Ego Chainsaw and Hedge Trimmer Review

This is episode number 360 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We are so glad that you could join us for another live episode here in The Homeowner Show studios. How you doing, Kev?

I'm pretty good. It's, uh, man, like football season's back. I feel like life's getting back to like, it's great. Football's back. Baseball's kind of in its, you know, push towards the postseason. Mm-hmm. Which is always exciting for me. Yes. Um, I, I, anyway, sports and all the stuff.

I imagine you were a confused individual this weekend.

What?

Why? Well, because your actual alma mater was playing the school that you never went to, but you were actually a fan of.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So Tech played, uh, Abilene Christian. Yeah. I went to Abilene Christian. Christian.

Um, yeah, I mean, I would also like to, to like just point out for posterity, OK, at this point in time, my school is officially better than your school.

Based on? The, the, the score differential. Oh, the score. Yeah, yeah, the rankings. Yeah, OK. Yeah, yeah, we'll see what happens. I mean, the, uh, the, uh, I'll say like It felt like every big school just got— just was awful last week, weekend. They, they went, they ran, they ran away with the score like they should for the most part. Yes. We need to talk about that actually. Um, but at the same time, like they struggled.

Nobody looked great.

Nobody looked great. It's week 1.

So here, here was the big difference for me between this weekend and, and last year.

Okay.

Last year I did not watch the opening game mostly because I knew that my team was playing Notre Dame and I was like, I was under the impression, I was like, oh, this is gonna be awful. Oh yeah. My blood pressure's gonna be through the roof. I'm not gonna watch the game. And then they ended up winning it and that ended up like pushing them towards, what was it, an 11-win season or something like that?

Yeah.

So like it was a great season last season, but I didn't watch the first game on purpose. Right. Because it just stressed me out too much. Right. This season I'm like, Missouri State, the Bears.

Meh. Yeah. Right.

And then the first half I'm like, what the hell?

Yeah. Yeah.

They, they weren't bad, but they didn't look good. They didn't look good. Right.

Second half, they looked good.

pretty good.

Yeah.

Um, they got their, they got their stuff together.

Yeah.

And I, I think that's kind of the, just the way it goes.

No, I know. I mean, especially in the beginning, I think that there is like, here's what I, I think there's something very legitimate about, uh, whether it's, whether it's an actual rivalry or just an opponent that you don't want, like that you hate, right? You know, whether it's like a, like a, a legit like A&M versus Texas type thing, or if it's just in conference, I think there's, there's a general hype about we gotta pound them.

Yeah.

You know, like, like yesterday Tech played ACU and they didn't look great. No.

And what conference is ACU in now?

They're in the WAC.

The WAC Conference. Okay.

And so, so it's an FCS instead of FBS is what they're in. But Like, I was reading people going, ah, it's ACU. And I'm like, here's the thing, like, Tech and ACU actually have a pretty good relationship with each other. In fact, a lot of—

They're pretty close to each other.

Yeah. And a lot of players from that play on ACU were like taken by Tech to begin with and they played for Tech. And so I think there's like almost like a, we don't hate you. type of thing. Like when they play, I don't know, like, I don't know, Oklahoma State for example, like they're probably gonna be like, you're in conference, I want to pound you, right? You know, I think there really is something about that, that like, I don't know, that competition that's like the first week is kind of like, uh, we're gonna beat you.

Which my poor parents, by the way.

Well, hey, look, I actually think OSU is going to be decent this year in comparison to last year. They, they have upped their Ability to win by quite a bit.

I like that they got a new coach. Yeah, but they got whooped on by Tulsa. Well, they but yeah, there's just no ending around it. I mean, like you're in the Big Twelve, you got whooped on by Tulsa. Yeah, like you there's there's no excuse. Yeah, like you should have whooped them right and they didn't.

Well, and that's the that's the game that look which by the way got fired from last year. You remember that?

