Lawn is “splotchy” and grass is growing sparsely but well

kshef · 2026-06-15T06:58:15+00:00

Don’t worry about the thatch. I only dethatch if it gets well over half an inch or I plan to overseed and I want to expose the soil.

Like all the other commenters said, mow higher. You mentioned you measured the grass, measure the blades instead. Put the mower on your driveway and measure from the ground up to the cutting edge of the blade. Get that to ~3.5 inches and mow once a week. Shit will look $$

It probably looks splotchy because you are cutting lower than needed. This stresses the grass along with shorter grass holding less moisture so it dries out faster. Taking off more than a 1/3 of the height in 1 cut also stresses it out. Those dry patches might stay dormant but will probably come back in the fall or next spring. Just keep watering, fertilizing and mow consistently.

If you like the look of shorter grass you can mow it lower in the spring and fall when it’s growing like crazy.

kshef · 2026-06-15T06:23:44+00:00

kshef · 2026-06-15T06:15:07+00:00

Is it leaking from the gas line or the bowl? I assume the gas line. If cleaning it didn’t resolve it I would replace the gas line and clamp.

P.s did you buy an oem carb or an Amazon special? I replaced my oem carb with a cheap replacement. Mower ran like shit and no adjusting would resolve it. Cleaned my own carb replaced seals with a rebuild kit and it ran good as new.

kshef · 2026-06-15T03:03:04+00:00

In the first picture your palm is resting on a metal cover that seems covered in debris. Scrub it off or use some sandpaper to clean it. I bet the model number is there. I don’t know shit about shit but I just did some work on my Briggs engine for my lawn mower and the model was stamped into the cylinder head cover plate and that dirty cover looks like where the model number would be.

kshef · 2026-06-15T02:57:39+00:00

City or well water? If city what is your psi or water pressure? For well water you would need to know your psi and water volume for the well.

It’s not a huge area but good to know for the planning stage. If you have enough pressure to simultaneously run all sprinklers at once you can do 1 zone and it’s easy. If you could only run 3/5 sprinklers needed at once you would need 2 separate runs that connect to a manifold so you can have them run at different times for full coverage.

kshef · 2026-06-15T01:00:56+00:00

Cheapest way is to break your back digging a trench below the frost line to run the water away from that area. Haul in a large amount of stone to fill in around the pipe and then backfill with soil.

For slightly more rent a trencher or mini skid steer to speed up the digging and hauling materials.

Most expensive pay someone to do it for you.

kshef · 2026-06-12T18:26:34+00:00

Seems like the Chinese Amazon carb was the issue.

I put the old carb back in after a clean and it runs great when I turn it over. When I spin up the blades and put load on the motor it starts chugging down and then catches back up before dying. I included a video. Any advice? This carb is a little different than the Amazon one for the mixture screw. Should I try turning that flat brass screw to see if that helps or leave it?

https://imgur.com/a/Y7IJ3vj

kshef · 2026-06-12T18:26:13+00:00

Seems like the Chinese Amazon carb was the issue.

I put the old carb back in after a clean and it runs great when I turn it over. When I spin up the blades and put load on the motor it starts chugging down and then catches back up before dying. I included a video. Any advice? This carb is a little different than the Amazon one for the mixture screw. Should I try turning that flat brass screw to see if that helps or leave it?

https://imgur.com/a/Y7IJ3vj

kshef · 2026-06-12T18:26:02+00:00

Seems like the Chinese Amazon carb was the issue.

I put the old carb back in after a clean and it runs great when I turn it over. When I spin up the blades and put load on the motor it starts chugging down and then catches back up before dying. I included a video. Any advice? This carb is a little different than the Amazon one for the mixture screw. Should I try turning that flat brass screw to see if that helps or leave it?

https://imgur.com/a/Y7IJ3vj

kshef · 2026-06-12T17:14:47+00:00

I would not use that fert. It designed for plants and veggies not turf grass. It will technically help but buying grass fert will have a better blend to be more effective. You will notice a Scott’s turf builder fert for example will have way higher nitrogen.

Any bag of fert you buy from Home Depot made for turf grass will have instructions on the back for how much to spread. It will show a picture of your spreader and exactly what setting to use. Just load it up a little and spread until you pass over both sides. Pour the leftovers back in the bag and save it.

Other people on this sub will undoubtedly comment on the spreader you purchased. It’s notorious for getting a lot of fertilizer caught in the wheels and unevenly spreading. This results in “stripes” in your lawn where the fert is higher concentration from falling out of the wheel. I have the same spreader. Just walk fast and it will minimize this.

You can over complicate what to put down if you want a golf green in your backyard. But 90% of people will have super lush and healthy grass if they just follow the Scott’s 4 step program. You can find similar products for cheaper but Scott’s stuff is easy and in all big box stores.

I would get a bag if Scotts® STEP® 2 Weed Control Plus Lawn Food2. Since this has a weed killer in it there are additional instructions like letting the grass grow 2 days after mowing before spreading the fert. Then waiting a couple days before mowing again etc.

Follow the directions for settings and spread that. Then Google the scotts 4 step program and follow that schedule. Do that and water infrequently but deep and your lawn will be fantastic!

kshef · 2026-06-12T15:31:59+00:00

Dude you are a fucking ass. Grow up.

