Brinly STS-42BHDK-A 42" Tow-Behind Lawn Sweeper with Dethatcher and Hamper Windscreen

Due to a recent shoulder surgery (and passing the 65 year milestone) My wife and I are not able to rake the massive amount of leaves this fall.We have a one acre yard with over a dozen large Oak & Aspen trees. We explored options and my wife wanted to try a lawn sweeper.We spent a lot of time looking at lawn sweepers, their videos, and reading owner reviews here on Amazon. We started with the cheaper ones and noted all the negatives; assembly challenges, missing parts, lack of durability, poor construction, questionable engineering, dumping leaves on top of the sweeper when emptying, etc. We also noted several reviewers mentioned owning more expensive models for years and then purchasing the cheaper ones, to their regret.My wife suggested stopping by the local John Deere dealer. (JD models did not appear in the amazon searches). After all the videos and reviews, we had an idea what to look for. The John Deere sweeper was clearly head & shoulders above the completion. And it came assembled. But it was pricey.All equipment needs maintenance and repair through use. So I ran a search on amazon to see if we could get parts part for the John Deere Sweeper and discovered the Brinly sweeper with the built in Dethatcher. I also discovered that parts for the JD and the Brinly were interchangeable. It is the exact same sweeper as the John Deere!The Brinley had the same solid construction using thicker steel tubing with bolts and self locking nuts. Instead of the competition’s pins with hairpins that fall out.It had dual drive gearboxes, one on each wheel. Instead of on just one wheel.The bag was sturdy and solid instead of the thin plastic mesh that lower priced ones used.And the integrated de-thatcher looked to be a game changer.And the Brinly sweeper with the built in de-thatcher was considerably cheaper than the JD similarly out fitted.Oddly, the Brinly sweeper had never came up in any of our searches on Amazon. Can’t Say why.The Brinly sweeper arrived last week. A good friend helped me assemble it.Came well packed. All parts were present and accounted for. No damage to the paint or any of the parts.The instructions were concise and well organized.All the nuts and bolts were “blister packed” on a large card. And separated & grouped by each each step in the assembly instructions.You just opened each section one at a time as you went along. Nothing could be easier.The de-thatcher came in a separate box with separate instructions. That was really good. Prevented any confusion of parts.Took us about 2 hours to assemble it. We went slow and took our time. Only tools needed were a couple metric wrenches and sockets.A couple of notes on Assembly.- Highly suggest reading thru the directions and laying out/organizing the larger parts in the order of assembly, First before beginning assembly.- Do not open the blister packs until you need them for that step in the assembly. Prevents confusion and loss of nuts & bolts.- Using a battery operated drill to assemble the de-thatcher will save time. Be sure to adjust your torque setting so not to over thighten the self locking nuts.- My friend and I are handy. We have some experience with tools, and have large tool boxes to draw from. Both of us thought the assembly was straight forward. Just followed the directions.My wife and I have now used the Brinly sweeper 3 times over our 1 acre yard. It works better than expected. It picked up dry leaves flawlessly. Throwing them to the back of the hopper and filling it up. On the last use, we had rain for 2 days which brought down a lot of leaves. The back yard was covered in a thick coating. Fortunately, we had a strong breeze in the morning the next day, which helped dry the leaves on top a little. I removed the de-thatcher (just 2 bolts) because the leaf cover was so thick. And the sweeper picked the wet leaves right up. It barely missed any. And it was no effort to make another pass for those.The leaves were wet and heavy and the sweeper filled on just one pass. So I made more runs to the compost pile to empty the leaves. But all I did was swing by, slow to crawl, and pull the cord. Didn’t even stop. As expected, it took more effort to pull the cord because the leaves were wet and heavy.When I think of all the hours we spent raking leaves into piles. Then raking them onto tarps. And then dragging them across the yard to the compost pile.No more sore back, shoulders, or blisters on our hands! All I had to do was drive the mower around. I think it took us 1/3 the time we would normally have spent raking.I Love this sweeper!!A couple of notes on operation:- The construction of the sweeper was heavy enough that that the sweeper never missed a beat. Even when it was empty the tires never slipped, picking up, leaves on start up.- We followed the directions for the height adjustments. (Measuring the heights of the sweeper & the de-thatcher with the unit attached to our JD mower in the garage on a cement floor). It worked great the first time and no adjustments have been needed. The directions say that 3 miles an hour is the optimum speed. And that is true. You do not want to go too fast or too slow. Again just read and follow the directions.- The only con was that the pull rope was about 16 inches too short for the hook up on my mower and it popped off the Velcro when turning sharply. (Probably my fault as I put the Velcro on the right side next to the gear shift. That was easily remedied by just adding a piece to the rope. And I cannot even call that a negative. It would be impossible for the manufacturer to have one size fit every application & mower.- The list of pros for this Unit makes this an easy 5 star review. Brinly got it right with this one!Please - Spend the extra money and get a good quality sweeper! (Brinly or JD)The frustration and time you will save will more than make up for the extra $$. The old saying - you get what you pay for - is really true here.I cannot recommend the Brinly highly enough.

With the cost of this unit you would expect some better instructions and build quality. Everything works as it should but it feels cheap and the moving parts are very flimsy. Plastic gears and a flimsy cover for it make me wonder just how long this is going to last me, but I'll be optimistic for now. I was missing a small piece of metal on the DeThatcher handle attachment point and had to fabricate one to replace it so I could operate the handle but all is well that ends well.

Good product. Sweeps the the yard fairly easy. The assembly will challenge your patience. It’s not that there is a lot of steps. You have to finagle with it a lot. Especially during the beginning. During the some of the steps you have to make sure the sweeping deck is lined up correctly with certain screw holes. Most definitely manageable.The hardware is neatly set up for each step, very similar to a Lego set. The differential on this unit is a little funny, makes a bunch of racket when you make sharp turns. Hopefully the gears last a while. I would recommend this product

It efficiently accomplishes its intended purpose and offers a far more cost-effective solution compared to hiring a contractor who charges an exorbitant fee for the job annually. Plus, opting for this method eliminates the back-breaking effort of hand dethatching, making it a much more practical choice.

Poor workmanship cheap material, it does work but the hamper is garbage material and wont last the first time I used it the stitching tore on the hamper the stitching was coming apart just from proper assembly as the pipe frame has to be threaded through the hamper, the paint was not applied well in some area's and will no doubt lead to rusting the Velcro attached to rope handle I strongly suggest not using it, on my second use it just fell off and wrapped up in the rotary brushes bent them all up and my yard is fairly flat

It took some time, but I was able to assemble the parts. The instructions were clear and it worked well the first couple of times that I used the sweeper. However, earlier this week, I was driving around picking up leaves and the sweeper disconnected from the lawn mover. On inspection, certain bolts had come off. I have ordered replacement parts from Brinly( not cheap and the shipping is expensive) and I will try reassembling the parts. So note of caution for others, tightening the bolts often may save you from my misery.