Do gas chainsaws make any sense for a homeowner?

[Zaedock]

We heat with wood and sell a bit. I have about 25 powersaws, none of which are electric. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a place depending on the owners needs and situation. I have used a couple before and they were fine. Certainly not “stupid”.
I could see us bringing one on an ATV or Jeep trip instead of a folding handsaw.
Most of the time, I reach for my new Husky 572XP. Great all around saw for what we do. If someone is cutting a face cord or less, then an electric might be a good alternative to gas.

 

[D60]

Depends largely on what you need to cut. The forest surrounding my house is small stuff. A 14" diameter is on the huge side.

We heat the house primarily with wood and the shop (40x50x14) 100% with wood.

I personally cut everything with battery power.

The batteries are used extensively in the shop when not in the chainsaw, so determining the exact cost there (to assign to cutting) is nearly impossible, but it's negligible -- I'd have the batteries regardless

 

[Cujet]

Don't forget that nearly all gas saws are in a low state of tune and don't perform well due to this.

Of my 3 saws, the 50cc Husky 346 with muffler mod and good chain is a lightweight ripper. Easily twice as fast as the very nice Echo 50cc saw. There is a reason people love this old saw.

My oldest saw is a 25 year old 45cc Husky 345, still runs perfectly. Let's see a battery saw crank up and rip after 25 years of use.

 

[burbguy82]

I have the Milwaukee M18 Chainsaw, and my neighbor has an Echo gas chainsaw. Both have 16 inch blades, and both get a similar number of cuts out of a tank of gas or charge. The M18 saw with my upgraded bar and chain is equally, if not slightly more effective.

One of my M18 FORGE 12.0 batteries cost $0.02c to charge up on grid power, or $0.006c to charge up if the sun is shining and I fill it on solar, or, $0.0000 if I were to charge it up via a solar panel connected to one of my Ecoflow batteries

He is buying the pre-mixed fuel from Home Depot, so a tank costs him a whopping $1.30. If he mixed his own gas, it would cost about $0.40

Gas needs to be purchased, and is hard to find in a hurricane. Electric on the other hand can be made for free via the sun, or via natural gas, etc

What am I missing here? Why do people keep telling me that battery saws are stupid?

I would say no, not for the normal user, here and there. Now if use it day in and day out, gas saws are still the way to go, just from a downtime perspective. Gas there is no downtime really, other than sharpening between fill ups, which I would suggest.

The Milwaukee Chainsaw is a good tool. For the normal guy, I would recommend battery over gas

Really I wish they had come out with them sooner, lest I would have one.

 

[wpod]

I own the M18, it’s nice but eats batteries. I just upgraded to forge batteries which I would never recover in gas costs, but won’t have to deal with the smell or unreliability of 2 stroke either.

The two strokes smell like victory !

 

[tnt_motorsports]

For me gas is easier, but that is just my preference. I always have gas and then I don't need to worry the battery being charged or waiting for a charge. E0 is readily available around me so no worries on gas mix either.

Just my $0.02

 

[supton]

I kinda wish I had gone electric, use my saw less than I thought I would. But I don't think I'd like to have gone electric for my weed wacker, so having both take 50:1 out of pre-mix isn't the end of the world--I might use two quarts of fuel per year. Both machines might last me a decade at that rate?

I don't heat with wood, it's just for cleaning up fallen trees.

 

[dnewton3]

I have multiple properties; total of about 55 acres. Most of them heavily wooded.

I have both gas (Stihl and Echo) and battery saws (Echo). Both have their time and place. Gas is more useful when long run times are necessary. Battery is more useful (and less mess) when short jobs are the task.

 

[oil pan 4]

If you cut down a few real trees you'll find out real quick how useless the battery powered saws are.
Project farm tested a whole bunch of them.
Main take away was the electrics could do real woodcutting for 4 to 20 minutes on one charge and to recharge took 40 to 140 minutes. All depending on the saw.
Only way they make sense is to use them as yard saws or if you already had a pile of say m18 batteries for other tools.
If you were going to use it to clear storm debris and replace agas powered saw you would need a pile of batteries and a fleetof chargers and obviously a 120v source.
You would need at least 1 battery in the saw, at least 1 battery cooling before charging, at least 2 or 3 charging and at least 1 cooling after charging to run a battery powered saw like gas saw. Oh and you would probably need someone to man the charger, pull off batteries that are mostly to fully charged and keep feeding the charger with low and cool enough to charge batteries.
I had to put mine in a refrigerator for a bit after running them down and that's just using them around the house, not real saw work.

 

[sycamore]

I had a 40’ pine in my backyard a couple of years ago that I couldn’t stand, so my neighbor and I felled it with a corded Bauer chainsaw that I bought from Harbor Freight. I’m very much a novice when it comes to chainsaws, but it seemed to get the job done pretty easily I must say. For someone like me who will seldom use it, I can’t complain about going with corded.