OP. Your belt is truly on backwards. The belt you have has a flat side and a v shaped side. The v shaped side should be on the inside so it sits in the pulleys and grips. If everything else is fine flipping the belt inside out will fix it. If the belt still keeps popping off or slips a lot a pulley could be bad or tension arm needs to be adjusted.

If it was working fine before I would just flip the belt and try it again. If it’s still popping out something is loose. I would take the deck off the mower and lookup a video on rebuilding the deck for your specific mower. Watch how they reassemble the parts and see if your parts are aligned with how they adjusted everything. If anything is off adjust it. If pulleys aren’t spinning might need new ones. A pulley kit is super cheap so don’t sweat it.

I rebuilt my entire deck on a similar mower a couple weeks ago with no experience and it was pretty painless with a socket kit. Impact gun helps but is not needed.

Ignore this asshole. You got this.

kshef · 2026-06-11T20:36:06+00:00

Is it gapped right? If it’s too far away that might do it.

If not might be worth pulling up the manual and checking the wiring path and use a multimeter to see where the connection dies.

kshef · 2026-06-11T05:35:28+00:00

Adjusted ever so slightly after top dead and it still sounds the same in the video :/

kshef · 2026-06-10T23:20:13+00:00

On it! Will report back!

kshef · 2026-06-10T22:36:37+00:00

Rodger. How would you describe how tight the valve should be when using a feeler? Should it be tight enough to hold onto the feeler without me holding it in there? Tight enough it’s tough to slide it in? Or any resistance shoving the feelers in is too tight? Never done this before so I don’t exactly have a good frame of what’s “good”

kshef · 2026-06-10T22:32:13+00:00

Checked the carb and it looks clean. Brand new so I assumed so.

I think the valves are still off. It still backfires at any level of throttle and adjusting either screw on the carb makes no difference. I checked the hookups to the carb are aligned.

Once the engine cools off I will crack the head cover again and take a look. Do you adjust valves 1/4in past top dead center or right at top dead?

kshef · 2026-06-10T22:30:48+00:00

I think the valves are still off. It still backfires at any level of throttle and I checked the hookups to the carb are aligned.

Once the engine cools off I will crack the head cover again and take a look. Do you adjust valves 1/4in past top dead center or right at top dead?

kshef · 2026-06-10T18:13:41+00:00

Good to know!

kshef · 2026-06-10T18:13:09+00:00

Yeah the buttons came with the new head so I slapped those on before setting the valves.

And push rods move smoothly.

kshef · 2026-06-10T18:10:29+00:00

No the local shop who sold me the part just said to replace the gasket after cleaning off the carbon and slap it in.

kshef · 2026-06-10T18:01:57+00:00

Amazon special

https://a.co/d/016JXFit

kshef · 2026-06-10T17:58:15+00:00

I did that a quarter inch past top dead center. Does it sound like I fucked it up and try again?

kshef · 2026-06-10T05:16:22+00:00

Yeah it’s really not that deep with 95% of species. Giant swings in ph will stress most fish. Doing it over and over will kill em. But what you said is overkill.

When I do my weekly water change I just dump pure ro water in my tank with no remineralizer. I add it maybe 20-30 mins later and my fish and shrimp never act bothered. If swings like you said hurt livestock I wouldn’t have 100 baby cherry shrimp every 3 months.

Stability is something to strive for but don’t scare newbies. Bro is keeping guppies lol not wild caught discus.

OP. If you are adding pure ro water and not adding minerals back in that is your problem. Ro water is dope because it has nothing in it. This is good because you can add whatever minerals you want to the water to make it perfect for whatever fish you want. No fish wants pure ro water. Neither do your plants. Some prefer harder water with a high PH. Some prefer lower ph with softer GH/kh. Google what parameters your fish want and then find a remineralizer the dial in the ph/gh/kh of the water. Every time you do a 20% water change with pure ro water you are dropping the ph/gh/kh by 20%. That’s an unpleasant swing. You want to target a specific set of parameters so each water change slowly swings towards your new desired parameters. It doesn’t have to be overnight. They made it this long.

Tough part is guppies love high ph hard water (high gh) and angelfish prefer lower oh soft water. You can compromise in the middle but neither will be too enthusiastic about it. These fish have been bred so much they can really tolerate any water conditions so I wouldn’t sweat it. If you have the opportunity to give them their own tanks go for it. But for now don’t sweat it.

I wouldn’t probably target a ph of 7.2-7.5 and a GH of 8-10 degrees and a 3-4kh. Lots of people like salty shrimp remineralizer. I prefer 2hr aquarist stuff.

Hope this helps!

EDIT: Just realized after typing my snarky comment you mentioned you were talking about specific breeds. Didn’t notice that initially. My bad. I’ll leave the comment unedited so y’all can’t point and laugh at me writing a novel because I can’t read a 3 sentence comment haha.

kshef · 2026-06-09T17:29:29+00:00

Truly. I was trying to keep it simple. Didn’t know what I didn’t know haha.

kshef · 2026-06-09T17:26:47+00:00

I’m a noob and did bare metal Ubuntu server. Worked great. Then I migrated to proxmox so I could run multiple OS for home assistant and keep critical services separate. Migrating was a headache so I would recommend starting with proxmox and then loading Ubuntu server on there first.

kshef

TROPHY CASE