Garden & Outdoor
Buy and sell garden and outdoor in Costa Rica.
From May to November the grass in a Costa Rican yard outgrows a weekend, which is why a petrol brushcutter earns its place in the shed before a lawn mower does. Come December, the same yard is where the frame pool goes up and the grill comes out for the school holidays. Tools for the wet months, pools and grills for the dry ones, and the plants and furniture in between change hands new and pre-owned. A buyer will want to see the motor start or the liner hold water before talking price.
A brushcutter before a mower, for grass that grows all through the rains:
most yards here are sloped, uneven or edged with living fences, and a push mower only pays its way on a flat lawn. The petrol brushcutter does the rest. A light one with a nylon line head keeps the grass down round a house; a heavier one that takes a metal blade cuts through the scrub on an empty lot, and that is the one to buy if the yard has been left for a rainy season. Battery trimmers are quieter, but a charge covers a garden, not a plot of land. Shears, machetes and hoses are in gardening tools, and the pots and seedlings next door in plants and planters. A Stihl or Husqvarna heavy enough to run a blade costs about ₡250,000 to ₡450,000 new. On a used one nearly all of that value sits in the engine: the shaft, harness and cutting head are cheap to replace, and a worn two-stroke is not.
Frame pools, jacuzzis and grills for the dry-season months:
from December to April the yard is for enjoying. Above-ground swimming pools come in two builds: inflatable-ring pools that sit on the grass for a season, and steel-frame pools from Intex or Bestway with a pump and filter, which take more use and need a level patch cleared of stones. Hot tubs sit apart, under jacuzzis. In barbecues the choice is charcoal or gas. A charcoal kettle or barrel grill is cheap and gives the smoke; a gas grill is lit in a minute, but its burners and igniter are what rust out if it lives uncovered.
Plantation teak from Nicoya and the outdoor furniture it competes with:
teak is grown on farms around Hojancha and elsewhere in Guanacaste, and local workshops turn it into decks, tables and loungers that can stand out in the rain. Look for the dark, oily heartwood; pale streaks are sapwood, which greys and checks much faster. Wrought iron is heavy enough to stay put in the wind but rusts first at the welds and feet. Aluminium does not rust; resin is light and cheap until full sun turns it chalky and brittle. Ask whether the cushions spent the wet months indoors. Sets are under outdoor furniture.
What a cold start tells you about a used brushcutter:
ask the seller not to run it before you arrive. A healthy two-stroke starts cold in a few pulls on the choke; one that only fires once warm, or revs and dies, usually has a carburettor gummed up by old fuel mix. Let it idle: the head should stop turning, or the clutch is worn. Cheap copies in Stihl orange do turn up, so look at the serial plate and the finish of the castings. A frame pool should be shown assembled and full, or at least with every leg and joint laid out: rust at the feet and a seam weeping where wall meets floor are how most of them end. On a grill, lift the grate and look at the burners and firebox from below, where rust breaks through first.
December is when a used pool finds its buyer:
list pools and grills in November, ahead of the school holidays, and trimmers in April, before the rains bring the grass back. Give a pool’s diameter, depth and pump type; for a brushcutter, a short video of a cold start answers the first message. Say whether the liner was dried before it was folded, because one packed away wet comes out spotted with mould. A frame pool taken down at the end of the dry season travels as a bundle of tubes and a folded liner, so a buyer collecting one should bring a car with the seats down and count the connectors before loading.