This guide can’t (and shouldn’t) explain how to use a chainsaw. If you don’t know, then you have to get training of some sort. You need to be quite strong to start a chainsaw, as it involves a recoil starter (you pull a cord out and it recoils back in).

Looking after your chainsaw

You have to make sure you know how to sharpen the chain, but this will be covered during your training. Then you have to get a file guide and the correct size of round file, matched to the pitch and cutter size of the chain. Your chainsaw has to be very sharp, otherwise you’re wasting your own energy, and fuel – which means that you’ll be polluting more than necessary if your chain isn’t sharp. A chainsaw should go right through cordwood like a knife through butter. When it stops doing that, sharpen it. If you’re chainsawing all day, you might do it six times. You can do it in about ten minutes when you get good at it.

Other regular tasks include cleaning the filters, making sure the saw runs well with the right fuel:oil mix, checking that the fuel and oil caps aren’t leaking, that the air cooling system isn’t blocked up with sawdust or resin, that the chain is being oiled properly and that all safety features are intact and working. All this will be covered in training.