Battery Power for Lawn equipment -- is it time?

I had a crew doing a complex technical tree removal at my house today. A climber, 3 more guys on the ground doing stuff. They had to use much, much more firepower than any of these electrics.

The tree was nearly dead, too close to the house, needed to go. It's going to be the most expensive cord of firewood I ever bought. (yes, I stand to get close to a cord out of the one tree)

 

One tree 22 inches DBH (diameter at breast height) will produce approximately one full cord of firewood. If the tree was 16 inches DBH, you need 2 trees. At 10 inches you will need 4-6 trees.

 

yes, I found that or at least a similar table when I made my estimate. I get to stack it later this week so I'll find out

 

I remember a similar crew took a pine right next to my parents house. Tree was maybe 10 inches or so. It was down and chipped in 15 minutes or so.

 

This one might have been 8' off my back door right in the crook of an L shaped floorplan. The stump is 33" across, and I've just measured one of the breast-height rounds at 28". Tops were probably 60' up and it had 5-6 boughs over the house roof. No way was this one going out without pro effort.

I'm surprised (and thankful) they didn't need a crane.

 

Norway Maple? I managed to take such a one down near my house over several weekends. A couple years of chipping away at the stump. I'll call someone when the time comes for the other one left.

 

$1,000. About 60’ high and 4’ at the ground. Stump was 8’ across, one foot below the surface.
Tree was 20’ from the house, and had a big hole at the base

 

Yeah, high cost of a tree removal is due to equipments they have to bring to the site and the labor for cleaning up afterword. I had this tri-headed red maple tree and 5 other equally large poplar trees (16"-24" DBH) fell by a professional tree removal guy very cheap. $500 for all 6 trees, but all he did was to fell the trees to the direction that would not hit any structures, nothing else. Only things he used were his truck, a ladder, long rope, pulley and a chainsaw. If it wasn't so close to our house, I would have done it myself. For the same job, when I contacted a local tree removal service, they quoted me $2000. But that would have included cleaning up and removing all the wood and debris out of my property.

 

Pennsylvania ash. The house came with two monster ash trees, this one flat died in the first year we were in. When they felled the trunk a lot of bark was knocked off and you could see the borer tracks everywhere. It was time to eliminate the liability.

The other is dying more slowly, but it's in no danger of coming down on the house so it goes on its own terms.

They put in about 45 man-hours; I paid 'em $2k.

 

Hey, turns out you can bring the cordless fun indoors too!

We just found a great (local offline) deal on a Hoover cordless vacuum. It's a full size upright with nifty extras. I'd used other lightweight cordless vacs before and they were weak sauce. This is the first one I've used that matched a corded model in cleaning power.

I'm not expecting it to be particularly durable, but the markdown was so steep that if it lasts even 2 years it'll be on par with the best corded model I've owned.

 

I'm a little disappointed in my 80 volt Kobalt chain saw. Its ok but really does not have anywhere close to the power of my Stilh. It gets deep in a limb and then stops aggressively cutting. No balls. My Stilh will just tear it up would not stop. Its ok for smaller limbs but anything around 8 inches or more its no good.

I had surgery to repair a ripped tendon in my right shoulder and cannot give the start cord the rip it needs to start a chainsaw. All chainsaws require a very aggressive right hand pull start and you cannot switch hands. I tried...jeez that was stupid.

And chainsaws are a pain in the tookus to start especially the 350 Stilh I owned. I had a Husky too that was a pain to start too.

 

I understand there are some easy pull Stihls where you pull to wind up a spring to start them.

 

Thats a really cool idea. Wish I had seen that before but there's a Stihl dealer very close to me and never saw that unit. In fact I brought it back and complained what a pia the one I just bought from them and how hard it is to start. The repair guy grabbed it and gave it a super hard and fast tug and it started right up. Then I get the look.....

I cant do that anymore. I asked is there something easier to start and he said there all like that.

I with you could change hands to pull the cord with a different hand but there all right shoulder start. My expensive Kobalt is disappointing when you stack it up against a good Stilhl that thing was bad nice person it would chew through anything. Kobalt not so much.

Guess its time for me to get out of the chain saw biz lol.

Thanks Prodigy.

 

That is cool. My grandfather was a gearhead and I remember he had some 5-10hp 4-stroke engines with a spring start, and of course I've seen it on the little RC aircraft engines but never on utility/tool engines in between those sizes.

Neat.

 

I have a detached right shoulder tendon. I know what you mean by that pull cord problem.

 

I believe my 81 year old neighbor has one. Would model information help?

 

Here is some general information.

Easy2Start | Product Technology & Features | STIHL USA

 

@edthefox5, Stihl is hard to beat. I used to help my father-in-law cut wood with Stihl's quite often.

Not sure what your saw is like, but I'm left handed and didn't have a problem starting his saws if I held the saw on the ground with my right hand on the front handle and then I usually put a knee or foot on the rear handle. That seems to keep it steady for me when I pulled with my left hand.

 

Any chance it's the chain? I bought a spare chain for my corded electric so I could sharpen one on the bench while the other was ready to go. I happened to test the new one for fit and realized it cut a heck of a lot better than the original one.

 

Thank you Leadfoot I wish I knew. It gets stuck in the cut for some reason. Goes into the log pretty good the minute the whole bar is in the cut it will not go any further. In fact its then a bitch to get the saw out.

I checked the straightness of the bar the chain is sharp and the chain oiler works good although it does not output oil like the Stihl or a Husky. You can see the oil coming off the bar during an oil check test on those but on the Kobalt very little oil is coming out on a oil test where you hold it running over a surface and see if any oil is coming off the bar. Thought maybe it did not like the Husky chain oil so I bought Stilh chainbar oil and that helped a little. The chain oil reservoir is not clogged. I see oil on the chain. The bar just gets stuck in the cut and wont power through at full throttle no matter how I position the bar.

Never had that issue with other chain saws. Others worked good once I was able to get them started. The Stihl I had could not be stopped.

I bought the Kobalt used on eBay for $175. Looked mint never used came in its box. Still had sales stickers on it. I checked it closely was never used not once.

I will buy a new chain asap as its acting like the chain is not sharp. Thanks for the tip!!