Why do commercial mowers cut so fast and the lawn looks so great compared to my residential tractor or zero turn mower in Stow Ohio?

Commercial Mowers in Stow Ohio

Commercial mowers cost as much as a compact car. Typically ten thousand dollars and up but there is good
reason for it. In our area the mowing season is usually 30-35 weeks depending on the year. A full time lawn care provider usually cuts somewhere between 75 to 100 lawns in a week. A commercial mower will mow around 3000 lawns in a year. Compared to a homeowner mower of around 30 mows in a year. So a commercial mower does up to 100 years worth of mowing in a year compared to a residential mower. Their steel will be 3 to 4 times thicker over residential grade. All other components are made for a harsh commercial setting to take the abuse they need to take to provide a reliable service.

Engineering

Commercial mower manufactures spend countless hours of engineering and millions upon millions of dollars designing the perfect mower decks. They are able to design completely different decks compared to residential because of the thickness of steel and engines that are installed on commercial mowers. Even if a residential grade engine has the same horsepower rating as a commercial engine. The commercial engine will always have a much higher blade tip speed and torque rating. A higher blade tip speed simply spins the mower blades faster this is called blade tip speed. Usually 2 to 3 times faster over a residential blade.

Commercial equipment often have heavier blades on verses a residential deck with more blades spinning in the same size mower deck. By using multiple blades versus one and having a higher blade tip speed allows the deck to have more suction.  Which in turn cuts the grass clippings into smaller pieces, more suction to stand the grass up better, leave stripes in the grass and leave a more level cut. More torque gives it the ability to power through thicker or taller grass and is very helpful when it come to fall leaf cleanups.
All commercial mowers use individual hydraulic pumps and motors for each drive tire to power it. The same hydraulics you see in all heavy duty industrial or construction equipment. This makes them reliable, agile and very fast combined with the commercial grade engines. Due to the quality of construction, added safety features and specific engineering of commercial mowers they have perfected hill side stability as well. This allows the operator to safely climb hills, banks and ditches that a normal garden tractor or residential grade Zero-Turn could not or should not due to the risk of sliding or roll over.

Residential vs Commercial

So in reflection it is just completely unreasonable for a homeowner to purchase commercial grade mower but a necessity for a mowing contractor in Stow OH. Typical residential grade mowers are designed to hold up for about 300 mows and never designed to be bounced around on a trailer. They would not hold up for a month in a commercial environment but a homeowner with a commercial mower will be passing on the mower 10 generations down in their family in Stow Ohio!

Even though a commercial mower is expensive at first for a contractor they get their monies worth out of it. This why they can be very reasonable on price to customers because of the longevity of the mower and speed. The maintenance intervals also help the contractor because they need maintained less frequently. Many times it is cheaper to hire a mowing contractor to mow your lawn than doing it yourself. Plus hiring a professional with commercial equipment will produce better results on the lawn.