Best Lawn Mowers for Big Yards

Tobie Stanger

May 14, 2021 at 6:00 AM·3 min read

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Looking for a lawn mower for a big-but-not-huge yard? Your search isn't so different from that of Goldilocks. You want something just the right size: not too small to tackle the job properly, and not so big that it's overkill.

For small yards of up to ¼ acre, walk-behind push mowers are a solid choice. For slightly larger yards—from ¼ acre to about ½ acre—self-propelled walk-behinds are ideal; the powered wheels pull the machine forward, freeing you from having to push much yourself.

But if you're tackling a lawn of around ¾ acre, even powered wheels won't make the job seem easy if you're clearing only a 21-inch-wide swath on each pass. That's the standard width for walk-behind mowers. And yet a regular riding mower or zero-turn-radius model might seem unnecessary for a yard that size—plus, they’re inconvenient to store and can be much more expensive.

Let us direct you to two better options: the wide-deck self-propelled mower and the rear-engine rider.

The former resembles a standard walk-behind mower, but it boasts an extra-wide cutting deck, typically 28 inches. That extra width will shave about a quarter of the time off each mowing—which adds up to a lot of hours saved over the season.

Rear-engine riders, on the other hand, are scaled-down riding mowers, with engines mounted behind (rather than in front of) the seat. Most have 30-inch-wide cutting decks, compared with the decks on riding mowers, which range from 36 to 54 inches. The narrower profile means they’re about 25 percent smaller than full-sized riders, which means these rear-engine riders require less storage space.

Both types of mowers are typically powered by gas, but we have tested two battery-powered rear-engine riders.

“Wide-deck self-propelled mowers and rear-engine riders make up a small share of all the lawn mowers sold in the U.S.,” says Courtney Pennicooke, an analyst who oversees the lawn mower market for Consumer Reports. “But for people with larger-sized lawns, they really hit the sweet spot.”

Each year, Pennicooke makes sure that a number of both mower types are among the dozens of models we evaluate at our dedicated testing facility.

How CR Tests Lawn Mowers and Tractors

To get you ratings and reviews of the latest models by early spring, our testers travel to our mower-testing facility in Fort Myers, Fla., to conduct tests in late winter at grounds we prepare each year. We plant 1,800 pounds of grass seed (predominantly annual rye, prized for its dense growth) and cut 500,000 square feet of grass in three modes—mulching, side-discharging, and bagging, a total of 3,000 pounds of clippings. We mow both level turf and slopes to get a feel for each model and review the convenience features.

The Overall Score incorporates all that performance data, along with predicted reliability and owner satisfaction ratings from our latest member surveys. They leverage data on more than 78,000 lawn mowers and tractors that members purchased between 2010 and 2020.