Latest reviews about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

ArmandoColpa says "Probably the best way to clean your lawn!" about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

ArmandoColpa — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:30:38 GMT

I have a half acre and have a number of Japanese Maples, a Weeping Cherry a number of ash and oak trees and I also have six dreaded pine trees that drop needles on the ground like crazy. Combined with my backpack leaf blower and my cheap ($50) electric blower/mulcher (to mulch the leaves once I finally have everything in a pile), I find this sweeper (which I've had for two years now) to be the absolute best way to clean things up.

Before, I used to blow all of my leaves to the back of the house. The pine needles? I just let them sit there as I had no idea on how to get rid of them. Back to the leaves. Because my land has a slight slope to it, I was basically blowing my leaves uphill! It would take about six or seven separate blowings of about four or five hours each to get rid of all of the leaves. Now, I start with my blower and blow any leaves that are in a hard to reach place on to level ground. That's it! As soon as they're in an open area, I leave them there. The key is to not try...

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aerolark says "Performs incredibly well for the price" about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

aerolark — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:17:24 GMT

This piece of equipment performs incredibly well for the price.

We've got 3/4 of an acre of lawn and towed behind our ********** LA125 lawn tractor the lawn was completely cleared in just over an hour and a half -- not much more time than it normally takes to just mow the lawn. Before I started, I couldn't see the grass since there were so many leaves on it -- This at a FRACTION of the price of a lawn vacuum.

It picked up virtually everything: oak leaves and acorns, maple leaves and seeds, hickory leaves and hickory nuts.
Overall, the lawn looked incredibly well-groomed, though it left some pine needles behind.

Be careful about the height adjustment when operating:
If set too low, the wheels skid and dig trenches in your lawn trying to gain traction against the friction of the brushes.
If set too high, it doesn't pick up well.
It's easy to re-set the height adjustment, but keep looking over your shoulder as it sweeps.

Rough calibration marks on the adjustment bar to give an idea of the height...

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Farva says "Awesome product!" about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

Farva — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:58:38 GMT

I passed on a bagger for my Bolen's 38" and went for this sweeper. I'll never regret it! The assembly instructions were a bit vague but a little intuition makes up for that. This thing picks up everything, even in damp grass. I mulch with my rider and recently mulched high grass and tons of leaves. It picked up even the little pieces. I find the collection bag easy to empty without getting off of the mower. I dump the leaves on my neighbor's garden and had a very easy time backing the sweeper into position to dump the debris. I could run several times around my 3/4 acre lot before I had to dump. My neighbor was mowing with his double bagger while I was mowing and he stopped to dump about 8 times for every time I had to stop to dump. It does take up storage space but is worth every inch! My back is happy, my wife is happy that I wasn't in the yard raking all weekend and I'm actually looking forward to the next time I have to clean up leaves! Awesome product!

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ricwaj says "About 90% efficient" about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

ricwaj — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:55:18 GMT

Setup was a little rough. I am mechanically inclined but have a messed up back. Trying to put this together on the ground was rough. Make up a table with a couple of saw horses and some planks. That really helps. Also the instructions as to the bag framework fitting into the mesh bag could have been clearer. Got it put together the way I "thought" it was supposed to go and then immediately seen where it was wrong. Total Time involved=about 2-3 hours. Ok that was the bad news. The good news is this sweeper works a lot better then I ever thought. I have two huge oak trees in my yard that just love to dump acorns, plus my yard is very uneven. Just kept driving back and forth on different paths and I quickly had so many picked up that I had to get off my tractor to lift the back of the sweeper to dump them. Did it get them all? No but ey the squirrels got to eat too right? Leaf pickup is even better with only the occasional stick stopping the wheels. I only give it four stars...

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Cabinfeverusa says "Great Performance--- Pain in The A** Assembly" about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

Cabinfeverusa — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:01:09 GMT

The lawn sweeper works well but I only used it once and it jammed on me 2 times already. READ and REREAD the assembly manual before touching a bolt. The assembly is a pain!!

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dwitteman says "This is a good time and work saving tool!" about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

dwitteman — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:37:01 GMT

This machine works as advertised. Assembly takes a little time but the instructions are understandable and it is not difficult to put together. When you work with it you need to spend a little time to set the height adjustment depending on the length of grass and what you are picking up. When you get it set up right, however, this baby will pick up leaves and grass very efficiently. I note that some reviewers indicate it is hard to back up without jacknifing. Some people have a nack for backing things up and others do not. I can back it up without problems; my wife cannot. Whether you will have trouble or not depends on which catagory you fall in. Either way, it is really not a big deal. I have discarded the rope which is used to pull up the hamper for dumping. I found that if you have a signifcant load to dump, it is easier to get off your tractor and raise the hamper by hand which also allows you to give it a little help with your hand as you coax out the contents...

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Mikejerri says "This is usable but not convenient!" about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

Mikejerri — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:00:16 GMT

I purchased a lawn sweeper several years ago from Sears, and it had a removable hopper on it that worked well. Now with the new one I purchased recently I cannot remove it easily. So now I cannot dump it into my recycle bins which a lot of people use. I was thinking that since it was newer it would be easier to remove, which is not the case. Removing this hopper is quite difficult for me and I would predict that would be the case for most people. I don't think people would want to scoop or dump out the grass on the ground and then place it into the recycle bins. Thank You.