Yes. Yeah. Yes. If you're listening, you're like, I'm here for the homeowner tips. And it's like, well, yeah, but it's football season. Like, look at my hat. Like, I'm sorry, we're going to talk a little bit about football.

Yeah. Well, if we're going to talk about football, we got to talk about the Michigan—

We absolutely have to talk about the Michigan thing because that was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my life. And like, I can't tell you the number of videos that I've seen. Like, what the hell is going on when the ball is in midair and it hits zero and we're putting 3 seconds back on the clock?

It was one.

One second. One second. It doesn't matter how many seconds.

Doesn't matter.

So if you don't know, you put half a second back on the clock, right?

Like, if you don't know, Western Michigan was beating Michigan the majority of the game, which is insane. It's insane. Absolutely. Because, you know, Michigan's rated 16th. Like, they're decent, right? Pretty good. And they're playing at the Big House.

Well, in Michigan.

Michigan at home.

Yeah. Like, look, it's Michigan.

It's Michigan, yeah.

They're always gonna have like some noise behind them. Like, are they gonna do something? Like, is the ghost of Jim Harbaugh still lingering in the locker room?

It is.

All that stuff. Yeah, he is. But like, Michigan is an institution, sort of like Notre Dame's an institution, sort of like Alabama's an institution. Like, they're just gonna make some noise every year because they're Michigan.

Because they're Michigan, yeah. Yes.

No doubt. This know-nothing team is whooping them.

They are.

At the end of the game with no chance to win. And the officials just give them like, oh, you know what? That didn't go so well last time. Let's give them another chance. Yeah. So, so, but like, I want everybody to know, 'cause you're gonna weigh in.

Yeah.

You used to ref D1 ball.

D2.

D2 ball. Yeah. You never, I thought you did some D1 stuff. I didn't.

Well, no, I, I, I did some scrimmages, but I—

OK.

But I did do D2.

I thought Arkansas State was D1.

Well, they are, but I didn't ref for Arkansas State. I reffed in the Great American Conference. OK. And, uh, that's like, you know, there's a lot of, you know, Ouachita Baptist and, uh, Southern Arkansas University, Harding. Sure. Like, all of the schools in Arkansas except for The, the big one, the 2 big ones, and then Oklahoma.

Well, and you reffed in Texas as well, right?

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

So I reffed for 21 years.

You're not an idiot when it comes to the rules.

By no means.

And how things like—

By no means.

If anything that I've learned about you over the years is you're a stickler for the rules.

Yeah, that's true.

That's true. So like, you know the rules.

I do.

So tell me, like, explain it to me. Like, what the hell happened?

Yeah. So, um, The— so at the end of the game, or towards the end of the game, with 35 seconds left on the clock, Western Michigan kicks a field goal to go up by 5.

Oh.

So they're winning by 5, which means Michigan can't just kick a field goal and tie it even. Like, they, they have to score a touchdown. So they get to about the 50-yard line with 9 seconds left. They throw a Hail Mary and Time expires, right?

Before, before he touches the ball.

Before he, before he touches the ball. Now let's talk about that for just a minute. So if you're curious how the rule of when is the ball dead, when does the clock stop, I'll tell you basically what the rule is. So let, let's say that you're a quarterback, you're trying to preserve time, you throw the ball out of bounds. The ball hitting something out of bounds causes the clock to stop, not crossing the out-of-bounds line. Okay, so like if you throw it up into the stands and it has to travel an additional 20 yards to get from the out-of-bounds line to the stands, and that takes another second or 2, that's when the clock stops, right? Not when it crosses—

Not when it crosses the out-of-bounds line. Okay, totally understand.

So the same is true for the end line, which is an out-of-bounds line. It, it has to touch something before it's dead. Okay, so in the scenario, they— the, the quarterback from Michigan throws the ball out of the end zone, past the end line, so nobody could have caught it in bounds because of where he threw it. He threw it too far. But the clock stops once it touches something out of bounds. Okay, so the guy's jumping— that the, the guy that touches the ball, which is a defender, so it's a Western Michigan guy, jumps from out of bounds, from beyond the end line, and is trying to touch the ball. And they have the clock synced to the game clock, which, by the way, just so you know, I don't know

if you know this, all the clocks around the stadium and on TV, they're all synced with like a laser, right, before the game starts.

