Getting away from gas powered stuff and am hoping for some opinions on the battery powered chainsaw and string trimmer. I dont use either very often and am tired of dealing with the problems from not using enough or storing properly. Kobalt and ryobi both are offering 40v models in my price range. Seems to be more bad reviews of the bump feed on the kobalt string trimmer. Anybody have these that has an opinion
I bought a Milwaukee 18V with the 8AH battery this spring. I'll never go back to screwing around with two stroke gas again. Battery lasts about 40 minutes of trimming grass and weeds around the fish tank. Extra battery is about $130, give or take. That keeps you going continuously for as long as you can stand.
Not wildly exited about the Milwaukee trimmer head, but it gets the job done, and is always ready to go. It gets grabbed now to get things trimmed down way more than the walk behind gas string mower.
Milwaukee all the way for normal stuff even a chainsaw to trim and small trees, but want my 026 farm boss for major tree cutting or logs, more power faster etc’
I have a 40 volt ryobi chainsaw and a 40 volt ryobi trimmer. Milwaukee and dewalt are probably better units but I decided the ryobi was the best compromise of price and quality. I am pleased with both of them and would purchase them again. The chainsaw will cut a lot of wood if you keep the chain sharp. As soon as the chain starts getting dull the battery life is reduced significantly. Sure beats messing with gasoline and oil. I would Stihl be pulling on my other two chainsaws when I am cutting wood with the battery saw.
Read the reviews for sure. Nearly every chainsaw I looked at leaked bar oil badly according to the reviews. Bought one for my dad. Ended up getting a Milwaukee & so far, so good. My son bought me a 40v black & Decker trimmer about 3 hrs ago. I was skeptical at first, but I really like it. For a small piece of property battery powered is nice.
I have a Ryobi line trimmer.that I like well enough, A friend gave me a Ego line trimmer that I like even better. The Ego trimmer head uses a double line and the auto advance actually works, plenty of power and battery life.
I spent $350 on an electric Chainsaw because I was tired of buying gas Chainsaws and have them not run when I needed them to run It was an Huskavarna Or how ever you spell it I burned it up on the 1t tree I tried cutting down. I now own 2 Stihl saws and use the premix Ethanol free fuel. I have seen the Stihl Battery operated masonry block saw on a job site I was working on They went threw 3 battery's a day and they limited their use for the block on the scaffold all the major cuts were done on the ground with a big saw. Some days they had to get the gas powered saw out to finish the day because their Battery operated saw ran out of battery's.
I guess if you have small stuff to cut up the Battery Chainsaws would be OK. Not for me thou When i need my saws I want them to kick butt fast so I can put them back away and the premix fuels do not go bad they say.
I bought a new Husquavana electric last year. Opted for 100 dollar battery upgrade. Ran it once and charged the battery. Put charged battery back in the saw and tried to use it a month later. Zero battery, and it would not charge. Took it to the husq dealer and he gave me a new battery. Checked it worked, and a couple weeks later it was 100% dead. Everything is back at the dealer now. I think he will just give me a new one. I think the saw is never 100% off and it is killing batteries. I was going to go electric, but this has been a bad experience.
but you will have to keep buying replacement batteries every few years at $130 or so...
Horse crap. I've got Milwaukee batteries that have served for six years so far, on everything from skill saws, grease guns, drivers, 1/2" driver, drills. Getting used every week of the year, well below freezing to scorching hot. Never a hitch with any of them.
Other brands, not so lucky. Ridgid (Home Depot brand) especially sucks. I've had no luck with Dewalt, either. But these Milwaukee 18V batteries just keep going. I kept records on one of my drivers, It's driven over 160,000 screws so far.
I just picked up a Dewalt flex volt chainsaw,works good so far. I only use my gas saw about 2-3 times a year and always have issues, I did get a Husvarna string trimmer a few years back and only buy the premix fuel and that's fine. I do like just throwing a battery on and cutting.
My only battery powered experience is Stihl lawn mower, hedge trimmer and trimmer I’ve had for about a year. If I were mowing a golf course I’d go back to gas. Residential, never. I get about 2/3 of my mowing done with one battery, switch out in 30 seconds and go. I’ve never used a whole battery charge with the trimmer or hedge trimmer.
