Are Commercial Walk Behind Mower better than Consumer Lawn Tractors?

Does anyone have experience with commercial walk behind mowers? And are they better or faster than a lawn tractor riding mowers? I see used commercial walk behinds for sale around $1000, which is half to a third the cost of a zero turn (used or consumer grade new). Will a 48” or bigger commercial walk behind be faster than a lawn tractor?

I currently have a 48” Craftsman lawn tractor which I use to cut 2 acres. It can’t cut well at full speed (about 6 miles and hour with a GPS app) and I normally have to cut my lawn twice unless I mow often and cut off less that an inch or two. I also have many trees and obstacles to cut around, which I understand the walk behinds are very good at maneuvering around trees and things. 

I also understand I need to look for a hydro transmission unit rather than a belt driven since I may need to back up around trees and things. I also assume I will want a sulky to stand on, since I doubt I can walk it at full speed. 

Many of those walk behinds have a stand on velkie that makes it a very fast mower.   

Behold! The Super Mower!

It Zero-Turns to the point where I barely need to do any trimming. And they will go many, many, many more years without rusting out.

Also...

Fast and comfy.

I was close to buying a walk behind but found a commercial zero turn in good shape yesterday for $1300. Today my neighbors nephew was over and said he was getting ready to sell his scag 54" walk behind. If you are near central Ohio i can put you in touch with him.

A commercial walk behind with a sulky should be just as fast as a zero turn, i just like sitting down while mowing.

In reply to Woody :

Is that a T-bar style control? How do you like that system? I noticed most are the lever controls. 

In reply to EvanB :

That sounds like exactly what I’m looking for. I don’t know if I’m ready to immediately pull the trigger, but I’d like to find out more about that Scagg. I’m in Northwest Ohio, so I can make it down to Central Ohio. 

Scag makes excellent mowers in general.  

In reply to Nate90LX :

I'll get his contact info and send you a message with it. 

I have a 48" Snapper walk behind with a stand on 2 wheeled velky. It can cut grass at it's max speed of 7 mph. I much prefer it to any consumer grade machine, as it will last forever at a homeowner usage level. I used it in high school and college to cut ~15 yards a week.

If you want to do tractor things, the answer changes. My mower, and ones like it, can't plow snow, pull an aerator, or any other similar tasks. But for cutting grass, I consider it far superior to a tractor style mower.

If you do decide to pull the trigger on one, I highly recommend a hydrostatic unit vs a gear/belt drive version. They're just that much simpler to use.

Unless I actually needed the tractor for anything, I would 100% buy a walk-behind with a sulkie or a used zero-turn mower instead of a harry-homeowner-type garden tractor.

Thanks for everyone’s feedback. This is great info. It sounds like the walk behinds with sulky might be as fast as a consumer grade zero turn. 

FYI, I have a Yanmar sub compact tractor to do tractor type stuff. It has a 3 point rear finish mower which can be fast and cuts great as the right speeds. But it’s not very maneuverable and it’s too old to have a live PTO, so it’s difficult to turn change gears and mow at the same time. 

Unrelated to the walk-behind thing, but I just picked up a (brandy-new) Exmark zero turn last September. I was supposed to do an oil change @ 5 hours for break in purposes and I just hit that two weeks ago.  The guy at the store laughed at me when I told him..

It took me 3 hours to mow my ~3.5 acres on my 1970s IH Cub Cadet garden tractor, it now takes a touch more than an hour to do a total trim.

I'm guessing that if you get one of these types of mowers, you'll be doing your lawn in about 45 minutes, trees and all :)

In reply to WonkoTheSane :

That is great. I understand a portion of the time savings is the ability to turn around and mow strips quickly. 

It would be great to cut my mowing time to around an hour. If I can hold 6 MPH with a 48 inch mower I should be able to mow 2.6 acres per hour. I tell myself it takes only about two hours to mow now, but I three to four hours with trimming. Plus, the past few weeks something breaks every time I mow. In fact I think the front wheel has fallen off 5 times in the last 4 weeks of mowing. I added double snap rings to the wheel and that seem to have solved the wheel falling off problem. 

That's the reason I bought a zero turn this weekend. With my old garden tractor I would have to spend 30 minutes fixing it every time I wanted to mow and it was getting old. I finally found a deal and jumped on it. 

I sent you a message with the contact info for the guy with the Scag. 

In reply to Nate90LX :

Yep, that's exactly the impetus for me buying mine.. it took me a month to mow my lawn between speed and mechanicals, and I couldn't find anything I really trusted in the used market.  I really didn't want to part with 5k, but with 0% financing, I didn't have to even though I had the cash :)

I figure my last tractor was 40+years old, if I can pay the 2019 equivalent and get equal service, it's worth it.  Plus I still use the old battle-axe for hauling mulch, soil and leaves.

In reply to EvanB :

Thanks! I also sent you a PM. 

In reply to WonkoTheSane :

When the wheel fell off the second time (within 10 minutes of the last time), I was nearly ready to drop $5k then and there. Luckily it was 10 PM at that point and my cheapness took over. That’s when I started looking at the walk behinds. 

Nate90LX said:

In reply to Woody :

Is that a T-bar style control? How do you like that system? I noticed most are the lever controls. 

I love the controls. The closest way I can describe it is that they are like two motorcycle throttles connected together. Roll forward to go forward, back to go back. Turn to turn. Drive is hydrostatic, so turning is done by the drive wheels. It only takes a minute to master it.

The Sulky is a 60 year old Gravely that I bought for $75 restored. I fabricated the hitch for it.

I miss our old zero turn, it had a joystick to steer and we couldn't find another one that did. It was so much nicer than the stupid twitchy levers the new one has.

I grabbed a Kubota GF1800 diesel mower several weeks ago. Not quite as easy as my old Cub zero turn but much quieter and has gobs of torque and generally feels less fragile. It is a sit down rider but rear steer with a forward deck so it can cut tighter than the zero turn once you get used to the steering. Just another option to look for. I gave $1650 for it. Bunch of hours on it but everything works great. 

I ended up finding a 61” Scag walk behind with the hydrostatic transmission. It is a beast. The controls take some getting used to, but I’m kind of getting the hang of it. 

Here is a picture from the add.