Sure.

So theoretically, all the clocks are, are aligned. They have the game clock set on the screen. It hits zero before the guy ever touches the ball. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

That's what everybody sees. That's, that's It's the game's over, like completely over. I mean, there's no way. So they go to review and you see all this unfolding and everybody's like, no, the game's over. And I will tell you from my experience, the game's over.

Mm-hmm.

And, and oh, by the way, like there, there is a little bit of a responsibility, not a little bit, there's a lot of responsibility for the officials not to change the outcome of a game. For sure. Like, you, you as an official should never change the outcome of a game. You should be there to control the game, but not to affect the game, if that makes sense.

That makes sense.

Yeah. So they come back and they say, after further review, it was determined that there is 1 second left on the clock when the ball was touched. So there's 1 second left on the clock We'll play another down. They play another down, they throw another Hail Mary. And they get it. And they catch it.

That's the, that's the part that's like, ugh.

And they win the game.

You're doing exactly what you said they shouldn't be doing, which is affecting the outcome of the game.

Affecting the outcome of the game.

Yeah.

So here's the thing. They, they actually came out like with the Big Ten came out with a statement. Um, and And here's what I'm going to read it because I think it's, I think it's worth reading. It says, following video review, it was determined Western Michigan's number 18 started his jump from an established out-of-bounds position with his left foot and made contact with the ball 1 second remaining on the clock. As shown in the provided video, which they're—

this—

they had a video of what was viewed during the replay process, a side-by-side view of the play and the game clock using a direct shot of the game clock in the stadium was used to determine the final ruling. So I— so then it lists the actual rule about that it has to touch someone out of bounds before the clock stops. They list the rule. But dude, I'm telling you, you go look it up. Anybody— there are still shots all over the internet.

Oh yeah. Of The guy, the ball in the air with it hitting zero. Yes.

With the— there's clear separation of air between the ball. And so this was just a— this was a farce, man. Like, I'm just— I don't know how they can actually, with good conscience, put the statement out like that. Like, the integrity— like, look, the integrity of Texas Tech has been brought into question quite a bit over the last year with the whole Brendan Sorsby thing. But when it comes to Michigan, it's like, eh, integrity out the window.

Well, and we've got the, we've got the whole thing going on with LSU too.

Oh yeah. Where like, oh yeah.

I don't even think I fully understand what's going on.

I don't either. I don't either.

Like these professional players that didn't get picked up.

That's the problem.

That they're bringing in to play for LSU.

Yeah, that's, that's the problem.

Is that what it is?

Well, it's not. So yes, there are players that—

Yes.

That went in.

Yes, they're cheating.

Yeah. So, but it's not just LSU. That's the, that's the ridiculous part.

Well, I think that's fair. I think that's fair. It's like, it's like not just, if it's not just LSU, then we need to have bigger conversation.

They're the scapegoats because they're, they're the team to beat, right? Like that. And, and it's Lane Kiffin. Everybody loves to hate Lane.

I do.

So yeah, so what's happened is these players were going out that like they declared and were drafted and they went to the NFL, but they got cut, right? So now they're going, what am I going to do? And they're going, well, I still got eligibility left on my on my college playing days.

I'll come back.

I'll come back and play college. It's like, no, you've— that ship has sailed. Like, you have decided, I'm going to stay on land while the ship goes back out to sea. Right. And you can't just get back on the ship. And that's basically right now we're in this weird limbo where they're going, it's a gray area. And so since there's been no, like, official ruling, Then they're like, well, I guess they can play.

Yeah, but like didn't he like pull all of them off of the play roster for? He did this past Saturday. He did because they got sued and he didn't want to taint the season until they'd made an official decision. Yes, right.