I went with Stihl because my multi-source review consistently found significantly greater satisfaction with Stihl than the other brands, including Husqvarna.
My chain saws are now with my sons. If I were still living up north and heating with wood, I’d still be running gas saws. As it is, if I had need of a homeowner saw for typical homeowner jobs, I’d get a Stihl electric in a heartbeat.
I have a 40 volt grass string trimmer that I bought at Canadian Tire. It runs for 70 minutes on a charge, and works good in heavy slugging. The brand name is Green Works. Nice balance, not overly heavy. I also have a Stihl gas powered trimmer with the handle bars on it. That thing is a beast, but it is heavy, and I ain't nearly as tough as I used to pretend to be. As far as a chain saw, I suppose an electric would be fine for small jobs, but when I wade into some 12-15 inch birch or ash there's nothing like a Husqvarna or Stihl gas unit.
Read the reviews for sure. Nearly every chainsaw I looked at leaked bar oil badly according to the reviews. Bought one for my dad. Ended up getting a Milwaukee & so far, so good. My son bought me a 40v black & Decker trimmer about 3 hrs ago. I was skeptical at first, but I really like it. For a small piece of property battery powered is nice.
All chainsaws leak. It's they way the oil pumps work. The reviewers don't know much about saws.
It may or may not matter to you but just as a FYI - the cutting diameter is usually not as wide on battery powered string trimmers as comparable size gasoline powered ones.
I just bought the Makita string trimmer and blower combo. So far it has worked good. I trimmed my whole yard and only dropped one bar on my 18v 6ah battery. I have all Makita tools and at least 8 batteries. I’m not going to run out of power before I run out of lawn. The Makita trimmer isn’t a beast like my old Red Max gas trimmer was but it gets it done and I don’t have to mess with mixed gas and hard starting because it has sat unused. If I didn’t have all the other tools and batteries I probably would have bought another gas trimmer.
Another big plus is the Makita is much quieter and I don’t reek of gasoline afterwards.
Rock Chuck, I'm talking about leaking when it's just sitting on a shelf unused. I know they leak when they're operated, but many reviews of them leaving puddles when stored away.
but you will have to keep buying replacement batteries every few years at $130 or so...
Horse crap. I've got Milwaukee batteries that have served for six years so far, on everything from skill saws, grease guns, drivers, 1/2" driver, drills. Getting used every week of the year, well below freezing to scorching hot. Never a hitch with any of them.
Other brands, not so lucky. Ridgid (Home Depot brand) especially sucks. I've had no luck with Dewalt, either. But these Milwaukee 18V batteries just keep going. I kept records on one of my drivers, It's driven over 160,000 screws so far.
My two oldest Milwaukee 18v batteries are 9-10yrs old and still going strong! And they never lose charge while being stored.
And totally agree about that Rigid crap from Home Depot.
Check this guy out. He does some pretty good tests on equipment of all types. He has several videos about battery powered lawn equipment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aBZt8m1XkQ
but you will have to keep buying replacement batteries every few years at $130 or so...
Not true with Lithium Ion Batteries. I run Milwaukee tools and I have a couple batteries dating back to 2012 and they still run strong.
The Milwaukee Fuel Chain Saw and the Fuel Trimmer are incredible tools. Your not going to cut wood for heating your house with it but you can't beat it for cutting here and there and trimming.
There is a big difference between the Regular Milwaukee tools and the Fuel tools, do your research.
Rock Chuck, I'm talking about leaking when it's just sitting on a shelf unused. I know they leak when they're operated, but many reviews of them leaving puddles when stored away.
I've always kept saws sitting on cardboard or something to soak up the oil. They all leak whether being used or not.
but you will have to keep buying replacement batteries every few years at $130 or so...
Horse crap. I've got Milwaukee batteries that have served for six years so far, on everything from skill saws, grease guns, drivers, 1/2" driver, drills. Getting used every week of the year, well below freezing to scorching hot. Never a hitch with any of them.
Other brands, not so lucky. Ridgid (Home Depot brand) especially sucks. I've had no luck with Dewalt, either. But these Milwaukee 18V batteries just keep going. I kept records on one of my drivers, It's driven over 160,000 screws so far.
It's all about the battery construction. Milwaukee has electronics on them that control everything the batteries do, Everything, that's one of the reasons the batteries last so long.
