Thatching Machine vs. Lawn Mower Thatching Blade
The benefits of using a thatching blade on a lawn mower to thatch your lawn are that it costs a less then renting a thatching machine and it is more convenient. Blade attachment normally only cost about $20 dollars vs renting a thatching machine that costs $35 to $60. Plus you can usually use the same blae multiple times on your lawn.
These are some of the reasons I would consider getting a rental dethatcher:
Be fore using a mower attachment you need to mow the lawn very short for it to work. This process often scalps the lawn. Lawn take a lot longer to recover. If you use a machine, you lawn can recover in 2-3 weeks, a mower thatching blade will take 6-8 weeks. Plus having the grass cut extra short, makes it more susceptible to weeds.
Mower blades are never as thorough. A thatching machine has about 120 rotating blades vs a mower attachment which only has two to six.
Lawn thatching with a dethatcher can be faster. (if you don't include the time it take to rent it and return it. It only takes about 30 minutes to thatch a lawn with machine (plus about 1 hour to do clean up) In addition, you can normally go over the lawn twice before you rake every thing up which saves you even more time.
The angle of the blades on a thatching machine make it a lot less likely to pull the grass plant out of your lawn. This is because the blades actually pull the thatch out of the lawn rather then just tearing it out. The dethatching machine blades ad designed to beat the surface and then pull away. Another benefit is that a thatching machine has a bigger engine and a lot more power then a a lot of lawn mowers. This makes it more capable of handing tougher jobs. (Another alternative is to use a thatch rake or dethatching rake.)
Learn more about
Lawn aeration.