electric lawn mower

[T1 Terry]

Terry, I borrowed a friends corded chainsaw last weekend to bring down a weedy tree behind the house. Brazilian pepper tree. Made light work of it and was worth 150 bucks new. I would definitely recommend you stick with corded chainsaws unless the job absolutely necessitated cordless.

Travelling in an RV to collect firewood in the bush requires a bit of stealth ..... the extension cord leading out of the Hino and off into the bush would be a dead giveaway I have an Aldi one that works great, a couple of Black & Decker ones that I've modified the battery into an Anderson plug adapter so I can carry a lithium battery with me into the scrub, but the power of the EGO stuff and ease of use makes them a winner by a long shot. The 40cm bar makes it useful for clearing fallen trees as well where the 20cm bar on the B&D unit limits it to firewood only. If I could get a second battery for the Aldi unit I'd probably think twice about buying the EGO unit, but they have never been seen in the stores again unfortunately. They don't use the Aldi lithium tool type battery, it is a Gardenline brand name I think and 36v.

T1 Terry

[rhills]

We have a lot of Peppermint Gum trees around our house, as well as other natives, and had quite a few palms at one stage. I've cut down almost all the palms and I've been pruning the Peppermint Gums using a plug-in electric chainsaw (Chinese Ryobi copy) and also my Ryobi 18V battery-powered pole pruner.

The pole pruner is one of the most amazing tools I've ever owned. Despite being only an 18V motor and quite a short blade, it happily cuts through branches as thick as the blade is long. It also means I can do most of my tree management with my feet firmly on the ground

While the plug-in chainsaw works well enough, fiddling around with the cord, keeping it out of harms way, especially when up a tree, is a real pain. When it dies, I'll happily replace it with a battery powered unit. I believe an 18V chainsaw, used carefully and with a little patience, will do pretty well anything you might need to do on a suburban block anyway.

Cheers,

[brendon_m]

I have the ryobi 18v chainsaw and polesaw.
I had a good run out of the chainsaw but I did have to return it on warranty once and also it went blunt pretty quickly because it's so small and light I was happy to just shove it in anywhere (like cutting tree roots in dirt etc.)
Also it's not a brushless one and I've pushed it pretty hard so it's got a bit of a stink to it too.
I give the chainsaw saw 3 severed limbs out of 5

I bought the pole saw for pruning some palm trees and I now use it as an unwieldy chainsaw as well. Its been pushed hard and just keeps going, its fibreglass shaft is a bit flexible for my liking when hanging from the top of a ladder balanced on the wheel bin but I feel an aluminium one would be much the same and being able to add in extra poles when needed is great.
I give the pole saw 4.5 severed limbs out of 5.

I currently use a corded ozito mower that I picked up off curbside and it has too smaller deck and dodging the cord is a pain. I'll probably end up with a ryobi 18v mower (when the ozito dies) as well although I hear very mixed reviews.

[rhills]

Our nephew has the Ryobi 36V mower, he loves it!

18V probably OK for very small lawn and lightweight grass!

[HuffnPuff]

I haven’t used petrol powered yard equipment at home for over 5 years. I had a corded mower for a while, then picked up a Ryobi 36v mower second hand. Works well, although it isn’t very powerful so takes 2 cuts in the thickest sections if I’ve left the lawn too long. The 5ah battery is usually enough to do my 350m2 of lawn, except when it’s too long. Can do the lawn area and 250m of edging (36v line trimmer) with a 5ah and 2.6ah battery.

After a while I managed to get hold of a 36v chainsaw second hand. It’s like a real chainsaw unlike the old blue 18v version that ran too slow and was really only a toy. I’ve taken the 36v one to work a couple of times in preference to using their noisy, hard to start petrol model.

I’m also a fan of the 18v pole saw. With a decent sharp chain cuts much more than it has any right to. It does flex s bit at full extension, but is light and virtually noiseless.

[T1 Terry]

I also have one of the 18v Black & Decker pole saws. I bought an extra pole and modified it to add into the existing 2 extension poles ..... the idea was good, but trying to swing the chainsaw on a pole that long and apply pressure so it would cut .... nah, a failed experiment.
The NiMh celled batteries stopped holding charge yrs ago, so I modified a battery to give me an Anderson plug and short cord. Now when I need to use any of a the B&D 18v stuff, I attach a 6 cell Thundersky 90Ah battery built up out of very tired cells. Cuts like a champion, if it wasn't for the short bar length it could be used for nearly any pruning and tree clearing job. I doubt I'll ever be climbing trees again to cut down branches, my knees are too far gone so the stability would be an issue as well as being able to get back down without it being a free fall event

T1 Terry

[brunohill]

I have found that the 12 inch bar on some of those cheap Black & Decker and Ryobi 230 volt AC chain saws actually fit/replace the 6 inch bar on the battery pole saws.

[T1 Terry]

I have found that the 12 inch bar on some of those cheap Black & Decker and Ryobi 230 volt AC chain saws actually fit/replace the 6 inch bar on the battery pole saws.

Interesting, thanks for that tip, a longer bar and chain on the B&D battery chainsaw would be handy. As far as the pole saw, if the branch is too thick to cut with the 6 inch blade I don't fancy standing close enough to cut it with the pole saw anyway

T1 Terry

[brendon_m]

It would give me an extra 6 inches of catchment area when I'm on my tippy toes on the top rung of the ladder swinging the pole saw wildly with one hand trying to reach that last damn palm branch.

[T1 Terry]

It would give me an extra 6 inches of catchment area when I'm on my tippy toes on the top rung of the ladder swinging the pole saw wildly with one hand trying to reach that last damn palm branch.

You need a tennis ball gun with a light tracer line and swivel anchored into it. Launch the tennis ball over the branch, and use the light tracer line to pull a stronger rope up over the branch so you can pull it down with the car, or attached a hand chainsaw so you can work that back and forth till the branch lets go .... or a combination of both. Cut down a lot of a very large gum tree in our front yard that was starting to lean one way and crack the foundation walls of the house. Worked fine until I dropped one across the power lines not a good look on the Sunday of a long weekend I can assure you
Finally paid a kiwi tree lopper and his mate who came around to trim the tree away from the powerlines. They turned up on the Sunday and had the thing down by early afternoon, best $1,000 I've ever spent I reckon

T1 Terry

[rhills]

I do big branches with the pole saw too. Use a trick I learned from the professionals: start out at the end of the branch, lopping off the lighter sub branches first. Then lop off 1-2m lengths of the main branch starting at the outer end. As the branch gets thicker, lop shorter lengths. That way you can better control the fall and there's less risk of damage if something doesn't fall where you want it to