Brinly STS-42BHDK-A 40" Tow-Behind Lawn Sweeper with Dethatcher and Hamper Windscreen

Due to a recent shoulder surgery (and passing the 65 year milestone) My wife and I are not able to rake the massive amount of leaves this fall. We have a one acre yard with over a dozen large Oak & Aspen trees. We explored options and my wife wanted to try a lawn sweeper. We spent a lot of time looking at lawn sweepers, their videos, and reading owner reviews here on Amazon. We started with the cheaper ones and noted all the negatives; assembly challenges, missing parts, lack of durability, poor construction, questionable engineering, dumping leaves on top of the sweeper when emptying, etc. We also noted several reviewers mentioned owning more expensive models for years and then purchasing the cheaper ones, to their regret. My wife suggested stopping by the local John Deere dealer. (JD models did not appear in the amazon searches). After all the videos and reviews, we had an idea what to look for. The John Deere sweeper was clearly head & shoulders above the completion. And it came assembled. But it was pricey. All equipment needs maintenance and repair through use. So I ran a search on amazon to see if we could get parts part for the John Deere Sweeper and discovered the Brinly sweeper with the built in Dethatcher. I also discovered that parts for the JD and the Brinly were interchangeable. It is the exact same sweeper as the John Deere! The Brinley had the same solid construction using thicker steel tubing with bolts and self locking nuts. Instead of the competition’s pins with hairpins that fall out. It had dual drive gearboxes, one on each wheel. Instead of on just one wheel. The bag was sturdy and solid instead of the thin plastic mesh that lower priced ones used. And the integrated de-thatcher looked to be a game changer. And the Brinly sweeper with the built in de-thatcher was considerably cheaper than the JD similarly out fitted. Oddly, the Brinly sweeper had never came up in any of our searches on Amazon. Can’t Say why. The Brinly sweeper arrived last week. A good friend helped me assemble it. Came well packed. All parts were present and accounted for. No damage to the paint or any of the parts. The instructions were concise and well organized. All the nuts and bolts were “blister packed” on a large card. And separated & grouped by each each step in the assembly instructions. You just opened each section one at a time as you went along. Nothing could be easier. The de-thatcher came in a separate box with separate instructions. That was really good. Prevented any confusion of parts. Took us about 2 hours to assemble it. We went slow and took our time. Only tools needed were a couple metric wrenches and sockets. A couple of notes on Assembly. - Highly suggest reading thru the directions and laying out/organizing the larger parts in the order of assembly, First before beginning assembly. - Do not open the blister packs until you need them for that step in the assembly. Prevents confusion and loss of nuts & bolts. - Using a battery operated drill to assemble the de-thatcher will save time. Be sure to adjust your torque setting so not to over thighten the self locking nuts. - My friend and I are handy. We have some experience with tools, and have large tool boxes to draw from. Both of us thought the assembly was straight forward. Just followed the directions. My wife and I have now used the Brinly sweeper 3 times over our 1 acre yard. It works better than expected. It picked up dry leaves flawlessly. Throwing them to the back of the hopper and filling it up. On the last use, we had rain for 2 days which brought down a lot of leaves. The back yard was covered in a thick coating. Fortunately, we had a strong breeze in the morning the next day, which helped dry the leaves on top a little. I removed the de-thatcher (just 2 bolts) because the leaf cover was so thick. And the sweeper picked the wet leaves right up. It barely missed any. And it was no effort to make another pass for those. The leaves were wet and heavy and the sweeper filled on just one pass. So I made more runs to the compost pile to empty the leaves. But all I did was swing by, slow to crawl, and pull the cord. Didn’t even stop. As expected, it took more effort to pull the cord because the leaves were wet and heavy. When I think of all the hours we spent raking leaves into piles. Then raking them onto tarps. And then dragging them across the yard to the compost pile. No more sore back, shoulders, or blisters on our hands! All I had to do was drive the mower around. I think it took us 1/3 the time we would normally have spent raking. I Love this sweeper!! A couple of notes on operation: - The construction of the sweeper was heavy enough that that the sweeper never missed a beat. Even when it was empty the tires never slipped, picking up, leaves on start up. - We followed the directions for the height adjustments. (Measuring the heights of the sweeper & the de-thatcher with the unit attached to our JD mower in the garage on a cement floor). It worked great the first time and no adjustments have been needed. The directions say that 3 miles an hour is the optimum speed. And that is true. You do not want to go too fast or too slow. Again just read and follow the directions. - The only con was that the pull rope was about 16 inches too short for the hook up on my mower and it popped off the Velcro when turning sharply. (Probably my fault as I put the Velcro on the right side next to the gear shift. That was easily remedied by just adding a piece to the rope. And I cannot even call that a negative. It would be impossible for the manufacturer to have one size fit every application & mower. - The list of pros for this Unit makes this an easy 5 star review. Brinly got it right with this one! Please - Spend the extra money and get a good quality sweeper! (Brinly or JD) The frustration and time you will save will more than make up for the extra $$. The old saying - you get what you pay for - is really true here. I cannot recommend the Brinly highly enough.

