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In the Press
Due their exceptional quality and innovative design, Brill push cylinder mowers are receiving more and more attention from the media. Take a look at the recent reviews and accolades that Brill has gotten from the Canadian press. The momentum is building!
Ottawa Home and Garden Show GUIDE part 1
Written by Matt on March 27th, 2009
The Ottawa Home and Garden Show is being held this weekend at Lansdown Park, so I thought I would spend the afternoon there today. There is over 300 exhibitors using the three large buildings, and worth the visit to each of them. Whether you are looking for a new contractor, a BBQ, new cooking recipes, or design ideas, the Ottawa Home and Garden Show has what you are looking for. A VERY large trend is ECO friendly, LEED, or Green products. More than ever before is it easier to bring an “earth friendly” products into the home. When you go this weekend, make sure you stop by some of the interesting booths that I visited.
Over at the Grun booth, Troy and his team were showing me around the Brill Razorcut push mower. Unlike traditional push mowers this German built device is designed with the user in mind. The typical push mower is hard to push let alone to cut the grass, but the Brill is designed for effortless cutting. Usually over time, the blades and other metal parts will corrode and make it very difficult to use, but the Brill mowers blades are contact free from the core of the machine, so it remains easy to use after 10 years. The mower sells for $269.00 and is also available at Home Hardware. The Brill mower was also featured in Esquire Magazine!
Fresh ideas for spring
March 28, 2009
By Stephanie Murphy, The
Ottawa Citizen
If you've got a case of spring fever but the thought of cleaning is daunting, put down the mop and rubber gloves and visit the Ottawa Home & Garden Show, where you'll find fresh ideas to inspire your next home project. About 300 merchants will be showcasing hot products and serving up advice on green renovations, decor trends and backyard transformations. The show is on today (10 a.m. to 8 p.m.) and Sunday (10 a.m. to 6 p.m.) at
Lansdowne
Park . Admission is $11, $9 for seniors and children aged 13 to 17, and free for those 12 and under. Buy your tickets online and receive $2 off
6. Green blades: This slick lawn mower relies on gentle muscle power, not gas or electricity. The Brill Razor Cut 33/38 push mower means never running over an electrical cord or sending gas clouds up into the air. Unlike grandpa's heavy clunker, the lightweight cylinders are easy to manage. The German-made mowers, distributed in Canada by Grun Canada, offer a clean, sharp cut that allows grass to resist weed infestations. There are four models: The Brill Classic for $169 and three versions of the Brill Razor Cut, ranging from $249 to $399. Visit www.gruncanada.ca or booth 1325.
Refining the Reel Lawnmower: The Brill Razor Cut
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 04.13.09
Mike has extolled the virtues of reel mowers, also called push mowers and cylinder mowers, noting that they are easy to use and fun. Stephanie at the Metro Home Show in Toronto shows off the new Brill Razorcut, that takes it to a whole new level- it is lighter, (17 pounds) it never needs sharpening (special steel blades) and the handle makes it fold up and store really easily.
It is also a lot quieter (yes, reel mowers do make noise) due to "touchless cutting"
It is still good exercise even with the lighter, more manoeuvrable Brill, burning off 408 calories an hour. The Canadian distributor of the German made Brill provides us out some statistics:
The over 20,000,000 small engines sold in North America each year contribute about one tenth of the total mobile source hydrocarbon emissions, and are the largest single contributor to these non-road emissions.
One problematic pollutant from mowers is polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, said Roger Westerholm, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of analytical chemistry at Stockholm University.
According to an EPA study prior to the Clean Air Act of 1990, small engines from lawn and garden equipment make up almost nine percent of some types of air pollution.
A push reel /cylinder mower produces 0 carbon while cutting; & it also takes almost a 0 footprint in your garage!
cutting your lawn with a push reel / cylinder lawn mower is more sporting and cathartic (its actually enjoyable).
Over 60,000 accidents/yr related to gas rotary lawn mowers.
Over 580,000,000 gallons of gas used annually to “feed” the gas rotary lawn mower.
So if you are not going to get rid of the lawn, (our first recommendation) at least get rid of the gas powered mower.
One way to push for green
Apr 21, 2009
Jennifer Wilson-Speedy The Toronto Star
For a greener lawn and planet, try a push mower. By opting for human power over gas or electric, you can reduce your carbon footprint and improve air quality by reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 80 pounds a year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As well, you can burn off the calories from all those summer cocktails – at an estimated rate of up to 470 an hour.
The Brill Razorcut 38 ($265), on display at the recent Metro Home Show, is an easy-to-push option. Weighing in at just 17 pounds, this isn't your grandparents' clunky reel mower. The blades, made of hardened steel, never need sharpening and should last eight to 10 years before needing replacement.
It "shears" the grass instead of tearing it, leaving you with a greener and healthier lawn.
Services such as Carbon Free Cutters (carbonfreecutters.com) will come , by bike, to do it for you.
Canadian Living May 2009
Lawn Mower 1-2-3
Need a new lawn mower? Here are three environmentally options. The best part? They will never run out of gas
1) Brill Razor Cut Mower- Now available in Canada. The Brill Razorcut push mower is lightweight and features a unique friction-free cylinder cutting mechanism that trim grass effortlessly. The best part? The blades never need sharpening.
