WEN DT1516 16-Inch 15-Amp 2-in-1 Electric Dethatcher and Scarifier with Collection Bag, Black

First, this is the first de-thatcher I have purchased so I have no other experience comparing this model to another brand nor have I used a de-thatcher of any type; be they gas, electric or battery powered. Secondly, I chose the battery-operated model simply because I did not want the weight of dragging a cord around plus, I have many trees on my property I did not want to have to navigate the cord around. And thirdly, all lawns are different, with different types of grass, obstacles, how often the lawn was previously de-thatched with how much moss is in the lawn.I live in the Pacific Northwest where the soil tends to be acidic and with that, we have a lot of moss to contend with if we decide to remove it from our lawns. I made this purchase to remove the moss but was pleased to see how much thatch came up with the moss, too.When I unpacked the box, I was taken aback by how presumably cheap everything looked. The wheels appeared they would fall off the first time I used the de-thatcher, and I was sure the batteries were so inefficient I would need to purchase a bank of them, so I was not waiting around wasting time for the ones that came with this model to re-charge.So down to specifics: I have a home that sits in over an acre and a half property. Take away the footprint of the house, the driveway, two small outbuildings, you can guess there’s still a lot of lawn left. But I didn’t want to break the bank with purchasing a more expensive model, so I thought I would give the Wen a try.I am not offering recommendations (other than the stars I believe the product deserves), only observations from its use on my property and my particular situation.First, I mowed the lawn to 3” picking up as much as I could prior to de-thatching. I sat the unit on position 2. I found that I could de-thatch an area of about 70 feet x 140 feet then the batteries would need to be re-charged. Although the manual says to avoid low discharge cycles by re-charging frequently, I didn’t want to make a career out of de-thatching my lawn. I’m not sure of the wisdom of this but I wanted this done as soon as possible. The batteries being new, it takes about an hour to fully re-charge which gave me time to rake of the thatch and haul it away to the burn pile. And there was plenty to haul away. I then sat the lawn mover to 2” (basically scalping the lawn) then re-thatched the lawn going at it at a 90-degree angle from previous, this picked up more thatch, which I once again raked up and hauled away. Even with two de-thatching’s I didn’t remove all the moss but it did remove most of the thatch. I will still need to broadcast moss killer on the lawn, but I believe with most of the thatch and moss removed, the moss killer with have greater affect, as well as fertilizer applications.You might be wondering why I said I raked up the loosened moss and thatch vice using the bag which came with the unit. Simply stated, I found the bag too small for my needs with the amount of loosened material I was picking up. Having to stop, remove the bag and empty it was a pain. At first, I took off the bag and tried to run it that way; I found that the loosened material had nowhere to go, and it was hard to get the de-thatcher over the buildup of clumps. Next, I removed the bag from the frame to have the cover remain open to allow the thatch and moss to be discharged – I quickly learned that unless you want to be covered with a coating of thatch, that wasn’t such a good idea. I then cut a piece of carpet large enough to lay on top of the frame and hang down on the back which seems to work. (see pic).I can’t speak of how well the scarifier works as I don’t have a need to use that yet. Nor can I speak of how long the batteries will last until I need to purchase new ones. I can only speak of how well it works for me; hope it works for you, as well.There are two pictures I submitted with this review. One is of the carpet flap I made vice using the bag. The other is of the pile of thatch removed from the lawn. Vice the few sticks you see in the pile I would estimate that it’s 75% moss, the remaining a combination of thatch, lawn clippings and pine needles.

I have thatched my yard every Spring for years using a commercial thatcher. This is the first time I have used a residential thatcher.This Wen thatcher set me back $135, each rental of the commercial thatcher runs me $55 not including the gas to run it.The results were identical! Both work very well. The commercial thatcher does not include a debris catcher, the Wen has one that sucks! Either way, you are going to be raking!The commercial thatcher is a bit easier to use because of its weight. It hold to the grass better. But that comes at a huge disadvantage, the weight makes it very hard to unload and load from car! For this reason, I am going to call this topic a draw. Having to manipulate the electric cord was a nuisance, but was not unmanageable.The time taken to thatch my modest sized lawn was a bit more for the Wen, but that does not include hour each way to go to the rental facility and pickup/deliver the thatcher. This is a huge win for the Wen!So, the ultimate win/lose will be how long it lasts. Clearly the thousand dollar commercial unit is designed to last for a decade or more of commercial use. It is a better unit in every way, but the Wen is so cheap that all it has to do is get three uses to make it win the comparison. Will it last that long? I am betting yes. But even using it only once a year, I would be shocked if it lasted 10 years. It is not well made, it is going to die. But until it does, I am very happy with it!

After lots of research, I ended up purchasing this one to scarify/veriticut my Bermuda grass lawn in North Texas. The tine attachment, you can pretty much throw away for any Bermuda or St. Augustine, it'll damage your grass. Use the scarifying/verticutting blade.It kicked up a ton of thatch, dead grass, etc., but the reviews are 100% true on the bag. It is way too small. I believe that is by design, because there is not alot of weight on the front side of it, so a longer bag would make it rear heavy.Aside from the small bag, and it being rear heavy, for the price, this thing is a work-horse. I did about 10,000 SQ feet of lawn in one weekend and it ate through everything I threw at it, including buried rocks and brick.

Incredible performance, especially for the priceI choose the corded model instead of the cordless for a couple reasons.1. I knew this was something I would probably only use once or twice a year2. After reading reviews about the battery powered model using both batteries at the same time, and the batteries not necessarily lasting long, I decided I didn't want to wait for batteries to charge once I got startedI put the machine together in about 20 minutes. Very simple, and very minimal assembly required.I put the thatch blade on, and got started.My lawn was many years in need of thatching. The dead built-up head was very thick, and as you can see in the pictures, even after buring my lawn with a propane torch, there was still a lot of dead grass that need to be removed. The Wen thatcher did a great job. I'll probably go over it with the (included) scarifying blade, them I'll seed.Overall, I'm pretty impressed with how well this machine got rid of all the weeds, and rips apart the Bermuda grass root system.Afterwards, I spread Weed and Feed, waited 2 days and watered. Not much re-geowth has occurred, but that's actually what I wanted. No dandelions have popped up either. That's a miracle for my yard.It's given me a fresh canvas to begin a new lawn