Portable Electric Chainsaw
In the winter we burn firewood to heat our house. A wetback transfers some of that heat to our water system.
As we only have a small area of land with no mature trees suitable for firewood we are forced to scavenge further afield. So far we have been fortunate that neighbors and family friends have been chopping down large pine trees, leaving plenty of small branches and pine cones for us to pickup.
There are lots of areas locally (such as riverbeds) where there is abundant wood going to waste. It is my intention to collect more of this over time.In order to do so I required a chainsaw, which is handy round the property for pruning and clearing anyway.
I hate regular petrol chainsaws because they are noisy, smelly, heavy and generally because they have an engine. I hate engines. Because of this I looked at alternatives and decided to set up an electric system. Here's what I have have:
1800 watt Makita electric saw ($280)
This is a great tool and seems to get through tough knotty pine and even hard kanuka.
3000 watt inverter ($395)
The inverter allows for the operation of the saw from a 12 volt DC system by converting power from the car electric system into 240 volt AC as required by the saw. An added benefit is that this modal works in reverse as a battery charger. That is I can plug it into the mains and charge a 12 volt battery such as used in the car or in my electric lawnmower.
I have tested this out, simply pruning out of control bushes, and it works well. My intention is to use this at sites where there is wood to cut lengths suitable to pile on a trailer and bring home for further slicing (under mains power) into suitable firewood lengths.