LawnMaster GVB1316 Electric 16” 13 Amp Dethatcher and Scarifier with 12 Gallon Collection Bag

This is a middle range consumer level product. Bad reviews either expected too much or were written by people who didn't read the manual. There is a lot of useful info included in the manual including the proper use of the machine and proper preparation before using it. You should definitely take the time to read it if you go for this Dethatcher/Scarifier. It should be suitable for most suburban lawns. Mine is 7500 SF and I did everything at least twice so 20,000SF wouldn't be a problem. I'll give my thorough review and add in some advice based on the mistakes I made. If you're like me then you haven't dethatched in a long while and you've noticed irrigating and fertilizing aren't giving the same results you expect. Thatch is a fibrous layer of plant material that builds over itself year after year. How much thatch you have depends on your soil biology and species of grass. Thatch should be broken down by microbes, worms, etc but excessive pesticide use or certain soils don't give an environment for them to thrive in so more thatch is put down each year than the biology can remove. Also certain species of grass produce significant thatch while others produce next to none. Thatch is not the dead or burnt out grass you can rake up. If you trowel out a square about 4" deep and look at it from the side, thatch will be a dark brown layer sitting right on top of the soil. It might be anywhere from nothing to 1" thick. Power raking is using a machine to rake for you. Power raking picks up a lot of dead leaves of grass and other debris to give more light and air to the soil. Dethatching is ripping up that top fibrous layer to expose the soil. This machine does both but cannot match the power of a gas powered dethatcher you might rent. For power raking purposes it's very well suited. For dethatching it will get it done with a little extra effort. This product should more be thought of as something you use to maintain your yard. It is designed around yearly or bi-yearly dethatching/power raking and not really designed to take the toughest of jobs with ease. That said, it can definitely be used to get a tough job done as it did for me. It will require more effort than you may be thinking it should however. The bag is small as many reviewers said, but after I got through the thickest thatch and was on my last pass the bag was actually perfectly sized. It is small enough so you don't overload it weight wise and easily detaches for emptying straight into a can or bag. For maintenance purposes I have no doubt the bag will be extremely useful. A few things you need to do/know first. 1) Cut your lawn short to around 1-1/2" if you can do it. People complaining their healthy grass got ripped out didn't read the manual. It will scalp your lawn if the grass is too long. I'm on a hill and have uneven ground so I was probably around 2" and it ripped some up. I think even at shorter lengths you should expect some thinning but if you plan to overseed or have a spreading type species you want it thinned. 2) Understand that the height settings are not so you can dig deeper but so you can adjust the machine based on how much wear your tines or knives have. Get on the ground and look at where the tines extend down to. If they go digging into the dirt you will rip stuff out and wear them down way too fast. The dethatcher attachment works great on the highest setting right out of the box (transport mode) if you have a lot of material to clear out. The scarifier attachment should be set so the dig through the thatch layer and 1/8" into the soil to help open it up and aerate. Going deeper with either attachment will work but it will cause more damage to your existing lawn if that matters for your project. 3) My first impression after opening the box was that it was going to be a cheap piece of garbage based on the feel. The plastic felt flimsy and it didn't seem to weigh enough. Gas engines are heavy, need heavy frames and wheels but this is very light. It's rugged enough and doesn't need to support a combustion engine. I'm glad I didn't return it based on first impressions. 4) You need a quality extension cord. I used a 50' 14 AWG cord on a 15 amp circuit and I think I got as much power out of it as possible. They recommend a 12 AWG cord in the manual for cords 50' and up but the cord holder on the handle is too small for a 12 AWG which seems like a design flaw. I have a shorter 12 AWG cord I tried and I did not notice a difference in performance between that (25') and my 14 AWG (50'). The longer your cord the more voltage drop you have and that can drop performance but I think my 14 AWG was fine. 5) The air intake vents to cool the motor are in a really poor spot right next to the height adjustment lever right over the wheels. The holes will get blocked up from material that you have to clear out often. As an electric motor it will burn out if it gets too hot. It was about 80 degrees out and I let it cool down every 30 minutes to be safe. You spend more time raking up anyway. 6) The height settings are counterintuitive (to me anyway.) #1 is the tallest height while #3 is the shortest. 7) The cord will get in your way, but once you get the hang of it, it's not a big deal. Just make sure you start closest to the outlet and work your way out. The cord should always lay over the area you already worked so you don't run the risk of running it over. 8) If you have sprinkler heads, tree roots, etc, mark them with flags or something else so you don't run over them. 9) You have to keep moving. Slowing down or stopping with the machine running strips it bare. I started with the dethatching tines and the bag on but it filled too quickly. I took the bag off and stuck a piece of wood under the rear hatch which made it a little easier for the thatch to go out the back. I did the first pass on the transport height setting and it raked out many barrels of old material. I raked this up and then went again with it set a little lower and it still pulled out a lot. I raked that and then realized that the tines were not doing a great job of taking out my thatch layer. I switched out the dethatcher for the scarifier - super easy to do. The scarifier will kick back rocks so I took out the wood piece. It worked great on the thatch. It cut right through it to the soil in one shot. I played with the height to get it where I wanted it. The scarifier will chop up any little bumps or unevenness which is good but it destroys more of your lawn while doing that. At this stage I felt like I might've been ruining the lawn because it was looking pretty bare and weak. I overseeded so it was important to me that I actually expose the soil completely since you need soil contact to properly germinate. 3 weeks later and I can see good strong growth from my existing and the new stuff is coming in. Next spring I believe it will fill in and do great now that water and nutrients will actually hit the soil. I neglected the lawn for a while so it will take time to bounce back. But all I have to do is maintain it next year which should be easy. You can see how much wear I put on the tines and the scarifier. I did not call the company to find out how much replacements cost but I think I can get another couple seasons out of these and decide if I want to replace them then. This unit can definitely handle what you throw at it. I treated it gently in the beginning but not so much towards the end and it held up. It's tougher than it looks. A screw came out where the handles attach directly to the motor housing and I lost it somewhere. I just used a spare screw I had instead and it was fine. All in all, I would recommend this machine if you only need maintenance or if you can spare the extra days it will take to do the tougher jobs. The only drawbacks are that it could be a little more powerful and the tines and blades got more wear than I expected. For a middle range product it is good enough and for the price I got it ($95) it's a deal.