Yes. Okay.

So which I'm I think he did the right thing. Which I mean like like and they still like like whooped them, right?

Like yeah, they just killed Clemson.

Which I think Paul Feinbaum was like, look. Dabo.

Yeah, it's time. Yeah, just move on. Which I, which I hate for him because I like—

I love Dabo.

I do too. He's awesome. Yeah, but man, like, poor guy, he can't figure it out right now. Yeah, at Clemson at least.

So, well, I think, I think, I think he's sort of hamstrung.

Yeah, I mean, maybe.

I really— I mean, like, like, if you're— I think when they changed everything with the NIL. Yeah, I think that changed everything for him. And I think he's still operating on like he's still trying to play football like Nick Saban. Oh yeah, you know, for sure. Because you and I have talked about this. If Nick Saban was playing NIL ball, like, he couldn't compete because he doesn't understand how the system works.

And he doesn't want to understand.

He doesn't want to understand it.

That's, that's the whole Gundy problem too.

Yes.

Like, I'm pretty sure that the reason Gundy got fired is because he was like, you know what, I'm not gonna do that, right? And he didn't want to.

And he like—

and it's fair. If you don't want to do it, do what Nick Saban did. Just Get out.

Get out. You know, he saw the writing on the wall.

He did.

Yeah.

He didn't.

Okay, so let's, let's do this because I know we got— we want to talk about the, the, the chainsaw and the, the, the hedge trimmer. The hedge trimmer.

Yeah.

So let's, let's do this. What, what are your predictions? Who are, who are your top 3 for national championship this year after watching this weekend?

Oh goodness.

Because I have, I have 3 in my mind and none of them are my school, by the way.

Okay. No, that's— yeah, that's, that's fair. My 3— oh my goodness. I don't even know, dude. Like, it's so early.

Of course.

I definitely—

fun.

I definitely think that— I definitely think that LSU is going to be in the conversation. I will say that some of the, some of the people—

So LSU?

Yeah, LSU. I think some of the teams that historically have been like, oh, really good. Like, Georgia didn't look good. They, they looked pretty bad. Um, I think that Ohio State's gonna be, gonna be up there. And, um, man, I don't know. Like, I, I'll say this, like, I don't want to just be a homer, but I will tell you that Tech's stacked.

Mm-hmm.

They're stacked. Like, they're deep. That's the, that's the thing. 'Cause as the, as the season winds on, Like it, people get hurt and things start, like you start getting to your second and third string and it's like, oh man, you're, you're really thin. That's, man, Tech is really deep. So I don't know. I, I don't wanna be a homer, but I think that they're gonna, they're gonna surprise people even though Sorsby left. But I don't know that I'd put them at number 3 right now.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, that's pretty high. I, that's, that's, that's lofty. Um, my number, I don't know who my number 3 would be.

Okay.

Who are your 3?

So like, just speaking of Tech, I think the booger for them after watching this weekend is gonna be Baylor.

Dude, Baylor looked really good.

They looked really good.

Yeah. But, uh, yeah.

And, and like, if, if, because it's later in the season.

Yeah.

If the, look, man, if that quarterback's healthy. Good luck.

Yeah, he's good. I mean, even though they— even though Baylor lost—

like, way—

like, yeah, like, even though— even though he's good—

even though Baylor lost, they looked good.

They did.

And they competed with Auburn. And like, people— I think a lot of people would look at that and go like, well, Auburn hasn't been that great compared to what?

Yeah, yeah.

Like, because Auburn's haven't— like, and like, this will make sense when I make my, my other predictions. Like, Auburn, like, is good. They have a lot of studs.

Yeah.

And Baylor competed with those studs. And so like, I think, I think people like BYU and Tech ought to be paying attention to Baylor, who I think has been viewed as a joke for the last couple of years.

Well, they have been a joke the last couple of years.

They have. Yeah. But like, I think you get DJ Lagway, but it also looks like they spent some money and went and got some people.

