New here, buying 1st chainsaw, have some tree questions.

[Lou]

You're welcome Dave.

Don't go away, continue to visit and banter, the chainsaw bug will bite soon enough.

If your friend does'nt have PPE he may not be your best choice albeit least expensive providing all goes well.

 

[Dave88LX]

Thanks Lou. I'm very safety-conscious when it comes to things; I'm "that guy" that still wears sportbike leathers sweating my balls off when it's 90* out; I just don't want to take the chance (come to think of it, so isn't the guy coming to cut them down). Now don't get me wrong, I love risk and active sports etc. (wakeboarding, drag racing, motorcycles, guns etc., hell I used to jump off the roof of my house for fun when I was a kid. :hmm3grin2orange: ), but to just take down 3 trees it's probably not worth the investment for the saw and all the safety gear at this point if I can have someone do it for free (and not hit anything LOL). I do have earmuffs and goggles already (from shooting), but no helmet or chaps.

I still plan to kick around here, I love the amount of knowledge flowing.

We just bought a house, so I have LOTS of questions about lots of things. One of my next which is my "lawn", consisting of a foot-deep layer of sand it seems. Need to figure out after all the purples, pinks, and greens are painted-over in the house, how to get the outside going nice!

 

[16:1mix]

I love risk and active sports etc. (wakeboarding, drag racing, motorcycles, guns etc., hell I used to jump off the roof of my house for fun when I was a kid. :hmm3grin2orange: ), but to just take down 3 trees it's probably not worth the investment for the saw and all the safety gear at this point if I can have someone do it for free (and not hit anything LOL). I do have earmuffs and goggles already (from shooting), but no helmet or chaps.

Welcome Dave,

You will fit right in...motorcycles, racing, risk, guns an itch to get your hands on a chainsaw! Enjoy!

 

[Log Splitter]

Cool, Dave. And be sure to tell your friend about this site. I used to think I knew how to run a saw and fell trees until I found this site. Now I know a lot more, but still don't know half of what most of the 'regulars' here do. Anybody that comes here can learn something, and it's a really friendly place to visit.

 

[gmcman]

Here are my 3 cents!

1. Get an estimate from a reputable company.

2. Get an estimate from another reputable company.

3. Get an estimate from different than above reputable company.

Once you get estimates you are in a better position to make a decision.

How much is it gonna cost for someone to come in and do the job? and how much is a saw with Personal Protective Equipment gonna cost?

Than you need to ask your self, if I buy that saw for $XXX.XX and cut a few trees, how much is it gonna sit in your garage?

Also how good of personal health insurance, do you have, can you afford a trip to the hospital? how about the time off from work while your healing up? All of the PPE in the world still won't guarantee that you will live, or if you do live, that you will live happily! What if the tree kicks back, or bounce's and takes your head off? What's that worth?

For a few trees, it seems to me that it would be better to have someone else do it for you, got any friends that have some chainsaw experience? Cutting down a tree like that would not be my 1st choice for learning on.

Shawn

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I love to go out on weekends...or any day I have time and check out the power tools I want a new saw so bad and after walking around the property I found about 10 trees I need to drop, 5 are beyond dead.....so it will happen soon enough. I have one that is within reach of the house and it is curved so bad looking for daylight there's no way I can leave it be...just an accident waiting to happen. As mechanically inclined as I am and knowing I can drop it with a come-a-long...not using a saw in about 10 years....I just don't want to chance it. It's almost like having the chem-lawn peeps come at night so noone sees em', I think i'm gonna swallow my humble pride and let someone drop it and I will clean it up. I couldn't imagine what I would do, or how I would look after I dropped a tree in my house...let alone explaining it to the LOML.

It really isn't that hard to fell a tree, I could drop them all day long and be safe about it. When it comes to lack of experience and the price of a house....$2-400 or whatever to drop the tree is nothing and great insurance. I watched my dad drop a tree when I was younger and about 1/4 of the way down it got hung up on another tree and the base kinda twisted as it rolled to one side and shot out then fell the rest of the way. Very unexpected and luckily he was experiened enough to either expect it or just able to get out of the way but kinda wicked to watch how gravity can have no mercy. Good luck on whatever you decide on.