Features:

  • Ideal for revitalizing small to mid-sized lawns
  • Minimum cutting height (inches):-0.12. Mower amperage (amps): 13 rakes a 12.6" wide path to get your job done faster
  • Scarifier function to cut grass roots for thicker growth, healthier lawns
  • Airboost technology - spring steel tines for maximum thatch pickup
  • ETL approved; Full 2-year warranty
Five Stars

Wow this little thing works great I just cleaned up after with my lawn mower.

Works great!

My lawn has been looking progressively worse each year and I though I'd give this a try. I prefer gas powered equipment but those are cost prohibitive for these tools and this was the best rated electrical. Used the scarifying tool on the shallowest setting, then the rake on the deepest. Worked so well I used the raking tool again the next week. I used it a third time because I like to overdo things, but that was a bit too much and was thinning some spots out too much. The catch bag is too small to be convenient. Best to forget the bag and just use a hand rake to collect everything when you're done. Took me 4 months to take the last picture because I was lazy, but the lawn looked that good after 2 months.

Good price and does the job well.

I tried my Sun Joe AJ801E Scarifier/Dethatcher today. It works and does the job quickly. It save me a lot of time and energy. I gave it FIVE stars and highly recommended. It works as good as the heavy duty scarifier I rented with my neighbors in November 2017 at Home Depot. Pros: 1. Light weight 2. Easy to operate 3. Affordable price 5. The scarifying and rakig cylinder is easily changed with two screws. 4. I did not experience any over heated issue and it did not fail like those bad reviews stated. Cons: None My findings and Tips: 1) Tried the highest level first so to avoid digging too deep 2) Remove the collection bag when scarifying, it is much easier to collect the dead grass rather than empty the bag so often since it is small and easily filled up. 3) Use the collection bag when raking because not the dirty is smaller 4) Push the lever inward so to move up/ own for the depth setting 5) Avoid running over the tree roots, small stone and rock or any hard subjects. It will break the unit. Inspect the lawn and clear the rocks will be a good idea. It comes with 2 years warranty so I have a peace of mind. I am an accountant and I fired my gardener last year Spring because he charged me services he did not do (I hate dishonest people). Lawn caring is not my favorite activity. With a small investment it saves me time and money doing is myself. It means I can dining out with my lovely wife and daughter more often.

WOW!

The dethatcher preformed far beyond my expectations. I'm anxious to try the scarier this weekend on some bare spots before I seed. The unit is very light and it pulls itself along where you're controlling the speed by holding it back rather than pushing it. As mentioned in other reviews, the catcher bag is useless. It fills up after a few feet. It was much easier using my mower with a bigger bag to vacuum up afterwards. Highly recommend.

It’s a beast

Much cheaper than renting a machine. It did what it was supposed to do. Dethatched and scraped the ground for a fall seeding. Make sure you get the right extension cord. I went to harbor freight with a 25% off coupon for the extension cord. Pros: dominated the lawn -easy to work with Cons: bag useless fills up too quick. I expected it, used my mower to pick up the grass. -cord kept getting in my way. I think it’s more of an user error than the sunjoe Would not recommend to my friends, I would let them borrow mine. Would highly recommend especially if you have no friends. First two photos thatching and seeding. Last photo 2 weeks later.

Awesome product

I used this for the first time a few weeks ago to dethatch and scarify the front left section of my property. This was an awesome purchase and saved a lot of time and muscle. It did what it's expected to do. I raked up the dead grass into a 6' x 4' x 3' pile after dethatching and then scarified the same section of lawn to churn the dirt up a bit. The changing of the spindle underneath from the dethatcher to the scarifier entails removing two bolts. It couldn't be easier. Two weeks later after spreading seed and new seed fertilzer (and watering every day) the new grass is coming in. The one suggestion I have since this is corded is to start as close to the cord outlet and work your way outwards away from it to avoid having to constantly move the electrical cord around.

Well, I have to admit......

I was a little wary about this product since it looks like so much plastic and I've never had much luck with plug-in lawn equipment. Of course I am going back 20-30 years for that statement! When I got the Sun Joe, it was packed very neatly in the box and everything came out easily. When assembling it, I found it very easy. I read that some people complained about the cheap phillips screws that screwed into the handle. I had only a slight problem with one so I screwed it into the handle first to start the threads and then removed it, put the handle together and then screwed the phillips screw back in. Worked like a charm! The cable clamps work okay but the cable seems to be much longer than needed so it sticks out in a loop and it did get caught once on something I was going around. I fixed that by moving the cable to the inside of the handle. The real test was going over my very rough lawn the first time. I didn't really think it would do much because of the 4 year drought we've had here in California. The ground was not super dried out since our very wet winter but I just wasn't sure. I started it up and ran my first line down the yard. WOW! It cut right through that old grass like nothing. The motor felt very powerful and went through it like butter. I was amazed at just how much the scarifier pulled up! I was only going to test it but then got carried away and did the whole yard. It is about 550 square feet so it didn't take too long. I didn't want to rake all the thatch up so I used my blower to blow it all into a big pile. Then I threw it over the fence for the cows to munch on. Then I decided "what the heck" and put the dethatching tool on and went at it again. This time I put the bag on to see if what people have been saying was true about it holding very little. They were right! I could only make 1 pass on each strip and then had to dump the bag or thatch would accumulate in front of the Sun Joe. In my case, I can just walk over the the fence and dump it over for the cows so it wasn't that big of a deal. It took a little longer but I ended up with a huge amount of thatch that the dethatcher pulled out even after the scarifier did its job. Then I did another quick pass with the blower and was done. After not dethatching my lawn for the last 10 years, I was quite pleased with the results. The machine was quick, light and efficient. It comes with a two year warranty but if you think about it, how often would you use this machine? Once every year at most so you may only get 2 uses out of it before the warranty is up. If it breaks down on the 3rd use, well, your warranty is already up but I don't think that would happen after listening to it and feeling it cut through the mess I had. It handled it easily. I would highly recommend this product!

