Covid

[Cadillac]

Idk its a toss up. My siblings and I bought my 75 yr old parents electric equipment maybe four yrs ago. My father already had a 40v ryobi I think blower worked great. So we decided to buy them a self propelled mower and the weedwacker for Xmas. They have a .25 acre it’s works perfect. The calls stopped about what oil to put in or the mower won’t start or winterizing. We bought two batteries so he had enough to cycle out. Have had one battery go bad since purchase luckily have two back ups they are 100+ to replace.
What I don’t like is it’s electrical. There’s thousands of little parts and if ONE part fails the whole thing is garbage no fixing.
I’m a mechanic ain’t no thing to rip off a carb and rebuild her. That’s the only hiccup I ever encounter. All my equipment gets purged of fuel when done for the season. Either running dry or pulling the fuel bowl screw to drain. 2strokes empty the gas tank and press the primer bulb till it stops spitting then drain again. 98% of the time never a problem when spring comes.
If I had to trim brush ever year I would use a small 12” gas trim saw like a stihl ms194. And yes I love my Stihl chainsaws have 4 different sizes and a pole saw so I’m biased alittle.

 

[Tozguy]

Always a bright side if you look hard enough. You tried a battery powered chainsaw yet?

After being very happy with a Greenworks 80v lawnmower (21''), I had to have their 80v chainsaw (16'')
It is AWESOME. Not to the point of replacing my Stihl gas powered one but much handier for the smaller jobs. It is amazing how long the battery lasts. The two batteries that were included with the lawnmower also work in the chainsaw. So if you looking for a remedy for the covid blues a new Greenworks cordless chainsaw should help, and without breaking the bank.

Pro 80V 16" Brushless Chainsaw (Tool Only)

4 Year Limited Tool Warranty

www.greenworkstools.com

Terry, it would be great for the type of work you mentioned in post 25.

 

[tjb]

Idk its a toss up. My siblings and I bought my 75 yr old parents electric equipment maybe four yrs ago. My father already had a 40v ryobi I think blower worked great. So we decided to buy them a self propelled mower and the weedwacker for Xmas. They have a .25 acre it’s works perfect. The calls stopped about what oil to put in or the mower won’t start or winterizing. We bought two batteries so he had enough to cycle out. Have had one battery go bad since purchase luckily have two back ups they are 100+ to replace.
What I don’t like is it’s electrical. There’s thousands of little parts and if ONE part fails the whole thing is garbage no fixing.
I’m a mechanic ain’t no thing to rip off a carb and rebuild her. That’s the only hiccup I ever encounter. All my equipment gets purged of fuel when done for the season. Either running dry or pulling the fuel bowl screw to drain. 2strokes empty the gas tank and press the primer bulb till it stops spitting then drain again. 98% of the time never a problem when spring comes.
If I had to trim brush ever year I would use a small 12” gas trim saw like a stihl ms194. And yes I love my Stihl chainsaws have 4 different sizes and a pole saw so I’m biased alittle.

You're pretty much confirming what I'm thinking. Just like for your parents, at my age, electric is sounding better and better (71, and counting). In addition to my two Stihl chainsaws, I also have a Stihl pole saw. That's a great tool, but I must admit, it's getting heavier every time I use it. If I go electric, it's almost certainly going to be DeWalt - unless somebody cautions me against it. All my battery powered tools are DeWalt; I have five chargers that will work on the 60 volt batteries and about a dozen 20 volt batteries that will power the chainsaw. About two weeks ago, I cut down 11 trees. Two or three of them were bigger than my 20" Stihl; the rest smaller down to about six inches. Limbed them all, pushed everything into the burn pile which is now about the size of a small house, cleaned up the mess, plowed and graded the land. That used to be fun and energizing. This time I thought I was dying. Not nearly as fun as it used to be. If a battery powered saw makes it even slightly more manageable, I'm interested.

Thanks for the info.

Regards,
Terry

 

[tjb]

After being very happy with a Greenworks 80v lawnmower (21''), I had to have their 80v chainsaw (16'')
It is AWESOME. Not to the point of replacing my Stihl gas powered one but much handier for the smaller jobs. It is amazing how long the battery lasts. The two batteries were included with the lawnmower also work in the chainsaw. So if you looking for a remedy for the covid blues a new Greenworks cordless chainsaw should help, and without breaking the bank.

Pro 80V 16" Brushless Chainsaw (Tool Only)

4 Year Limited Tool Warranty

www.greenworkstools.com

Terry, it would be great for the type of work you mentioned in post 25.

That's good to hear. I suspect I'll end up with one fairly soon. Never heard of Greenworks, though. I'll need to look into them and compare costs on batteries and chargers. As I've noted above, DeWalt is in the crosshairs for me because I won't need chargers. Any idea how Greenworks compares to other brands - in particular DeWalt?

