Recommendations for chainsaw, budget around £200

[Heltor Chasca]

Wearing chainsaw trousers is hot, sweaty work. Keep hydrated and pace yourself. I find I make mistakes when I am tired and thirsty.

Learn to sharpen a chain every time you use it and if you are using it for prolonged periods. Also learn all the other maintenance aspects. A slap from a snapped chain will empty 8 pints of claret in minutes. A failed brake tends to be somewhere high on the deadly scale. Terrible mess all over your nicely tendered wood pile.

 

[MikeG]

It’s rare, but has happened twice in UK in last ten years. Of course, it relies on some snooping arb assessor to be around when you’re swinging atop a leylandii in your pants, straddling a 66cc saw.
HSE haven’t got the bodies to patrol the industry, and deaths and serious injuries are still not going down.
Be aware that you can also be liable as a homeowner if you get a firm / individual in to do tree work, and they aren’t using appropriate gear.

I'm going to dispute this. Taking the principles from home woodworking (machinery etc), you are under no obligation to worry about your own health and safety at home. The Health and Safety at Work Act deals with the workplace, and an amateur doing stuff for himself can never be work (in terms of the act). Of course, you are obliged to take care of the safety of others, but not yourself. You don't have to wear PPE, nor have compliant machinery (braked table saws, for instance, proper guarding, dust extraction to whatever European standard), but all that changes the moment you employ anyone. This also, in my understanding, applies to using gardening equipment and chainsaws. You could chop down a tree in your back garden stark naked for all the HSE are concerned.......SO LONG AS YOU ARE TAKING OTHER PEOPLE'S HEALTH AND SAFETY SERIOUSLY.

Oh, and a petrol Stihl is the answer to the OP's question. Don't even think about a battery powered one. I've used both, and didn't hesitate for a second in buying the petrol one.

 

[Profpointy]

It’s rare, but has happened twice in UK in last ten years. Of course, it relies on some snooping arb assessor to be around when you’re swinging atop a leylandii in your pants, straddling a 66cc saw.
HSE haven’t got the bodies to patrol the industry, and deaths and serious injuries are still not going down.
Be aware that you can also be liable as a homeowner if you get a firm / individual in to do tree work, and they aren’t using appropriate gear.

Actually I do half remember something on those lines. They'd somehow managed to stretch the law to encompass what he was doing - maybe passers by could have been at risk or something like that. It was a bit of a trumped up charge but it stuck. To be honest I only half remember the story, but there were some hoops they'd had to go through in order to somehow contrive that the householder came under their juristiction.

By way of contrast, HSE is very interested in how Dive Shops do dive training. Club dive training is outside their remit - although there's still "duty of care" and tort liability and all that, the instructors are not "at work" so not an HSE thing.

 

[Tin Pot]

They hand out chainsaws for £70 at Tesco, there are no regulations or requirements, they don’t make you produce a license or promise to use it safely.

It’s just another power tool.

 

[graham bowers]

I'm going to dispute this. Taking the principles from home woodworking (machinery etc), you are under no obligation to worry about your own health and safety at home. Of course, you are obliged to take care of the safety of others, but not yourself. You don't have to wear PPE, nor have compliant machinery (braked table saws, for instance, proper guarding, dust extraction to whatever European standard), but all that changes the moment you employ anyone. This also, in my understanding, applies to using gardening equipment and chainsaws. You could chop down a tree in your back garden stark naked for all the HSE are concerned.......SO LONG AS YOU ARE TAKING OTHER PEOPLE'S HEALTH AND SAFETY SERIOUSLY.
<snip>
.

It is the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC that concerns its self with the safety of machinery, and it applies just as much to a machine you may make yourself and use at home. Clause 1 of Article 4 says that the directive applies to machinery that is placed on the market and / or put in to service. It's the "and / or put in to service" that causes the provisions of the directive to apply to non-work and domestic situations. So if you have machinery, you must have compliant machinery that is CE marked.

As regards using compliant machinery recklessly in non-work situations it would seem intuitive the HSE would not be interested, but I am not so sure. In my time when I was being paid to manage machinery safety, a respected colleague did mention the potential for HSE involvement in domestic safety situations, but I don't think I ever knew the detail, so can't make references as in my first paragraph. But if I were a betting man making a seat of the pants choice based on partial information, I'd be betting on @woodenspoons being accurate.

 

[srw]

They hand out chainsaws for £70 at Tesco, there are no regulations or requirements, they don’t make you produce a license or promise to use it safely.

It’s just another power tool.

You might want a word with the HSE. Clearly you're right and they're wrong.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/treework/areyou/chainsaw-operator.htm

There are legal obligations on workers with chainsaws. If the OP (or anyone else) is purely cutting his own wood in a small scale way they're probably OK. But as soon as anyone does anything for anyone else, or in a place where there is public access, or on anything bigger than a back garden plot, I rather suspect they're covered by the law.

