This post may contain affiliate links. This small commission costs you nothing and allows us to write more great power tool reviews for you.
Before Buying a Chainsaw
When you go about buying a chainsaw, it’s important to be careful in the decisions you make. The first consideration should be: What kind do I want? Naturally. this is a question most people new to chainsaws skip. There’s only one sort of chainsaw, after all. Right?
Wrong.
There are several kinds, and it’s important to keep this in mind if you are to end up anywhere in your search for a new chainsaw. Here, we’ll take a look at the most common kinds of chainsaws to minimize the amount of time you’ll spend searching for one.
Types of Chainsaws
Tree Saws
Tree saws, also called tree care saws, are special saws designed and used by people in tree-care professions. This includes landscaping, forest care, and heavier-duty landscape management at the park level. These are special saws for special people; in general, if you’re looking for a chainsaw, you don’t want a tree-care saw, since they’re too specific to be useful to most.
Consumer Saws
“Consumer”, or “recreational”, saws are chainsaws designed to be used by people who really don’t spend that much time with their chainsaws. These are aimed towards people who have relatively little experience, and relatively little intention of gaining a lot of experience. They’re good, powerful, hardy saws, and one can accomplish quite a bit with a regular consumer saw.
Professional Saws
Professional saws are designed to feature maximally developed ergonomics, maximum power, maximum maneuverability, and the like. They are top-of-the-line saws typically purchased by those who spend a lot of time with the chainsaw – on the order of many hours per day – and, as such, are the most comfortable, most reliable saws on the market. They’re not typically good choices for the average person, however, as they typically require experience to care for and are too expensive to be worth the investment if you don’t plan to use it frequently.
All-Round Saws
All-round saws are just what they sound like: Chainsaws that can do it all. These are typically lower-end models of professional saws, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. They’re just pro saws withut the frills only a pro would need, making them great choices for people who plan on doing relatively simple things like woodcutting with relative infrequency.
Other Factors
Bar Size
The right choice for bar size doesn’t really have anything to do with the kind of saw – it depends entirely on application. That said, different bar sizes are more typical of some kinds of saws than others. All-round and consumer saws usually have 14″ to 16″ bar sizes, for instance, and tree-care saws can be as long as 20″ long, depending on the size of the trees under consideration. In general, however, bar size is a choice that a user has to make as a function of application. Let your work guide you on this one.
Size
The size of the saw you buy should be a function of expertise, if you’re new, and one of wood type/size of the trees you plan to cut, if you’re experienced. New users, choose small saws: Old hands, go wild.