Little expensive for the quality. Although in today’s world maybe not. My complain is with the bag itself. The material is not that thick and I don’t see it lasting forever. It seems like it may tear at the seams, altho a replacement one can be bought from Brinly. The instructions are not the best but not the worst, it’s not fun to put this thing together even as a mechanic. It took us about 2 hours start to finish. All in all it seems like it should do what it says just fine. I am just unsure of how long it will last. I will update this after some use if I remember. Over all I do like it, just not the price. It is the only combo unit I could find so unless you want a separate thatcher and sweeper this is your only option.

I finally picked up the Brinly tow-behind lawn sweeper with dethatcher, and it’s quickly become one of my favorite yard tools. I showcase a lot of equipment on my YouTube channel @LawnandOrderTexasEdition, and this one easily made the cut. The collection bin is significantly larger than my friend’s Agri-Fab model, and the dethatching tines do an excellent job once you dial in the right height (3 available settings). Whether you're raking up leaves, breaking up thatch, or cleaning up clippings — this tool just works. 🛠️ Assembly Tips: Instructions are clear, but here’s the key: the bars for the containment bin ARE different (top and bottom), so make sure you don’t mix them up. If the parts don’t fit together, you’ve probably got them reversed. Once assembled, the sweeper moves effortlessly across your lawn, sweeping debris cleanly into the bin. The hitch bracket also has 3 height adjustments, so if the tines or sweeper feel too high/low, that’s where to dial it in. ✅ What I Love: Dual function: Sweeper + dethatcher = time saver Large hamper: Less stopping to dump Windscreen: Prevents debris blow-out (unless you’re flying across the yard!) Solid build: Sturdy steel frame, rolls smooth Easy connection: Universal hitch fits most tractors Great customer service from Brinly if you need parts or help 🔧 Room for Improvement (But Not Dealbreakers): The unit is a bit heavy when the hamper is full, but manageable — just takes a little muscle on the rope to dump. Assembly can be tricky if you’re not paying close attention to the illustrations — but follow them carefully, and you’ll be fine. Yes, it’s more expensive than other sweepers — but this is one of those tools where you get what you pay for. This is a versatile, high-quality machine that helps me tackle fall clean-up, dethatching, and leaf season without breaking a sweat. 🎥 You can see it in use on my channel @LawnandOrderTexasEdition, where I show off how this unit handles debris in real Texas lawns with Bermuda grass. If you're serious about lawn care, this is a tool you'll appreciate every season. Highly recommend. Brinly nailed it.

Poor workmanship cheap material, it does work but the hamper is garbage material and wont last the first time I used it the stitching tore on the hamper the stitching was coming apart just from proper assembly as the pipe frame has to be threaded through the hamper, the paint was not applied well in some area's and will no doubt lead to rusting the Velcro attached to rope handle I strongly suggest not using it, on my second use it just fell off and wrapped up in the rotary brushes bent them all up and my yard is fairly flat

Good product. Sweeps the the yard fairly easy. The assembly will challenge your patience. It’s not that there is a lot of steps. You have to finagle with it a lot. Especially during the beginning. During the some of the steps you have to make sure the sweeping deck is lined up correctly with certain screw holes. Most definitely manageable. The hardware is neatly set up for each step, very similar to a Lego set. The differential on this unit is a little funny, makes a bunch of racket when you make sharp turns. Hopefully the gears last a while. I would recommend this product

Works great. But you have to stop, get off and undo and remove a bolt to raise it up every time you travel over a hard surface. Someone should have designed this better. Otherwise, I would have given it 5 stars. It picks up the dead grass quite well.

With the cost of this unit you would expect some better instructions and build quality. Everything works as it should but it feels cheap and the moving parts are very flimsy. Plastic gears and a flimsy cover for it make me wonder just how long this is going to last me, but I'll be optimistic for now. I was missing a small piece of metal on the DeThatcher handle attachment point and had to fabricate one to replace it so I could operate the handle but all is well that ends well.

This review is after about 1.5 years of ownership. I’ve used it roughly four times on my 2-acre property behind my John Deere mower. It does an okay job collecting lighter material like leaves, and it actually picks up pine needles from my Class 5 driveway fairly well. For Pine needles sitting in the grass instead are a bit of a challenge. The biggest problem is that it tends to scrape and collect the gravel itself, so you constantly have to fine-tune the brush height. Unfortunately, the height adjustment system is probably the weakest part of the entire design. The selected height simply does not hold reliably. Once the sweeper starts collecting some weight, the adjustment selector tends to pop itself out of the guide slots, causing the brushes to drop lower than intended. Mechanically, it’s just not a good implementation and becomes frustrating very quickly. The dethatcher attachment is actually a great idea in theory, but again, the integration and lowering mechanism feel poorly executed. There are several design choices on this newer model that seem innovative at first but end up feeling flaky in real-world use. What makes this more disappointing is that my father-in-law owns the older version, and honestly, it works much better overall. This newer model feels like it introduced extra complexity without improving reliability. Another issue is that once the hopper gets even moderately heavy, the whole rear section tends to sag and drag on the ground. At that point, instead of rolling smoothly, you end up dragging the unit around. Overall, it works okay for very light-duty cleanup, but the newer design has too many weak points for something intended to handle larger properties.