The push reel mower, unlike its motorized counterparts, is fueled by the power of you. There’s something satisfying about powering your lawn mower and listening to its soothing snips. The benefits of the push reel mower are manifold. The first a time you finish mowing with a push reel mower, wipe away that gratifying sweat and see your symmetrical green lawn, you’ll see what the hype is all about.

The Price is Right

By far, push reel mowers are the cheapest on the market. The price is right for frugal homeowners. Not only will you save on the initial cost, but maintaining reel mowers costs next to nothing too. There’s no gas, oil, and filters to worry about. Some high-quality reel mowers only need their blades sharpened once per decade.

Lawn Health & Appearance

Reel mowers cut your lawn like a barber cuts hair. Motorized mowers cut your lawn by shredding the grass like a dull machete messily chopping through dense brush. You’ll see the difference when inspecting the jagged edges resulting from a motorized mower and the parallel perfection of grass blades courtesy of the push reel mower. Reel mowers can’t be bested as they consistently produce well-groomed lawns with the precision of barber shears. Because of the clean cuts, your lawn remains healthy, verdant and more resistant to lawn disease, according to TheArtofManliness.com.

Silence

We’ve all heard the cacophony of gas-powered motors revving to life on weekend mornings. Push reel motors emit only the soft sonic snip of metal slicing grass. With these manual mowers, you no longer have to worry about waking the entire neighborhood and harming your own ears with damaging decibels.

Safety First

One false move can transform your power mower from a lawn care tool to a fatal slicing machine. In 2010, more than 200,000 Americans suffered from lawn mower-related injuries, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on AAP.org. Power mowers can flip and decimate your digits or the spinning blades can eject a rock at hundreds of miles per hour. Push reel mowers pose nearly no risk, in comparison. Rocks will jam the mower instead of turning them into blinding projectiles, and the blades stop spinning when you stop moving.

Eco-Friendly

“The exchange of 1,000 gasoline-powered lawn mowers for electric mowers has the potential of reducing volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions by 9.8 tons per year, which is equivalent to removing 230 cars from the highways,” according to EPA.gov. You’d be further serving the environment by using a manual mower. It doesn’t get much more eco-friendly than a push reel mower.

A Caveat

Even though the push reel mower offers a slew of advantages, they’re not right for every person and every lawn. Tallgrass is a major challenge for manual mowers, and if your lawn grows preternaturally fast, you may want to consider a mower with more power. It’s a great exercise when mowing with a reel mower, but any yard larger than a typical suburban lawn may require a significant chunk of time and energy to cut.