I have a half acre of some of the best moss growing yard on the planet. I have spent years breaking my back raking it by hand. I hate it. I saw this thing a couple of years ago and thought surely my hatred was worth throwing $125 at it as a Hail Mary. I love this thing. I bought the corded model, even though I hate things with a cord. It is light and easy to use. The bag is useless in my opinion so I just bungee the door up so the grass can pass through. It does such a great job I have had several strangers stop their cars while I was using it so they could take a picture and order their own. I’ve bought a lot of things off of Amazon and this thing is easily in the top ten. What used to take me two weeks of back breaking work now can be done in two relatively easy days of taking up all of the moss and dead grass it pulls up. Seriously people, it is some of the best money spent.

Works as stated. I have not detached my lawn in 4 years so I ended up with a lot of bags, just for my front yard. I ended up doing 4 passes simply because it had been so long. The downfall of the machine is the bag is very small and it fills with one pass (not a huge front yard) so I wish the back was bigger. Outside of that, it worked great! I hqve back issues so a manual dethatcher is not an option for me anymore. Was easy to assemble and use. Going to try the airrater of the machine this weekend when I go lay grass seed. I suspect it will work great. All my neighbors are already asking to borrow it!

This might be one of the worst items I've ever ordered from Amazon. I had a sinking feeling as soon as I opened the box and saw how flimsy and lightweight this dethatcher was. It felt like a child's toy. It worked well for a few seconds and then stopped. Then it worked for a few more seconds and stopped again. This continued for about 20 minutes until it completely stopped and never restarted. Poorly made and a complete waste of time and money. Zero value. I'm going to hold out for a battery powered unit. Thank you Amazon for the quick refund.

I rarely comment on purchases but I am very happy with this one. It performs well for the money. In some ways better than a large commercial thatcher. Here are my notes. It's motor is plenty strong if you are patient. I bought it to thatch some super thick healthy grass and some areas that were patchy and dead from heat and grubs. I used the wire tines, not the metal blades. If you go slow and are patient it does both well. It also really worked well in mossy areas tearing it up and exposing the soil below. Run it as you would a rug shampoo machine. Be slow and patient. Can go back and forward over problem areas as it is nice and light. Just keep the blade spinning and don't push it so fast or hard it bogs down. It has a good depth adjustment for that. I didn't expect it but I did around 8,000 SF of lawn in about 90 minutes. Its pretty wide. And if you are patient it works better in the end than a big gas tine thatcher. Think of pacing it like a slow walk with your lawnmower to get a clean cut. It is just 128$ so yes it feels cheap when you assemble but it is light and easy to move and manage. Perfect for a machine I'll use once a year. BTW the bag does work but is not strictly needed. Finally, after I was done thatching, I ran my mower with the blade low and vacuumed up all the debris. And, if your grass is long, mow it short before using this machine

Doesn't work as good as I had hoped. It picks up to much dirt, making the bag to heavy for this 80 yr old man. But it still does a decent job. Nice and light weight.

Works perfectly. Easy to put together and immediately start knocking out the dethatching. Light weight, easy to store and overall great deal for a USA made product.

Very impressive dethatcher ..Say good bye to hard to start..Smokey..rental @$100.00 per day.. One of the best items on Amazon that I have bought..it actually Worked..! Easy assembly..light weight..I was very surprised…plus I own it..

excelente es un equipo para escarificar, tanto eliminar raiz o pasto seco, como quitar hierbas que solo contaminan tu pasto, yo la puse en el nivel mas alto par que me ventile el pasto y abonarlo y en cosa de dos semanas mi pasto con el riego y los nutrientes esta perfecto, sano y muy fuerte

C'est miraculeux pour le prix. Je le conseille à 150%

I bought this machine last year but did not use it myself until this year and it has gotten a workout so far.I’ve been using the scarifier blade and it works very well for taking up the dead grass and other debris.My yard looks so much better.

Excellent product. Easy to use, I used it without the catcher to speed up dethatching , but more raking needed but it's lightweight thatch

Lasted about 60 minutes before the gears on the thatcher attachment wore out. Trying to reach customer service was an absolute joke. Hours and hours on the phone and never talk to anyone. They will not handle the warranty claim online. Returned it. For the price it is absolute garbage. I picked one up at Canadian Tire for 140 dollars and it is still working about 4 hours in.