They did.

And that they can, because like, you can say what you want about Auburn's offense. Like they've, they've been struggling with the quarterback. the last couple of years, but like their defense has always been stout.

Yeah. And, and year to year, man, like year to year changes everything in college.

For sure.

Especially with the NIL. Like every year is different. So I think you almost have to go, yeah, well, they've not been good in the past, but this is a new day.

Yeah.

It just is. It is.

So here's, here's, here's my 3 picks. Okay. Because it's, it's really easy. I think, I think Indiana.

Okay. Yeah.

I think Ohio State. Mm-hmm. And I think Miami.

Okay.

Those are my 3. And like none of 'em are SEC. And I think because I think the SEC has become its own worst enemy.

You're not wrong. I, I will say Miami looks really good.

They look really freaking good. They look good.

Really good. They're big.

Yes.

They look really good.

And, and like the, the Cristobal's back.

Yeah.

He's a good coach.

Yep.

Like the same coaches at Indiana, the same coaches at Ohio State.

Yeah.

Those guys all competed. They didn't lose that many people.

Right.

They're not having to go through the same gauntlet. Yeah, I think in the end, which I mean, like, I think you could probably make the same argument for Tech.

Sure.

But I just think it's— I don't think it's at the level in the Big 12 as it is in the other.

Here's—

it's not to knock them.

No, no, no. The biggest concern I've got with Tech is that they're going to have a pussycat schedule.

Yes. And then until they get to the playoffs, they're going to get knocked in the mouth. I think that's what to do.

I think that's going to be the problem.

Which I honestly think that was my school's problem last year. Even though at the beginning of the season, it was like, holy hell, look at this schedule. Because they're playing all these SEC teams. All those SEC teams that they played didn't end up being that great.

Yeah, they were loose.

And I'm looking at it this year going, am I doing the same thing that I did last year where it's like, I'm scared of all these SEC teams and you know what I mean?

Yeah, I do.

Because like right now, Like, one, we're having to go back to fricking Baton Rouge again.

Oh yeah.

Again.

Again. Yep.

We're having to go to Alabama.

Yeah.

We're having to go to Norman.

Yeah. Those are tough places to play.

Yes.

Yeah.

And it's like, okay, am I, am I overemphasizing their school's ability?

Yeah.

Am I over— like, because I don't know what they look like this season just yet.

All right.

I don't know.

Yeah. I don't know either.

But I can't, I can't in good faith pick an SEC school because I think the SEC is just gonna beat the crap out of each other.

They will.

To where when you get to the postseason, you're not healthy enough to even compete with some of these guys.

Yeah, I think that's the— your, your point there at the end, I think is the biggest thing is health. Health, health is huge. Like once you get to the end of the season, I mean, goodness, we like Tech. Tech had some pretty big injuries last year with some guys that were unbelievable. That, that caused some problems toward the end. But it's— this happens with every team. You're gonna have injuries.

Yeah.

And so, no, I, I've— I don't know, man. I, I love college football for what it is. I will tell you, it's so— it's, it's hard to love it like I used to because of the NIL and because it's basically like farm league.

Uh, yeah, no, it is.

NFL ball these days. Um, so it's just different. It's hard. It's the, the thing that's— we talked about this last year.

Even the commentators are confused still.

Oh, they are.

They're like, oh, this kid came over from here and he spent 3— these, like, you know, he's reading all their stats from when they played 2 years over at this school.

Right. No, it's, it's— you— it's really difficult because it's hard to have that. You have to have team loyalty because beyond that, it's like, I don't know these kids. Yeah, they're different every year.

Yep.

You know, and that's That's a tough place.

So, I mean, like, but like, hear me, hear me, people. I'm rooting for the Ags. Yeah, of course. Like, I'm in the tank.

Of course.

Like, I'm gonna be like, my blood pressure is gonna be high on Saturday.

Yeah.

I just, I don't see an SEC team getting to the big game.

