Spring is here, the grass is growing and it’s time to “spring-ize” your lawnmower.
You did everything right last winter – mixed in some fuel stabilizer and stored your battery safely indoors. But, your battery got bored to death over those long months!
You drop the battery in your lawnmower, tighten up those terminal bolts and turn the key. The only sound you hear is that dreaded “Click click click”.
Your battery is toast. Or, so it would appear. It’s very possible that your battery is alive and well, but hanging on by a thread with a very low charge.
Before you head out to drop $70-$80 on a new battery, consider a lower investment that will pay off in the long term.
That investment is a 12-volt battery charger. For under $50, there’s a chance you could restore your battery to like new condition. In the worst case scenario, you have a battery that still won’t take a charge, but a tool that you can use for years to come to charge your car, boat or lawnmower batteries.
I purchased the Schumacher SSC-1000A Battery Charger from Amazon about 6 months ago. Since then, I’ve successfully brought my lawnmower back to life after a long winter and charged my car battery after it drained from leaving the headlights on overnight.
The lawnmower batter was in worse shape after sitting for the entire winter, so it took about 6 to 8 hours to slow charge back to 100%. The slow charge feature is also handy if you just want to maintain your battery over the winter. Basically, you leave the battery plugged into the charger all winter and it will stop charging automatically whenever the battery reaches full charge.
The car battery only took about 2 hours (on “fast charge” mode) before I was able to start the engine. That certainly beats calling AAA!
The only thing I thought was a little funny about this charger is that it has a somewhat loud fan that runs whenever the unit plugged in. It’s certainly not a deal-breaker as I don’t sit there and watch the battery charge. Just thought I’d mention it in case anyone decides they want to charge their battery inside a library 😉
Anyway, hope this helps and saves you a few bucks next time your battery doesn’t survive the winter.