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jic630 says "Needs some work to be a good unit" about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

jic630 — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:44:06 GMT

Third time out the height adjustment tube broke due to poor welds and light duty thin metal. It also wouldn't dump with the rope had to get off and shake and scrape the grass clippings out by hand. The rope would lift the hopper,but the grass wouldn't dump out. Hopper design poor and flimsy It did seem to p/u the grass pretty good though. Took an hour or 2 to get the thing put together. No surprises with the assembly, but the directions were kind of ambiguous.

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yardNgard says "Clean sweep, even with the acorns" about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

yardNgard — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:55:37 GMT

This unit does mostly what it is supposed to do. The trick is getting the brush height just right so that you can sweep up the leaves that are down low or stuck to the ground without setting the brushes too low so that you get wheel skip or skid. I didn't have to worry about leveling the hitch as this unit was level with my Craftsman DYS4500 without any issues.

I have a LOT of oak trees in my yard so I wanted to be able to pick up those small leaves that are a bit waxy as well as the sticks and acorns that fall out every year. I have a mixed yard with St. Augustine and Bermuda grass and it works on both, except where some of the leaves are stuck to the dirt. If the leaves are on the grass and not the mud or soil, they come up a lot easier. I do have to adjust to different heights between the front and back yards, so it takes a few passes. If I use the sweeper when it's totally dry, I get a lot of grass clippings, too, but then the dust content goes up and I'm covered. :-)

The...

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shoalsboy says "Junk...." about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

sears-feed — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 06:15:04 GMT

I have used this sweeper three times.....first time out of the box the right wheel locked up 15 feet out of the garage. I am a service tech so, I disassembled and found no grease in the ratchets. Lubed and worked fine. Second use: no problems...thought all was solved. Third use: the welds on the height adjuster rod broke off on a almost level yard. Where the welds were, the metal was all rusted and only welded half way around on both sides!! VERY POOR CRAFTSMAN SHIP AND ATTENTION TO DETAIL!!!!...

Mertz says "4 stars" about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

sears-feed — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 07:01:34 GMT

It took about 1 hour and 40 minutes to put together. I took my time and did it right almost the first time. I hooked it up to my 19hp lawn mover and made one adjustment and it worked great. I mow about an acre and this puts a very nice pattern into the lawn. It looks great. I have a mulching attachment on the mower so the clippings are small. My wife wanted them for mulch in her garden. She now has more than she needs. My only complaint is that is slows the mower and after completing about 3/4 of the yard the transmission in the mower gets too hot and I have to disconnect the sweeper to finish. I had some problems with the rope until I tied it to the hitch pin. I try not to fill it to full and don't have any problems lifting it to dump it. If it is too full I have to get off the mower to dump. I am very happy with it and so is my wife....

CrysWimmer says "Beware of hills!" about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

sears-feed — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:15:06 GMT

I really wish I'd found this site before we'd purchased the sweeper. It does work well on even ground, although I had the same problems that the rest have had regarding assembly and hitch-connection. Our major problem is that we have a very uneven, 2 acre yard. On the hills, I come to a dead-stop which requires actually physically turning the tractor until it's faced downhill, dragging the sweeper around, and finally giving up. The front yard is our heaviest area for grass, yet we can't use it there because of the uneven terrain resulting from the walk-in basement. The tractor (a 24 hp motor) simply can't make it up even the shallowest hills. More than a 5-10 degree incline is too much for it. The sweeper does a great job on even ground, but if you have hills to mow you're better off with a bagger. The weight of the grass, combined with the pull of the wheels, is just too much for a normal lawn tractor....

studduck420 says "sweeper dissapointment" about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

studduck420 — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:49:50 GMT

Crafstman 42" lawn sweeper. What a hunk of junk. I spend $300 for this , while wanting it for a long while, and it does Not come with all the parts. Customer service said they will UPS the missing parts, sometime this week. then she pointed out that I should have layed out all parts and matched them against the assembly instructions. Yes, Maybe, but I told her hardly anyone does that, I just started putting it together. She yelled at me and said everyone does that. (if you are reading this, do you?) Anyhow, she said there not that critical of parts. It only supports the bag in an upright position. I should put it together and use it. She was also suprised it was only missing a couple of parts. I put it together as instructed. The Darn thing fell apart 3 times and jiggled apart a couple of other times. I have allways loved Crafstman stuff, But I am so frusterated with this non sweeping sweeper, I may never go to Sears again, let alone buy Craftsman. I was hoping for more from this...

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Anonymous says "great product" about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

sears-feed — Fri, 15 May 2009 18:30:48 GMT

This is the greatest product I've ever owned. It is a great product and easy to put together. Easy to use best thing in the world....

kenny46 says "sweeper" about Craftsman 42 in. High Speed Sweeper

sears-feed — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:30:06 GMT

This is one of the best peices of lawn equiepment i have bought.Took about 1 hr to put it together,directions were good just take your time.This attachment works great took a few practice trys to see where it works the best.Seems to me the slower you go the better the job it does.Wished I would have bought this item before....