Yeah.

But like, if they do, like, who's gonna be their biggest champion shouter?

Well, sure.

Me. Sure.

You know, especially you want your, you want your conference to win.

Well, look, if it makes you miserable, that's a good point. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I don't know. It's gonna be a fun season. We'll see what happens.

Yeah.

So, uh, I do want, before we get into the ego stuff, I do wanna remind everyone we have a new website.

Yep.

And the website is getting better and better. Like we keep adding stuff to it to make it better and better and better. Um, but right now, like our site is got our show live.

It's live.

It's live on our homepage. So, uh, if you're ever wondering where can I find the Homeowner Show live, go to the homepage.

Just go to the website.

And Yeah, you can find it right there. The other thing is, since we started, we'd tell you, hey, go to, go to this place or that place to leave us a review. We've made it super simple. Now all you got to do to leave us a review, which let me tell you guys, like, helps us tremendously, more so than I can possibly tell you. If you would take a moment, just a moment, go to our website, click on reviews, and you can easily leave us a review right there. It's very, very simple. We've made it as easy as we possibly can. Go to our— go to homeownershow/reviews and you'll be able to leave us a review. So, uh, do that for us. It'd be

really, really great. And, um, yeah, go check out the website. It's awesome. So anything else you want to mention about that? Oh, sign up for the newsletter.

Yeah, the newsletter.

The newsletter would be great because like—

You don't want to miss an episode. And so the best way to not ever miss an episode, just go to the website, sign up for the newsletter. You'll never miss it. You'll, you'll get the, the fun thumbnail. You'll get a little article. you know, everything that's happening with the Homeowner Show. You can get a link to buy a t-shirt.

That's right. And if you ever, like, if we ever do live events or anything, we'll push that out through the newsletter, that kind of thing. So for sure. So anyway, just a great place to get. It's at the bottom of the homepage. Just sign up. Be really awesome.

Yeah. So, so tell us about this, this infamous weed whacker and chainsaw. Well, like I said, there's a backstory.

You, you, well, yeah. So we had a, We had a massive tree that one of the main forks of the tree like broke off. And it wasn't—

Which is not uncommon, by the way.

It isn't. It isn't. It's—

but it's just, it's— I think it's something good for people to understand. When you have older trees and you have a lot of stressful weather, which for us was a lack of rain, which probably dried out your tree a little bit, allowed the trunk. And so like when wind came through, It split it. Yeah.

And I, I don't know that this was a direct result of just wind, but over time, it probably started wearing it down. And, I mean, a major fork of this thing. I mean, we probably had that— the trunk was probably, I mean, probably 18 inches or so.

That's crazy.

It's huge. And it thankfully fell down our, our property line. So it didn't really impede, like, it didn't hit the neighbor's house, which I was really thankful for.

Didn't hit our house.

I was really thankful for it.

No lawsuits for it.

Right. I didn't have to get a chainsaw just to get off the driveway, any of that. Like, it was, it was as good of a scenario as it could have been. But it was on all of the brush that like separates our property from the next, from our neighbor. And so it was like, okay, it's, it's not in a really great place. If I were to hire someone to come out and, and do this, I don't even know how much it would cost because it's, it's a, it's a big job and it's not as easy as just like, oh, let's fell this tree and let's you know, cut it up. It's getting— it's gonna be more

involved than that. Like, there were— as I was cutting this up, we— I would, I would like wrap it with a strap, cut it, and then drag it with my truck just to get it to where I could cut it up more.

Right.

Because it was— it would've landed in the brush. It would've been terrible. So, um, so I was like, okay, I, I've got a, an EGO pole saw. And it's great. Mm-hmm. In fact, I've got a 20-inch extension for my pole saw, so it can—

Pole saw? It can—

when I've, I've had it for a long time.

Have you?

Yeah.

Okay.

I, I don't know if we've done an episode on it or not. I don't remember.

Oh, no, I just may need to borrow that thing.

