Lawn rollers
AL-KO GW 50
Half again heavier per centimetre than the rest of this shelf — 75 kg with water, 121 kg with sand.
What the maker prints on its own page
A stable sheet-steel construction for long life.
Fillable with sand (108 kg) or water (62 kg), from the side.
An adjustable dirt deflector to stop soil sticking excessively to the drum.
50 cm working width, easy to operate and manoeuvre.
Empty weight: 13 kg.
The number that separates it from the shelf
13 kg empty plus 62 kg of water is 75 kg, across 50 cm.
That is 1.50 kg per centimetre of working width.
The three other rollers here that publish enough to be measured this way come
out at 0.95, 0.97 and 1.00. They are, for practical purposes, one machine in
three widths.
This is half again heavier than all of them. With sand — 13 + 108 = 121 kg —
it is 2.42 kg per centimetre, more than twice.
Which is a decision, not a feature
Heavier is not better. Heavier is different, and the difference decides what
the tool is for.
Where the weight is right: bedding newly laid turf so the roots meet the
soil rather than sitting in an air gap. Flattening a lawn lifted by winter
frost, after you have levelled the worst of it by hand. Firming a base before
turfing.
Where the weight is wrong: a freshly sown seedbed, where a very heavy drum
presses seed below the depth it can emerge from. Any damp clay, where 121 kg
squeezes the air out of the root zone and undoes months of growth.
The lighter rollers on this shelf are the general-purpose ones. This is the
specialist, and it is priced accordingly.
The sand ratio, confirmed again
108 against 62 is 1.74 — the largest of the three sand-to-water ratios
published on this shelf, alongside 1.57 and 1.63.
Three drums, three ratios, all in the range that dry sand’s density predicts.
It is the one thing this whole shelf agrees on.
Sand also does not need draining before a frost, which on a 121 kg roller is a
consideration of its own: emptying a water-filled drum is a tap and ten
minutes; emptying a sand-filled one is a shovel and an afternoon.
Handling 121 kg
It rolls easily. That is the problem.
A filled drum on the flat is no work to keep moving and considerable work to
start, stop or turn. On a slope it wants to go down, with you attached to the
handle.
This is the heaviest empty weight on the shelf too — 13 kg to lift and carry
before you put anything in it.
Most people who own one fill it with water.
Availability
From 100 € to 150 €, that being the spread across the German, French, Italian and Spanish Amazon stores on the day of the survey.
Beyond the euro zone, the British Amazon store prices it in its own currency, which the spread above sets aside.
Listed and unsold: the American Amazon catalogue holds the reference with nobody behind it.
Taken from Keepa on the day this page was last revised; stock and prices move without notice.
Prices quoted in this text were read on 26 September 2026. The live price is at the top of the page.
