Cutting up trees for heat has been around since the dawn of civilization. While the process has changed drastically over the years, in the modern era, chainsaws are used to harvest firewood, including mine.
I’ve been helping cut firewood for myself or others since I was a child, and when I was old enough for my own chainsaw, it was like everyone else’s around me — gas-powered. But after years of maintaining and dealing with common small engine struggles, my wife gave me an electric chainsaw as a gift. After some initial skepticism, I’m now firmly converted. Let me tell you why.
1. Safety
Battery-powered chainsaws offer much quieter operation and improved safety features over gas models.
Cutting firewood can be very dangerous, regardless of the saw you are using. From dealing with falling trees to tripping hazards, with 36,000 chainsaw-related injuries each year, any edge you can get to make the process safer is vital. Battery-powered chainsaws offer a safer alternative to gas-powered saws in a couple of key areas.
First, and perhaps my favorite part of using an electric chainsaw, is that the saw stops almost immediately when I let off the throttle. A traditional chainsaw’s chain will often continue to rotate, sometimes very slowly and, at other times, a bit faster. This is typically due to a poorly tuned saw that needs the idle adjusted so high to keep the tool from sputtering out and dying.
Electric chainsaws are cleaner to use than gas models, but still get dirty due to the still necessary bar oil.
Secondly, you aren’t dealing with combustible materials. While chainsaw fires are rare, there is always an added risk of fires when gasoline is present. Not to mention the mess of spilling when filling up the fuel tank and ensuring you have the proper oil-to-fuel ratio for the two-stroke motor.
In addition to these safety benefits, battery-powered chainsaws also come with all the other safety features found in their gas-powered counterparts, like chain brakes, dual triggers and more. The fantastic Husqvarna Power Axe 350i I’ve been using also has a button for boost mode, which increases power by 25%.
While this may not be considered a safety feature, when cutting through a knot in a tree, saws will often try to bind up and kick back at you. A power boost as you hit this spot can help the saw cut through and reduce the chance of catching and coming back at you.
2. Serenity
The quiet operation of electric chainsaws compared to gas models is a very welcome improvement.
I could put this in the safety section, but it’s important enough to me that it deserves its own section. As mentioned above, when you let off the throttle of a battery-powered chainsaw, the chain comes to a complete stop almost immediately. While that is great for avoiding accidentally hurting yourself or someone else, for these saws, it also means no sound.
Because electric chainsaws are on-demand devices that only need power when driving the chain, they are completely silent until it is time to cut. That silence helps focus on the task and makes communicating with others on the worksite much better.
These saws are also much quieter when operating. The Husqvarna Power Axe 350i is quiet when cutting, but I have a Greenworks 40V saw, and it’s even quieter. Since an engine isn’t firing up and running at high RPMs, all you hear from a battery-powered saw is a slight whine of the motor, the chain going around the bar and wood getting cut.
3. Less maintenance
Battery chainsaws use the same chains and bars as a gas-powered model.
One of my long-standing pet peeves is small engines. It’s always a battle when I need to start up a gas-powered lawn mower, chain saw, leaf blower, string trimmer or anything of that nature. Then, should it start, it’s a game of tuning it to keep it going. That is not the case with battery-powered tools.
The only maintenance needed for these saws is the unavoidable ones that carry over from traditional chainsaws: sharpening the chain and keeping the bar oil full. Since these saws use the same chains found on gas-powered chainsaws, the sharpening process and getting replacements are all the same. The same goes for the bar oil that’s used.
But you don’t have to mess with spark plugs, air filters, fuel, carburetors, etc. So long as your chain is sharp, you have bar oil and a charged battery; your saw is ready to go whenever you need to cut.
Chain adjustment for battery-powered saws work just as it does for traditional chainsaws.
The biggest downside of battery-powered chainsaws is the battery. While the Husqvarna Power Axe 350i lasts much longer than the Greenworks saw, I cut three full trees with the 350i to the one with the Greenworks model and have cut anything I’ve needed it to. There is still a limited amount of time before the battery needs to be recharged. This isn’t an issue in most situations where you’re just cutting up a single tree or something. But if you go out for a full day of logging, you’ll want a second battery to keep the work going.
I have been thoroughly impressed by the Husqvarna Power Axe 350i when cutting firewood. When I first used it, I quickly put to rest my reservations about whether it would be powerful enough to cut through green wood to a cured hard oak. The battery lasted through three trees before it was time to put it on the charger, but that was plenty of time for me to rest and split the logs while it recharged.
As for cost, pricing is often similar between gas and electric. The cost of the Husqvarna Power Axe 350i is $480 MSRP, and the gas model, the Husqvarna 440, is $379. On top of the cost of the saw, you’ll also have to consider you’ll be buying gas and two-stroke oil for it as long as you use the chainsaw. While you won’t have that ongoing cost for the electric model, if you want a second battery, you’re looking at nearly the price of the saw and battery combo.
