Gilmour RM30 20-Inch Reel Mower with Grass Catcher

 (111 customer reviews)

My yard is shrinking (<4000 sf grass) and I didn't want to have to deal with the hassles of a gas mower anymore. That, and a strong desire to go "green" convinced me to try this mower. Never having tried a reel mower before, I didn't know what to expect. I purposed waited until I had had an entire summer of mowing with this unit before I submitted this evaluation, just to be fair. The first time I used this unit, I thoroughly enjoyed mowing the yard!! The novelty has worn off after approximately 8 uses, but the unit still does a beautiful job on our lawn and I intend to use it forevermore and rid ourselves of our gas mower for good.

I have nothing but high praises for this mower. I do miss the "vacuum" effect of my gas mower in terms of collecting leaves, pine needles, and anything else that may be lying around. I've heard people complain that you have to cut your yard practically every-other-day with a reel mower to keep it from getting bogged down by heavy...Read more

You are thinking of a reel mower. Your answer is yes. And this is probably the one you want.

This review may hit your "TLDR" filter, but if you're seriously shopping it might be worth it.

Like the guy who reviewed the McCulloch MCM2013 20-Inch Push Reel Mower, I'm not interested in reel mowers for their hippie "green" nonsense. I just have a smallish subdivision yard, and high-maintenance technology is pointless for such a thing. And, with storage space at a premium, the concept of a mower I can hang on the wall is also nice. Last but not least, the claimed higher cut quality (better for the grass) was attractive.

I had recently inherited the lawn duties, and soon after the balky-engine 6.5hp rotary mower -- which required an order of magnitude more time and effort to crank and keep cranked than was rewarded in actual cutting -- finally totaled itself out. All the desperate pulls on the cord on level asphalt caused the old plastic wheels to...Read more

I have used this mower 5-6 times to mow my 4000 square foot lawn since purchasing it. The first time I used it my grass was about 5 inches tall and wet. I set it at its tallest height and it cut the grass with no problems.

A few things I have noticed:

* Unlike the competing brands, it included the grass catcher.

* Unlike the competing brands, it is self-sharpening.

* It requires no batteries, cords, gas, or oil, It just works!

* The grass catcher works better than I expected. Since it is an open design and I live in a fairly windy area not all of the grass stays in it. Grass also slides to the front when mowing downhill making it so that you have to empty it very frequently (or mow only up hill) if you have a sloping lawn. Despite these inefficiencies it leaves less cut grass on my lawn than my old gas mower did.

* The grass catcher is smaller that those on gas mowers, so you will have to empty it more...Read more