Hi all, I'm looking to move some of my petrol garden tools over to battery operated ones, specifically my leaf blower, my strimmer and my pole hedge cutter.
Ryobi are currently running an offer where if you buy one complete kit (tool, battery, charger) then you can select a free tool. All sounds great but are they are limited to the 18v One+ range, are they any good? I accept that one battery is never going to be enough to see me through half my jobs but that will always be the case and more batteries can be purchased in the future.
I really would like to know if they are going to be robust and powerful enough to deal with a medium sized garden with plenty of hedges with a mix of conifers, laurel, holly and beech and strimming nettles brambles and the normal grass edges.
Thanks.
Not Ryobi but I tried a 20v polecutter a couple of weeks ago and it was rubbish. I use a Stihl 36v hedgetrimmer for most of the facing work and though it sounds like a toy, it's a fantastic machine. The polecutter was replaced with a petrol Husqvarna for topping. I don't think any of the electric stuff would get anywhere near it.
I've got a few 18v Ryobi tools and they are great. Not super powerful but good enough. There's almost always a deal on so you can pickup a few extras or a battery if you need it.
I'm a fan of battery tools in general. Lighter, less maintenance, loads quieter and much better for the environment. For bigger tools it's worth going up to 40v but the small tools are fine at 18v.
+1 for Ryobi. I started off 12 years ago with a drill which came with 2 small batteries. Added a strimmer and a big battery, added another big battery, added a lawn mower and finally added a brick-paving cleaning tool which came with a medium battery. Everything works well.
My only experience of Ryobi was a decade ago. I bought a drill and the battery charger basically caught fire....I returned it to be given a second one with a dead battery.
I bought a Bosch and have not looked back. I've a drill, cordless hedge trimmer, sander, circular saw, screwdriver etc. None have any issues, all work as advertised.
I recently bought a Ryobi 18V ONE+™ 3m Cordless Pole Saw to cut some branches overhanging our drive.... yew, holly and beech,
I'd done a bit of cutting using a ladder which was all a bit precarious so bought the Ryobi, It worked really well, better than I thought and it would have cost me more to have someone in to do it than the cost of the Ryobi. Since the I've used it for odd bits of pruning. Thought it all worked pretty well. And more sensible than me falling off ladders.
Got various One+ diy tools, which are fine, one big battery and one small. I then got a long handled hedge trimmer for xmas half a dozen years ago. Gave it a test out on the xmas tree as soon as I opened it. Worked well, kids eyes popped out their heads and the wife got annoyed.
Since then I've used it well and it keeps going, no maintenance, just keeps trimming hedges.
Have a look in FB market place, there seems to be a fair bit on there if you wanna pick up extra pieces on the cheap ?
I think as a domestic/light use brand, they're probably on par with the others. It really depends on your use case as to whether an 18v tool will do. In my case, I'm topping 18' Leylandii hedges 5' across. The electric stuff won't touch the 15 - 18mm thick growth. It's fine for facing, not for topping (IME).
<edit> I initially looked at S/H for electric and petrol. The decent used petrol stuff seemed to be totally shagged for serious money and the electric stuff was mostly sans battery for not much less than you'd pay from a shop (admittedly Stihl and Husky). I'd be very wary of buying a used battery as you just don't know how much charge it still holds. I ended up buying a new in box pro level Husky petrol for very cheap. Landed in shit and came up smelling of roses.
Been using various One+ tools for ages now. From impact guns for car work, impact drivers and drills for DIY type jobs and I have a pole hedge cutter for the garden. Zero complaints. Had one dodgy battery a while back but B&Q just swapped it no questions asked. Only down side about the pole cutter which I assume affects all of them is that its flippin top heavy at full extension... gives you a proper upper body workout!
That's a downside of being a typical cyclists build - zero upper body strength. I needed a couple of days rest after doing my hedges this year 🙄
Generally that all sounds positive, thanks for the input. Looking at the website selection different tools come with different size batteries but they are all compatible, so I think as my base purchase I'll pick one with a larger battery until I get round to buying extras.
They make some decent printing presses - not as good as Heidelberg mind! 😀
Quite like Ryobi and the tools I have are all the 18v ones: drill, string trimmer and brush cutter. All of them working after a few years of use. Issue is the battery being a relatively small capacity at 2ah. I have a couple of these. For the drill it's fine, for the string trimmer, its OK but the brush cutter, go bigger atas big as you can. I can work these tools quite hard and the 2ah battery goes too fast.
Umbrella company of Milwaukee? Have ONE+ at work. Mower, trimmer, leaf blow/vac. They work but not a patch on similar Makita I’ve used. They feel a bit cheap. The 2 stroke might be better
I've bought into the ryobi one+ system and I think it's decent, probably a bit pricey for what you get, but it's decent.
I have the pole pruner (that was the original motivation) and got an additional extension pole along with the pole hedge cutter. Putting both extension poles together is rather unwieldy and wobbly but gets a huge reach and is preferable to climbing ladders. I have several decent-sized trees to control (plus my mother's garden) and it makes it possible for me.
+1 for the workout though, especially when I put the extra extension pole in. It's really quite a beast.
I also bought an additional big compatible battery off eBay which seemed decent value and lasts a lot longer than the small ryobi one. Having 2 batteries is very useful when I'm in a rush to get stuff done in a short space of time.