That being said, there was a downburst earlier this year that knocked out power in the middle of the night and caused a large tree branch to fall into the road, completely blocking it. I wished I had a gas chainsaw then. My trusty bow saw did the trick, though, cutting up the branch piece-by-piece until it was small enough for me to pull it (mostly) out of the road.

Or maybe this was a sign that I need a generator.

 

[supton]

Or maybe this was a sign that I need a generator.

Generator is a nice thing to have, I finally gave in and got an invertor. It can just barely kick on my furnace... but does well for keeping the lights and the internet on. It's crazy to think but I start going stir-crazy without internet after an hour. I don't understand it, but I'm hopelessly addicted it seems, I can only read just so many books before I want to know what tomorrow's weather forecast is. And reading by candlelight? gets old, really quick.

 

[oil pan 4]

I had a 40’ pine in my backyard a couple of years ago that I couldn’t stand, so my neighbor and I felled it with a corded Bauer chainsaw that I bought from Harbor Freight. I’m very much a novice when it comes to chainsaws, but it seemed to get the job done pretty easily I must say. For someone like me who will seldom use it, I can’t complain about going with corded.

That being said, there was a downburst earlier this year that knocked out power in the middle of the night and caused a large tree branch too fall into the road, completely blocking it. I wished I had a gas chainsaw then. My trusty bow saw did the trick, though, cutting up the branch piece-by-piece until it was small enough for me to pull it (mostly) out of the road.

Or maybe this was a sign that I need a generator.

Nothing wrong with corded.
I still use a corded saw to shorten long lengths of fire wood, little 2 to 6 inch wide branches that I can throw on the trailer in multiple stove lengths. A single 8foot stick is easier to secure than four 2 foot long sticks.

 

[#18FAN]

I had a Poulan gas chain saw and it I sold it to buy a Dewalt 20 volt chain saw. My fingers would get sore try to start the finicky two stroke chain saw only to cut a few small branches. One time we had a bad ice storm and it worked great to cut a bunch of branches from my daughter's trees that had broken limbs. The only gas rig I have in lawn and garage tools any longer is my Honda pressure washer and my JD riding lawn mower. Love my electric ice auger.

That's always the saying with Poulan you just keep pulling and pulling and pulling lol

 

[oil pan 4]

That's always the saying with Poulan you just keep pulling and pulling and pulling lol

Yeah poulan are trash.
I run echos because they start easy.
Stihl are tougher and have more power assuming they start.

 

[Bill Judson]

Do gas chainsaws make any sense for a homeowner?​

They do if they are doing any serious wood cutting!

 

[4WD]

Yeah poulan are trash.
I run echos because they start easy.
Stihl are tougher and have more power assuming they start.

left that green garbage at the curb one morning - not a year old …
was mid afternoon the next day before it was gone

 

[chainblu]

I finally gave up on gas saws after taking 3 to the scrap yard in 10 years. Even with E0 gas and draining the tank, they became unreliable between uses. I have a corded saw for home use and a cordless version at my property in TN. So far, so good.

 

[Cujet]

I finally gave up on gas saws after taking 3 to the scrap yard in 10 years. Even with E0 gas and draining the tank, they became unreliable between uses. I have a corded saw for home use and a cordless version at my property in TN. So far, so good.

Quality brands and models? Stihl, Husqvarna, Echo?

 

[Rand]

Quality brands and models? Stihl, Husqvarna, Echo?

poulan and ryobi would be my guess ;p

I've had my echo cs-590 for years(10?) and it gets infrequent use but when you need real wood cut it is there.

Only issue i've had is it wont start without the throttle held down.. you usually just set the lever and then the throttle.. but on this one I use a short bungy to hold the trigger.. fires up 3 pulls later.. every time (only cold if warm its 1 pull dont hold trigger)
not sure why but it happened after year 4.. Still works fine with that one workaround so I dont bother looking into it.
has a blade brake so its not unsafe.. for the 2s it takes me to release the bungy.

I also have a dewalt 12" battery chainsaw and a 10" craftsman pole saw(plug in).

Right tool for the right job.

The dewalt is great for clearing branches when mowing trails.. or limbing smaller branches... the ones you dont want to be waving a 20# chainsaw for.

I have a bum shoulder that just lifting my arm high can get painful fast.

so I do appreciate the 7# dewalt on all the smaller stuff.

I might eventually pick up one of the newer pruning chainsaws.
dewalt has an 8" or maybe the ryobi hp 6"

its all about the right tool for the right job. I also prefer the battery if I have to make a cut from a ladder or awkward position... even if it takes 10x as long.

The echo cs-590 is a cord producing beast of a saw.

 

[D60]

Battery is also really nice for stop and start/interrupted jobs

Imagine if you had to pull start your cordless drill each time you wanted to drill a hole, or leave it idling.

NOT saying battery is superior. Saying everything in life has trade-offs.