 May 11th 2009
Push your way to a greener lawn
Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Halifax and Ottawa
The world’s most advanced cylinder push lawn mower will make pollution-emitting power mowers a thing of the past and change lawn cutting from a chore to a pleasure when Canadians cut their grass.
That’s the prospect offered by the Brill Razor Cut 33/38 mowers, made in and distributed in
by Grun Canada.
Brill mowers are lightweight (9.9 kilograms) and feature a unique friction-free cylinder cutting mechanism that trims grass neatly and effortlessly. Because the mower’s blades make no contact with their metal housing, they never need sharpening.
Brill mowers are available exclusively at Home Hardware across
or can be ordered online at www.mysmartgarden.ca.
Pollution
• According to Statistics Canada, in just one season, the average gas-powered lawn mower emits the same amount of pollution as a car driven 500 kilometres.
Karen Von Hahn
The New Lawn Order
Ever since the conformist fifties, a green front-yard carpet worthy of 18 holes at the country club has been a mark of social status. As argued in books such as Ted Steinberg's American Green and The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession by Virginia Scott Jenkins, the care and maintenance of lawns are very much about class – the new world vegetable equivalent of a family name or pedigree.
Two years ago, Troy Neil, the founder of an environmentally activist company called Grün, which introduced a premium German-made push mower called the Brill Razorcut to the Canadian market, had the brilliant idea of enlisting college kids to cut lawns the old-fashioned way.
This summer, Carbon-Free Cutters, a lawn-care service using these new/old school rotary mowers was launched in the
Toronto area. Based on the College Pro Painters model, the kids work in their communities going door to door offering estimates (according to Neil, the cost of carbon-free service is on par with conventional gas-powered lawn maintenance).
By the sounds of it, the start-up hasn't been easy. As any parent of a college-age child knows all too well, empowering them can be like herding cats. But the enthusiastic response from both this green generation of students looking for work and lawn-proud consumers searching for alternatives has been encouraging.
As of the start of this month, there are about 100 homes across the Greater Toronto Area whose lawns are being serviced by college students using push mowers as delightfully low-impact as a silent film.They arrive on their bikes, towing their Brill mowers in specially designed bike trailers, working those abs while earning much-needed cash – and leaving zero carbon footprint. “I know it sounds evangelical,” says Neil, “but every one of these lawns we service shuts down a gas mower. It makes you realize that there really are solutions and alternatives that can make a difference.”
So pumped is he by the “real, physical paradigm shift” this new enterprise represents that his goal is nothing less than to change 's footprint “one lawn at a time.” Truly, keeping up with the Joneses never had such purpose. Now, the only reason to be green with envy over anybody's green lawn is that you didn't think of it first
 A real grass kicker
The Brill Razor Cut Reel push lawn mower is the perfect green alternative to your old and clunky gas-powered mower
By JOANNE RICHARD
Toronto Sun June 5th 2009
This should give you the push you need.
Meet the new kid on the cutting block -- powerless but not a pushover. The Brill Razor Cut Reel push lawn mower weighs in at only 9.9 kg but is a heavy-weight in design, delivery and manoeuverability. And best of all, it doesn't pollute.
Stylish and slim, this ain't your granddad's version. It's well-designed, quiet, safe, generally maintenance-free and great way to get exercise while getting a necessary chore done. And it helps reduce your personal carbon footprint, too.
Push mowers are a great alternative to the standard mower, and this German-engineered Brill cylinder mower is tops for small urban lots -- I mowed my friend's small front lot and it was smooth mowing. The Brill models have cutting widths from 30-38 cm, easy height adjustments, and a friction-free cylinder cutting mechanism that trims grass neatly and quite effortlessly -- as long as there are no twigs in the way.
This is where I have to cut push mowers down: I live on a relatively large lot with lots of trees so there's always debris. Twigs definitely need to be raked up beforehand or you'll be stopping dead in your tracks every time a twig gets caught in the steel cutting blades. Frustration runs high; manual removal is necessary.
Another downfall to any push mower -- you only get cutting action moving forward, not when you pull it back towards you, which I do often around trees, so it definitely takes longer to do the lawn. Plus there are no mulching capabilities so you don't want your grass to grow too long prior to cutting or the clippings will litter the lawn.
For my larger-sized lawn, my cordless electric lawnmower is really great -- as long as you remember to charge it up. It's relatively quiet, pollution-free and easily cuts through too-tall grass and weeds. Plus, push or pull, the rotary blade cuts it all down. I'm not one to cut the lawn in any particular pattern so I like the getting a bang for my push and pull.
Meanwhile, pollution-producing gas powered mowers are my least favourite -- fueling a mower can be messy and it's easy to forget to refill the gas container for the next time around. Run out of fuel mid-mow and you have to drop everything and run to the nearest gas station.
According to Statistics Canada, about 2.7 million Canadians mow their lawns every weekend, using 40 million gallons of gasoline in just one season. The average gas-powered lawn mower emits the same amount of pollution as a car driven 500 km. Pollution galore! Need anymore push than that?
VERDICT: The Brill is a cut above other push mowers and a wise alternative to the standard engine polluters on the market. Slim design makes it easy to push and store, plus the mower's blades never make contact with their metal housing so they never need sharpening. A quality mower for homeowners with small, treeless lots. Just add the push
Global News Consumer SOS with Sean O'Shea
July 3rd 2009
To view the clip see the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZnqN3tYrlQ
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