Showing posts from: Gardening Tips

Saving Energy And Light Bulb

Prepping for Summer

In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been going a bit garden crazy over the last couple of weeks. It’s that wonderful time of year when it seems like the summer is just around the corner (at least when it isn’t raining). Getting your garden ready for the coming months of barbecues and the sun being out ’til 10 at night is something that makes us eSpares types pretty excited. Hence, like I said, the recent glut of garden videos.

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How to Get the Perfect Lawn

British Summer Time began yesterday. Whilst it meant that the past weekend was the shortest of the year, it also means that spring has well and truly sprung and gardening is firmly back on the agenda. Hopefully when you look out of your back door you now see not a murky and forbidding brown and off-green space, but a slightly unkempt patch brimming with possibility.

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Electrolux Sea Vacuum Collection

Chainsaw Safety Tips

When I say to people ‘we sell spare parts for home and garden appliances’, I usually get replies enquiring about fridges, lawn mowers and washing machines. What doesn’t spring to mind immediately is chainsaws. Now I know it’s not like there’s one in every household in the land, but certainly a fair amount of people do own them; particularly people living in rural areas with bigger gardens.

A chainsaw can make light work of heavy duty gardening, but it can also make light work of arms and legs as well. With that being said, here are a few safety tips…

Wear The Proper Gear

It’s essential that you protect your body as best you can whilst operating a chainsaw. This means wearing steel toe-capped boots and thick protective work gloves. It also means goggles or a visor to protect your eyes from stray chippings, and hearing protectors to insulate your ears from the noise of the chainsaw. Protective jackets and trousers should be worn too. If you lack any of these items, check out our range of protective gear.

Look After Your Chainsaw

Having a fully working chainsaw is a must. To ensure a cleaner and smoother action when sawing, sharpen the blades regularly and keep the chain well oiled. You must also make sure the chain stays at the correct slackness. Keep an eye on the bottom of the bar too; it’s susceptible to wear as it is the part where the most pressure is applied. When it starts to wear down, replace it. We sell loads of chainsaw spares, so you can always keep your saw in full working order.

Use The Chainsaw Responsibly

  • Whenever operating the saw, make sure that you’ve got plenty of space around you.
  • Make sure that you’re fully balanced – don’t ever bring the saw above your head or stoop down too low.
  • Never use chainsaws around children or animals.
  • Don’t attempt to saw branches or objects that are too thick, or too big – they could fall on you and trap you.
  • If you do want to get rid of a tree or a branch that is more than a couple of inches thick, seek professional help.

Follow these tips, and you are a safe and responsible chainsaw user. Congratulations!

The Tail End of Lawnmower Season

We’re getting towards last cut of the year kind of time, and after a hard summer of keeping the grass in check, does your lawn mower need a bit of love? Even if all seems well, it’s always worth giving it a quick MOT to make sure everything’s running smoothly.

Parts worth checking are the lawnmower blades (safely of course!), which do blunt over time. Check the drive belt too, this can slacken and cause inefficiency. Another obvious one is the grass box – empty to prevent build up, which can lead to grass being deposited on your carefully cultivated lawn. If anything needs replacing, we’ve got thousands of lawnmower spares at our website, as well as a bunch of videos helping you fit them too – in this one Helen gives a Flymo a whole new motor. Impressive.

How's Your Lawn Looking?

Over the past few weeks, a lot of the UK has bathed in beautiful, and very warm, sunshine. And while the weather has been perfect for heading down to the beach for the day or playing Frisbee in the park, it’s a decidedly more stressful time for garden owners across the country as they try in vain to keep their lawns from turning in to parched wastelands. The damper weather this week has offered some respite, but summer can still be a testing time for lawn wranglers.

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Ruined Cable

Be Careful With That Flymo Lawnmower Cable

I’ve often wondered why we sell so many replacement Flymo cables. Surely you’ve got to be pretty careless to run over the power cord when you’re mowing the lawn? Well, I’ve since found out that it’s actually very easily done. I now feel somewhat humbled.

I was happily mowing away, thinking about what a fine job I’ve done with the lawn this year, then Bang! You’d be surprised at what a noise it makes as the cable is dragged into the blade and minced. I leapt backwards into the air, away from my Flymo, and immediately thought “Ahh, that’s why we sell so many Flymo cables.”

I’m pleased to say that I was unhurt in this little incident. However, I might not have been so lucky, as I didn’t have an RCD Safety Plug fitted. These little devices cut the power in a matter of milliseconds so that if the severed live cable flings around and hits you, you don’t become the easiest route to earth and get a nasty shock. I have now replaced the cable and invested in a safety plug – at under a tenner, they’re a low price to pay in case my mind goes wandering again.

Washing Machine Drum

How To Fit New Flymo Lawnmower Parts – New Videos

Like any retailer there is also a level of seasonality in our business. In the winter months it seems that people mostly are interested in cooker spares and in the summer it’s gardening spares. To make the most of this we’ve been spending a significant amount of time creating new videos that focus on how to keep your lawnmower and trimmer in top shape.

One thing that we cannot emphasize enough is the importance of a sharp blade when cutting your lawn. It’s pretty easy to go with the flow and cut with the blade in your mower, even if it’s blunt. A blunt blade will rip at your lawn, tearing it, and over time your lawn will appear patchy. Don’t let this happen to you. Make sure you always mow with a sharp blade. In our latest Flymo lawnmower video we show you how to fit a new Flymo cutting disc, which comes fitted with new blades.

Of course if you don’t need to replace the cutting disc and you just want to replace the Flymo plastic blades this is very easy to do as well:

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How To Replace a Flymo Lawnmower Motor – New Video

I’ve got to hold my hands up to say that I’ve never fitted a lawnmower motor before. To be quite frank I would have found this task daunting and may even have considered just replacing the whole lawnmower if the motor bit the dust. This video on how to fit a Flymo lawnmower motor surprised me as it demonstrated that fitting is actually really easy. After watching this I feel confident that I could take on the task of replacing my mowers motor should the time come.