Awesome!

This thing worked great! It almost self-propells, so it's easy to push. The bag is pretty much useless- it fills up fast. But if your maintaining your lawn that has been thatched previously, I can see using the bag for that. I've thatched with a take previously, but after using this unit, there's no comparison. Quite pleased. I did wind up running over my extension cord and ruined it, but that's my fault.

Great Product. Amazing Customer Service.

This review has two parts: 1. Product Review 2. Snow Joe Customer Service Product Review ----------------------- Let's start with the challenge I had to solve for. I have an lawn that spans 2000 sq. ft. that has never been dethached in the last 7 years. The lawn health has been steadily decreasing and no amount of chemical fertilizers or weed control have been able to restore the lawn to its early glory. After giving up on the chemical treatment path, I tried aeration. Presumably it helped, but I saw no real improvement in the health of my lawn. Finally, I hit upon dethaching. My lawn has become a patchwork of living and dead grass. I picked up the Sun Joe AJ801E for three reasons: 1. It had the highest powered motor (amp consumption) on Amazon for dethaching 2. It had a scraper / scarifier, which presumably will allow me to more easily reseed targeted areas of my lawn. 3. My "Mow, Blow, & Go" gardener claimed that all the dethacthers for a lawn my size were rented out to golf courses. Assembly is super easy, but I had some issues with one of the metal arms not fitting correctly into the main dethatcher. More on that later.... Product performance: I ran the Sun Joe at 0" across a small section of my lawn. In one pass across 10ft of lawn, the catch bag was full of thatch! I was shocked. Looking at the lawn, I could barely tell that the Sun Joe had actually lifted anything out, but the full bag told me otherwise. I ended up covering 200 sq. ft of my lawn, having to run multiple passes to get all the thatch. This little machine is super efficient, but I found the catch bag filling up way faster than expected. I've got another 1600 sq ft of lawn to cover, but will have to attack it one week at a time. Just covering 200 sq ft filled my yard waste bin. Pros: - Easy to assemble. - Efficient in picking up thatch. May need multiple passes if your lawn has been neglected. - Safety switch makes it impossible for my young children to accidentally turn this on. - Dethacther and Scarifier rollers are easy to swap Cons: - Small catch bag - Safety switch is a bit of a bear when you need to stop and empty the catch bag often. - Assembly requires some force to get the bent metal arm into the main dethatcher or the screw holes will not line up. - Changing the Dethatcher roller for the Scarifier requires a 10mm wrench. Not a big deal if you have a crescent wrench or socket set. It just took me by surprise since I thought they would use sizes a little more common for the American do-it-yourselfer that has minimal tools. Time will tell if this holds up over the 2-year warranty, but so far I am really happy with the performance. Customer Support --------------------------- All too often we hear about poor customer support. I am here to tell you that Sun Joe has top-notch customer support. When assembling the Sun Joe, you must insert the metal poles / arms into the main unit. If you look at the product picture, I'm referring to the black metal arms that support the power switch and push point. The portion that connects to the actual unit is bent at approximately 135 degrees. You must use a bit of force to get the arms into the main unit or the screw holes will not line up. On the unit I purchased, I was not able to push in the metal rod far enough to line up the screw holes, even after putting my weight into it. I was reluctant to use a rubber mallet for fear of bending the actual metal rod. When I called Sun Joe, the gentleman listened to my concern. He immediately said they would ship a new one out. Here is what totally blew me away.... Sun Joe support never questioned my ability to follow instructions, troubleshoot, or even verify that I followed the instructions correctly. I was preparing myself to verbally defend myself, which is exactly what you need to do when calling for support from nearly any other manufacturer. Nope. Not here. Sun Joe sent a brand new unit and provided a pre-paid slip to send the old one back. They didn't even ask for any credit card information to secure a deposit! Sure, I could have gone through Amazon to do the return process, but I wanted to give the manufacturer a chance to own the problem. No question about it, Sun Joe actually made it easier than Amazon.

It really gets the job done!

Awesome machine. We normally rent a machine from Home Depot. We find that the rented machine is very heavy and hard to transport, remove and return so we decided there has to be a better way. We own a corner house so that's why we decided to purchase an inexpensive machine that we won't struggle with. Pros. First we mow the lawn as recommended and I could see why because the machine works better with the grass shorter. This machine surprised me how it really did the job of dethatching. It was dethatching and pulling up a lot of dead grass. When we got through you could actually see the grass come to life. Its lightweight and easy to work with. It never overheated in the process. I would recommend it because it gets the job done. Cons: The bag is useless if you want to get the work done. The bag filled up too quickly and then the dead grass began pouring from underneath which hampers the machine so we decided to work without it, which is possible without the bag, because the cover which rests on top of the bag closes when the bag is removed. Without the bag the dead grass comes out as you move along and then we simply just lightly rake it into piles and pick up which was a breeze. We had to the same with the rental anyway. The electric chord was a little cumbersome, but the fact that this machine was doing such a good job, we dealt with it. I actually tried using a hand rake to dethatch it that way and couldn't pull any dead grass out so this machine did what we would have to work extremely hard to get done. If Sun Joe has the one without the bag then buy that one because the bag takes more time to empty and backbreaking. It's a keeper!

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