Garden & Outdoor
Buy and sell garden tools, pools and outdoor furniture in Guatemala.
Plenty of lawns in Guatemala are still kept down with a machete or a gasoline brushcutter rather than a mower. That kit is listed here new and pre-owned, next to plants and pots for a small city patio and the bigger pieces that belong to a weekend house: a pool and its pump, a jacuzzi, loungers for under the thatched roof, a grill. Much of the used side comes from beach chalets in Sipacate or Monterrico and from houses on the lake at Panajachel, when the owners sell up or stop renting them out.
A city patio or a chalet on the coast:
the size of the plot decides where to start. A small front garden mostly calls for plants and planters and a handful of gardening tools: shears, a hose, a machete for the edges. A weekend house carries the heavy, expensive pieces. Swimming pools run from frame pools set up on the lawn to the pump and sand filter that keep a built-in pool clear, and jacuzzis are their warm-water cousin. Outdoor furniture covers the dining set under the thatched roof and the loungers by the water, and barbecues the charcoal and gas grills that go with them.
Machete, brushcutter or mower for the grass:
the ground decides more than the size of the lawn. A push mower wants flat, even grass on firm soil; on a slope, around trees or on stony ground it is the wrong tool. A gasoline brushcutter running nylon line copes with all of that, and with a metal blade fitted it clears scrub and tall weeds as well as grass. Electric versions of both are lighter and quieter and suit a patio within reach of a socket. A smallholding in Fraijanes with no power at the far end needs gasoline. A new gasoline brushcutter starts around Q1,800, and a four-stroke push mower runs from about Q2,500 to Q5,500, the gap set by cutting width and engine. Stihl and Husqvarna machines sit above that and keep more of their value second-hand, because spares and workshops for them are easy to find. On a used mower the deck sets the price: steel that has rusted through from wet clippings left underneath ends it, while a blade or a pull cord costs little.
What a rented chalet does to a pool pump:
a pump that ran for guests every weekend has done far more hours than one in a family garden, so ask whether the house was let. Prime it and run it before paying. A steady drip under the motor means the shaft seal has gone and a screech means bearings; both are repairable and both are worth a discount. Open the sand filter: clumped, greasy sand needs changing, a cracked tank does not mend. A frame pool liner folded away wet comes out mildewed and pinholed, so spread it out in daylight. On a brushcutter, the line head should stand still while the engine idles. If it spins, the idle is set too high or the clutch springs are worn. Rock the head for play in the gearbox, and ask what oil mix it has been run on, because most are two-stroke. Anything that lived by the sea has met salt air, which eats painted steel from the inside; look under a grill lid and at the bolts on a pump before you trust the outside.
Clearing out a weekend house in one listing:
the outdoor kit often goes separately from the property, and it moves faster as a lot. Keep the pump, filter, hoses and cleaning pole together, and list loungers as a set with a count. For every motor give the brand, the horsepower and roughly how many seasons it has worked, and say plainly if the house was rented. Photograph the pump running with water in the basket and the inside of the grill. Say how far the item sits from where a pickup can park, because a sand filter still full of sand is not carried far by hand. A buyer driving from Jalapa for a brushcutter will want to watch it start cold and cut, so leave a patch of grass standing for the test.