Gretchen Barreto

Gretchen Barreto is the Outdoor Power Equipment Researcher at Gas Powered Chainsaw, where they research, write, and keep current the buying guides for the tools that turn a rough yard into a finished one: push and self-propelled mowers, battery and robot mowers, riding mowers and zero-turns, string trimmers, brush cutters, hedge trimmers, edgers, and leaf blowers. They have spent more than ten years using and studying this equipment, since 2016, and their guiding aim is practical, help a homeowner buy the right tool for the yard they actually have, not the yard in the brochure, and keep it running through the season.

That practicality is earned. Before writing full time, Gretchen spent several seasons doing residential lawn care, which means they have pushed, driven, and hauled these machines across yards of every size, slope, and grass type, in heat and after rain, on the clock. Doing it for a living teaches what a spec sheet hides: which self-propelled drive actually helps on a hill, how a trimmer feels an hour in, why a deck size that is faster on a big lot is a nuisance around tight landscaping. The advice on the site is shaped by those yards and by the mistakes that cost time when the work had to get done.

Gretchen has run tools across the market, from Honda and Toro gas mowers to the battery platforms from EGO, Greenworks, and Ryobi that now handle most suburban lawns, plus trimmers and blowers from Stihl and Milwaukee. That range matters because the honest answer to gas versus battery depends on the yard and the person, and they can weigh it from experience rather than loyalty. They keep a working reference of deck widths, line diameters, battery runtimes, and blower CFM and MPH, because those are the numbers that decide whether a tool suits your lawn, and they are the numbers marketing tends to blur.

Ask Gretchen how to pick a mower and they start with the yard, not the machine: square footage, slope, obstacles, and how much time you want to spend. A small flat lawn does not need a riding mower, a large or hilly one will punish an undersized battery, and the right cutting-deck width is the one that fits your gates and beds as much as your acreage. They are equally direct about trimmers and blowers, matching line diameter and blower airflow to the job instead of chasing the biggest number, because an oversized tool you dread using is worse than a right-sized one you actually pick up.

Maintenance runs through everything Gretchen writes, because outdoor power equipment lives or dies on upkeep. They cover the season-long habits that keep tools reliable, sharp mower blades, clean decks and air filters, correct fuel and storage for gas machines, and battery care for the cordless ones, and they explain why a mower that will not start in spring is usually a fuel or maintenance story, not a dead machine. The goal is readers who get years out of a tool instead of replacing it, and who know which fixes are a five-minute job at home.

When Gretchen researches a guide, the method is stated openly and applied the same way every time: match tools to real yards using published specifications, deck width, power, line diameter, battery runtime, CFM and MPH, and manufacturer guidance, then cross-check against the patterns in aggregated owner reviews and their own in-use experience across many different yards. Reviews are where durability and after-a-season annoyances show up that no spec lists. What they do not do is dress up marketing as testing, or claim a lab they do not have; the authority is real use, careful reading of the numbers, and recommendations that are never for sale.