Lexington, KY - After the armada of push mowers comes through Chevy Chase Hardware for service in early spring, a time of the year that sees Rob Topmiller crank out 15 - 20 tune-ups a day, by mid-summer the really broken mowers start to peeter in. The ones that take a little time to figure out what's wrong with them, especially if the owner has attempted to tinker with it.
"Don't touch it. Don't try to fix it," Topmiller said, referring to finicky mowers. "Because then I don't know what they've done. If I'm the only one who has ever touched it, I know exactly what's wrong with it."
Topmiller said that if people would read their owners' manuals, they'd probably never have to bring their mowers in, and Chevy Chase Hardware owner Bill Edwards agrees. He says negligence (letting gas sit in the tank all winter, turning the machine on its side and allowing oil to soak the air filter) is usually the source of a problem, but he can't be too hard on customers.
"We can't scold them nearly as much as we'd like to," Edwards joked.
Topmiller can do maintenance work on nearly any type of mower (not riding), but if parts are needed for some brands - such as Honda or Husqvarna - his hands are tied due to the fact that these corporations will only sell parts to centers that sell their mowers.
Along with lawn mowers, Topmiller and other service people at Chevy Chase Hardware can fix screen windows and doors, storm windows, extension cords, lamps, garden hoses, as well as sharpen a host of items: garden tools, scissors, knives. Topmiller said, so long as an item doesn't generate heat, like hair dryers or space heaters, he will attempt to fix anything.
"This is a hardware and service store, that's what the service is," Topmiller said. "You're getting more than just hardware."