Thanks for responding.

Regards,
Terry

 

[Tozguy]

Terry,
We discovered Greenworks when shopping for a new push lawnmower. The brand was unknown to us and the name is a bit tacky but I kept coming back to it. The design was appealing and the price very competitive.

A lawnmower is in a different league from my other cordless hand tools. There was nothing comparable with the Greenworks mower among the brands of my cordless tools (Bosch, Milwaukee, Black&Decker) and their batteries would not have been powerful enough for a lawnmower anyway.

With the recent profusion of electric bikes and cars I figured that battery technology had progressed much beyond my experience with portable tools. The Greenworks mower came on sale and comes with two batteries and a charger so it was hard to pass up. My wife does most of the mowing for exercise and I thought that she would appreciate a lighter more quiet machine so we sprung for the Greenworks. Now we fight over who gets to use it.

We have competed our first season with the Greenworks mower and are very satisfied. It is a relief for me to have one less gas motor to service. I have also grown to appreciate the quiet. So when my old 12'' gas chainsaw developed some problems this summer it was easy to dream about a new battery powered one. I have used the Greenworks chainsaw for about two hours so far and love it but have no idea how reliable and durable it is. It is a bit heavier than I would have liked but the 80v battery lasts long.

The little Dewalt chainsaw also looks good to me especially the one with a shorter bar. But my having to buy batteries and charger with it made it much more expensive compared to the Greenworks. Hopefully someone here will share their experience with it.

Regards, Mike

 

[tjb]

Terry,
We discovered Greenworks when shopping for a new push lawnmower. The brand was unknown to us and is a bit tacky but I kept coming back to it. The design was appealing and the price very competitive.

A lawnmower is in a different league from my other cordless hand tools. There was nothing comparable with the Greenworks mower among the brands of my cordless tools (Bosch, Milwaukee, Black&Decker) and their batteries would not have been powerful enough for a lawnmower anyway.

With the recent profusion of electric bikes and cars I figured that battery technology had progressed much beyond my experience with portable tools. The Greenworks mower came on sale and comes with two batteries and a charger so it was hard to pass up. My wife does most of the mowing for exercise and I thought that she would appreciate a lighter more quiet machine so we sprung for the Greenworks. Now we fight over who gets to use it.

We have competed our first season with the Greenworks mower and are very satisfied. It is a relief for me to have one less gas motor to service. I have also grown to appreciate the quiet. So when my old 12'' gas chainsaw developed some problems this summer it was easy to dream about a new battery powered one. I have used the Greenworks chainsaw for about two hours so far and love it but have no idea how reliable and durable it is. It is a bit heavier than I would have liked.

The little Dewalt chainsaw also looks good to me but it was much more expensive. Hopefully someone here will share their experience with it.

Regards, Mike

Thanks, Mike. That's very useful information. Dewalt definitely is costlier, but there is an advantage to me in battery/charger base costs. I'm very close to taking the plunge. Just need to investigate a little more as to which pool I'll jump into.

Regards,
Terry

 

[Tozguy]

Good luck Terry, new cordless products seem to come out every day so its good to keep your 'ear to the ground'. Do you have an expectation about how long you would want to run the chainsaw before changing/recharging the battery?

 

[tjb]

Good luck Terry, new cordless products seem to come out every day so its good to keep your 'ear to the ground'. Do you have an expectation about how long you would want to run the chainsaw before changing/recharging the battery?

Hour or two but not non-stop. Cut a little; clear a little. Probably less than half that time would be spent actually operating the saw. I would think two batteries would be quite sufficient for that. What do you think?

 

[Jake2465]

After being very happy with a Greenworks 80v lawnmower (21''), I had to have their 80v chainsaw (16'')
It is AWESOME. Not to the point of replacing my Stihl gas powered one but much handier for the smaller jobs. It is amazing how long the battery lasts. The two batteries were included with the lawnmower also work in the chainsaw. So if you looking for a remedy for the covid blues a new Greenworks cordless chainsaw should help, and without breaking the bank.

Pro 80V 16" Brushless Chainsaw (Tool Only)

4 Year Limited Tool Warranty

www.greenworkstools.com

Terry, it would be great for the type of work you mentioned in post 25.

Over here in Ohio we have a lot of Kobalt stuff from Lowes. It looks like Kobalt is a rebranded Greenworks.

 

[Tozguy]

Terry,
It would depend on the aH rating of the battery. Dewalt has different sized 60V batteries and the trade off is weight versus duration. My Greenworks 80v batteries are rated 2.0 aH and one will certainly last for a couple of hours of the type of work you described. It certainly has more endurance than my 75 yr old joints and muscles.
Knowing that Dewalt has a range of batteries available, you have options. I suggest that you start with the lightest battery and work up from there if necessary. Either way I am sure that you will enjoy the experience.