Like driving a car, "I'm only putting myself at risk" doesn't really wash when you're dealing with an untethered powered cutting tool, or with very large lumps of free-falling heavy material.

 

[Profpointy]

You might want a word with the HSE. Clearly you're right and they're wrong.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/treework/areyou/chainsaw-operator.htm

There are legal obligations on workers with chainsaws. If the OP (or anyone else) is purely cutting his own wood in a small scale way they're probably OK. But as soon as anyone does anything for anyone else, or in a place where there is public access, or on anything bigger than a back garden plot, I rather suspect they're covered by the law.

Like driving a car, "I'm only putting myself at risk" doesn't really wash when you're dealing with an untethered powered cutting tool, or with very large lumps of free-falling heavy material.

In the linky you put in the words "at work" appear a lot. Different situation.

 

[graham bowers]

In the linky you put in the words "at work" appear a lot. Different situation.

I'm in a volunteer group that uses chainsaws and we made the decision to adopt the requirements of using them at work due to the catastrophic injuries they have the potential to inflict. Whilst it's interesting to discuss the potential applicability of the regulations to non work situations, it is my strong opinion that to take short cuts with chainsaws is very ill advised.

 

[srw]

In the linky you put in the words "at work" appear a lot. Different situation.

"Work" doesn't just cover paid employment. Which is why I was quite careful to distinguish between the OP's direct request (not work) and other situations that have been covered in the thread or the OP might be thinking about (quite possibly work).

 

[MikeG]

It is the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC that concerns its self with the safety of machinery, and it applies just as much to a machine you may make yourself and use at home. Clause 1 of Article 4 says that the directive applies to machinery that is placed on the market and / or put in to service. It's the "and / or put in to service" that causes the provisions of the directive to apply to non-work and domestic situations. So if you have machinery, you must have compliant machinery that is CE marked.

As regards using compliant machinery recklessly in non-work situations it would seem intuitive the HSE would not be interested, but I am not so sure. In my time when I was being paid to manage machinery safety, a respected colleague did mention the potential for HSE involvement in domestic safety situations, but I don't think I ever knew the detail, so can't make references as in my first paragraph. But if I were a betting man making a seat of the pants choice based on partial information, I'd be betting on @woodenspoons being accurate.

I've posted this on a couple of woodworking forums. I'll come back to you with the responses later. I have to tell you that there are tens of thousands of wonderful old cast iron machines in common service around the country, highly sought after and snapped up whenever they come up for sale, which were built before the EU existed, and before British Standards were a thing. Dealers trade in them. Specialists re-build them. If this directive really applied to home woodworking there would be no such market.

 

[Profpointy]

I've posted this on a couple of woodworking forums. I'll come back to you with the responses later. I have to tell you that there are tens of thousands of wonderful old cast iron machines in common service around the country, highly sought after and snapped up whenever they come up for sale, which were built before the EU existed, and before British Standards were a thing. Dealers trade in them. Specialists re-build them. If this directive really applied to home woodworking there would be no such market.

It might technically apply, but the HSE are far too busy with dodgy factories to randomly snoop on people's sheds

 

[srw]

snoop

Or as the rest of us call it "carry out their statutory duty to ensure that workplaces are safe for workers and the public".

 

[srw]

Oh, and there's quite a difference between tethered woodworking equipment and chainsaws, which are intended to be used untethered. I think if I had more firewood to cut than I could comfortably manage with a £10 bow saw I'd look at a circular saw rigidly fixed to a sturdy frame.

Or else pay someone to do it professionally for me.

 

[Profpointy]

I'm in a volunteer group that uses chainsaws and we made the decision to adopt the requirements of using them at work due to the catastrophic injuries they have the potential to inflict. Whilst it's interesting to discuss the potential applicability of the regulations to non work situations, it is my strong opinion that to take short cuts with chainsaws is very ill advised.

In a quasi work situation with volunteers, I'd definitely do the same. Even if it's a grey area on whether it's work or not, if a volunteer chops his leg off, there's going to be a lot of explaining to do if everything hadn't been done tickety-boo - quite apart from not wanting anyone to maim themselves. With something as manifestly lethal as a chainsaw, I'd be ultra cautious anyway. I'm a pretty paranoid sort of chap with dangerous machinery and think about things like "where's the blade going to go if that kicks back" and so on. Not everyone thinks like that and some really lack any foresight or imagination. I'd consider myself sensible, but I'd not trust everyone to do the same. Hey, some folks I'd not trust with an ice-cream. Even though I'm logical on these things, there are a lot of dangers that are less obvious unless pointed out - eg a fallen tree can spring back when cut because of all the tension in it. Obvious when pointed out, but I'd not previously thought of it, and could easily have been caught out.

Caveat, I've only used a chainsaw about twice, so all the above is theoretical not advice !

 

[Profpointy]

Or as the rest of us call it "carry out their statutory duty to ensure that workplaces are safe for workers and the public".

Taken a bit out of context....