I have a Dewalt string trimmer. Check into them as they are pretty solid.
+1 - I bought the 40v version of this and have no regrets ....as much/maybe more power than most of the gas trimmers I've owned and the charge lasts a lot longer than you'd think
I looked at a bunch of the electric chain saws. Ended up buying an Ego 16" bar. Used it to cut a bunch of 6" to 8" trees out back. Had someone come and cut down the big ones - 12" to 16". I'm using the Ego to cut them up. I'll get six to eight cuts through the big trees on one charge. We have about 1,000 sf of grass in the back and can't use the riding mower back there. Bought an Ego push mower and it does great. Only takes about ten minutes to cut the back and with a freshly charged battery it doesn't even register as any being discharged. Same battery for both. When stored I put it on a cardboard box. The oil does leak out into the box. My string trimmer is a Ryobi 18v One+ I've had for three years and have used a bunch. It is still going strong.
Seems to be more bad reviews of the bump feed on the kobalt string trimmer.
You could probably put an Echo speed feed head on anything you buy. Reloading string on one of those is great......you can just cut a piece about 20 feet long and wind it on without disassembling the head. Only bad thing I can say about them is that if you get into some vines or moss, etc their is a little gap in them that allows stuff like that to wrap around the head and jam up the trimmer. If you are just trimming lawn grass that would not be a problem.
Milwaukee hands down, by the leaf blower while you are at it. Like was mentioned i am not a big fan of the trimmer head so I changed that out. I have the weedwacker, pole saw, and lawn edger all interchangeable with the power head. The chainsaw works great and is quite toss it in your truck going to deer camp or camping and cut up a pile of firewood without the noise, if I'm boating I toss it in the boat to cut up woods for campfires. The other great thing with Milwaukee is their tools are always on sale and usually come with a battery which tends to be cheaper than buying a battery
Just used my Milwaukee M18 trimmer at the in-law's yesterday. It was a virtual jungle. With nonstop use, a12ah battery lasted well over an hour. 8ah went about 45 minutes. Plenty of power. M18 chainsaw works great for its intended purpose. It'll never replace a gas saw for cutting several cords to heat the house all winter but perfectly capable for relatively short sessions.
Electric chain saws have no place in Flave's garage.
Living in a condo in FL I can you why you wouldn’t need any chainsaw. LOL
Agree But you may need a cordless Jack Hammer to help dig your self out after the owner Demo's the building you lived in.
I can see you and calldum running a jackhammer.
With a fist strapped to the end of it.
LOL
As long as it was not my fist. I'm Good When you are trapped you fight to get out and survive or you lay back and let death take you. This has nothing to do with Cordless Chainsaws
I have a Hyper-Tough 20V chainsaw with a 2.0 AH and a 4.0AH battery. It's great for use on my property for small work (mostly for trimming over grown tree limbs and such). The batteries (especially the 4.0AH) last a long time and recharge quickly. However, it is not a substitute for a gas chainsaw for cutting tree trunks and large limbs. Believe me, I wish it was, as I hate it every time I have to cold start the gas chainsaw. At the end of the Hurricane season I drain the gas tank and only use ethanol-free pre-mix fuel and it still is a PIA to start.
I'm about to jump on board with a Milwaukee weed whacker. I just tried my Stihl Kombi 130R and despite running perfectly last weekend when I put it away. Today, 20 pulls and nothing.
Come over to the dark side, I spent almost 1000 dollars on the kombi set up with sweeper and saw and the next year Milwaukee came out with their set up and I may have used the stihl once or twice since
Bought a Milwaukee whacker this morning. Why did I wait so long? Plenty of power and quiet.
As luck would have it, my Husky 550XP chainsaw also has some issues. Unfortunately, Husky has continued to move to the big box store (Lowes' etc.) sales model and the servicing dealers have been shrinking. It looks like I'll need to take it to the Husky Dallas service center. Damn shame, it's been a great saw, but ran one day and couldn't even get it to start the next (and I was using TruFuel). Surprisingly, I pulled out my 25 yo Stihl 011 that's been sitting for 2 plus years and it starts on the second pull. There's definitely something different about the modern 2-strokes. Not nearly the same power or reliability of the older stuff.
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