed and such.

Ask your neighbors if they know anyone who does lawn mower maintenance and then ask the mower guy if he has mower recommendations. We took ours in and he said, “A Snapper? I never see those things in here!” We took that as a good sign. Hubby was dumb enough to mow wet grass and then not clean out the underside, so it solidified into a concrete mass and the blade wouldn’t turn. Don’t do that.

Consumer Reports seems to like the following mowers:

Gas-powered push models:
Lawn-Boy 10640
Cub Cadet 11A-18MC

Corded electric push models:
Black & Decker MM875

Cordless electric push models:
Black & Decker CMM1200

Self-Propelled Models:
Toro Recycler 20333
Toro Recycler 20332
Toro Recycler 20330
Craftsman 37435
Lawn-Boy 10641
Craftsman 37624

Good luck!!