Greenworks 40V 15 inch Dethatcher/Scarifier, Tool Only

This inexpensive, dethatching machine is amazing. I’m so glad I bought it. It is very lightweight and easy to use; it pulls itself along. The amount of thatch that flows out the back amazing. It left a layer of loose thatch material about 2-3 inches think. I filled TWENTY 42-gallon bags with thatch. My lawn area is about ½ acre, likely a bit less.A few things I learned.-- Cut the grass a little lower than usual. This makes it easier to keep the machine moving through your lawn.-- Dethatch when there is some moisture in the ground—not real wet, not dry. I did it after a good rain. I don’t think the dethatcher could do a good job if the ground was dry and hard.-- It seemed a good idea to heed the manufacturer’s recommendation to use an extension cord of the proper wire gauge depending on length. (The manual says you can burn up the motor if the extension cord is not of sufficient wire gauge for the lengthy. I paid about $40 for 100 foot cord. I didn’t want to use more than one extension cord so the cords would not pull apart. The hook on the handle for looping the cord to keep it from disconnecting works perfectly. (I once used some hedge trimmers that were a constant headache because the plug would pull out repeatedly.) I thought the extension cord would make the job pretty difficult, but it really didn’t. You just learn to work in patterns that keep the cord out of the way.-- The bag is useless because it fills up in just a few minutes. My advice: Remove it.This machine had enough power that it never got bogged down. But in areas where the grass was a bit high, it was harder to keep it moving through the grass. (Otherwise, it was very easy.)It was easy to switch the dethatcher blade and scarifying blade. I scarified to rough up the ground for reseeding.Before I bought the Greenworks dethatcher, I tried dethatching with a hand rake. Even though it was a well-designed dethatching rake, I soon realized that if I did the whole yard it would take a very long time and leave my old back aching probably for years. So I bought the Greenworks dethatcher. The price was very reasonable. I doubt I could have rented a dethatcher for less.No negatives. (There is a battery version of this dethatcher, but it costs about three times as much.)

Amazing and easy to use. Took out 8 bags of thatch from 2500 square foot lawn in less than 1 hour. Definitely recommend this tool!

This was easy to setup. Took about 15 minutes until I was dethaching the lawn. It's pretty light but gets the job done. The lawn looks great and ready for spring. I wish it was a bit easier to fold up for storage, but for the price, great buy.

Owned for two seasons. Works beautiful. I have use both the Tine and Dethatch/Scarifie attachments. I just use the Dethatch/Scarifieone now. Both work, but prefer the one. I used to rent every year. This allows spot treatment through out the year as well as its on my schedule. I have a large back yard, and a large yard up at my camp trailer not to mention my in-laws yard. My point is, I have used it plenty and have now surpassed annual rental fees. The bagger is a joke, you are going to rake or vac/mow to pick up what it digs up. Good buy.

This device worked great. It came with the scarifier in place, which I used (I did not try the included thatcher adapter). Assembly was not at all challenging, with fairly good illustrations. Height adjustment is simple. I cut the grass low (second lowest setting on my Greenworks 80V mower), then set the scarifier unit to the second lowest setting, and it worked beautifully. My intention was to put slits in the lawn before seeding. Reading reinforced my intuition that soil contact is paramount in fostering seed germination and growth. I believe that to be true, because I'm pretty sure I heard the grass seeds parachuting from my spreader whooping and hollering and high-fiving each other when they hit the scarified ground (LOL). The unit left tidy slits without destroying the lawn. One caveat is that the ground should be dry. On very dry lawn the unit kicked up some dust, but not a lot. On the other hand, I had some areas where drainage is suboptimal and the soil was damp, and the unit had a tendency to "grab" and pull/jerk me and tear up the lawn somewhat. This can be completely avoided by limiting use to dry turf. The unit (again, this is with the scarifier adapter) pulled a lot of thatch out of the lawn, and removing the thatch was ninety percent of the job. The unit itself is very light, tends to pull itself along, and is remarkably easy to use as long as you avoid moist grass, where it misbehaves as described above. I elected to suck up the thatch with my Greenworks mower, which was quite labor intensive, requiring two or three passes (a higher-RPM gasoline mower might be more effective). A leaf rake would undoubtedly be effective, though I'm not sure the lawn would have the neat crisp appearance that mowing provides. Since I ended up mowing the lawn to pick up the thatch, I thought I might skip a step and tried using the scarifier on uncut grass. This worked pretty well, but the end result was that the grass looked a little scruffy compared with the lawn that was pre-cut and later mowed after scarifying. One of the best things about this whole process is that the lawn looked quite good after the process, which I appreciated. A lot of lawns appear torn up for weeks after aerating, and I was happy that I was able to avoid that scenario. My last comment is battery life. I had to charge the battery three times to scarify my lawn (half acre lot, of which about half is lawn), However, I am reluctant to comment here because the 4 Ah battery I have from my other tools is probably going on ten years old, and very likely has reduced output at this point. Overall, this is a definite 5-star purchase for performance and ease of use.

I was very skeptical about buying this. I'm very picky and this works amazing. I used to rent a very heavy commercial one that ripped apart my lawn. This was so light and easy and it dug up alot of dead grass. Very happy

Wow, just wow. Last year I spent 40 hrs dethatching my front lawn (it's big). I just did it again today with this machine in 6 hours! That said, the bag is pretty much useless so get your rake out. But, even with raking all total just 6 hrs. If that machine dies tomorrow, what I spent was totally worth it plus it folds very nicely for storage and it's not at all heavy or difficult to use. The cord is a bit of a pain, but worth putting up with to get the job done, and it works pretty good too.

So far so good. It is pretty quiet, and seems to have enough power. The bag catcher is on the smaller size which slows down progress. It is electric so it has immediate start. Cleans up easy when done.