Oh yeah. It's, I mean, it's great. And the 20-inch extension, like 20 inches is, that's, that's a ways, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Um, so I, I just knew like, okay, I don't have a regular chainsaw and I live on land. I should probably buy a chainsaw. Like, I, I've been putting it off. This is probably the moment I can spend the money that I would pay someone to come out and do this and get a piece of equipment that I already need. But my problem is I'm sitting here going, man, I don't really want a gas-powered thing because I mean, The problem with gas-powered stuff for a residential person is you've got, you gotta keep gas and you gotta keep oil and you gotta keep the mixture.

Yep.

And, uh, it's gas and oil mixture stuff. Either if you buy it premixed, it's super expensive. If you mix it yourself, it's just something you gotta keep in a separate container. And oh, by the way, after it sits for a season, like you may have your carburetor gunk up on you. You may have like parts that just like seize up. And I've like, I've got a really nice backpack blower and I had to replace the carburetor last year because it just, now it wasn't expensive. It was $20 for a carburetor, but it's like, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna do that. And I gotta pull start the thing. And it's just like, it, uh, it can be a problem.

Well, look, as, as someone who puts a lot of gas-powered equipment out in the field on a day-to-day basis, Like the extra added feature of having to make sure that you have the right mixture of gas. Like I send my guys out with little like containers of oil so that they can mix it in their gas tank. And I have to have like training sessions on like, hey, make sure that when you do this, you're not putting more gas than you need because we need the mixture to be right. And then like when they have problems with the engine, we have to take it into the mechanic.

Yeah.

Like, I can fix it, but like, it's, it's just not worth my time.

It's time.

It's like, it's just an annoying thing.

Yep.

Like carburetors get gummed up, especially like for us, we have seasonal equipment. So it sits for 4 to 5 months before we start it up. Like, and like, I understand people listening to this, like, well, you should probably be starting it. We're busy. Yeah. It's, it's a lot. I under— I like, yes. We should.

Yeah.

Do we? Most of the time, no.

No.

Because we're busy.

Yeah.

Like we're, we're trying to actually take care of the business of the day and we don't have time to do like maintenance. We're working on it.

Yeah.

But it's difficult.

It is.

It is. But like with a battery powered thing, that's not even in the cards.

It's not even in the cards because those, those parts that you're talking about don't exist.

Right.

They just don't exist. Like the—

okay, let me tell you this. I have a spray rig that we use for doing pretreats on new builds.

Okay.

And we use it about once a month.

All right.

And we hauled it, mixed it, got it ready, and took it out to the location. Booger just would not start. I had to spend about 2 hours because it was not close enough to take it back to my shop.

Yeah.

I had to go to an O'Reilly's, buy some tools, literally take the carburetor apart.

Oh my goodness.

And like, did I get it running?

Sure.

Yes, because I know what I'm doing.

Right.

I understand how small engines work. I've been working on them since I was 13 years old.

Right.

I could take one apart and put it back together within a day.

Yeah.

Like the whole thing. Was it annoying? Yes.

Yeah.

I could have been done an hour and a half earlier than when I Then when I actually finished the job, right? But like, I had to take that whole carburetor apart because there was just crud, right?

That sludge.

Yeah. That had accumulated over the 30 days that I hadn't used the thing.

Yeah.

And my son's like, what's the matter with you? Why are you taking this? Like, because he was out there working with me.

Okay.

And like, one, like, watch.

Yeah.

Because you're watching somebody that actually knows what they're doing, take an engine apart. You need to learn how to do this.

Right.

And he's like, I don't understand. This is so annoying. And I'm like, yeah, it is annoying. It is annoying.

Yes, it is.

But like, that's the reason that you learn how to do this kind of stuff is so that you can actually do the job rather than having to like retreat and come back another day and piss off the contractor that you held up the job on.

That's right.

You know?

Yeah.

Like, that's what I've had to learn how to do. Yeah. But like, when you start talking about like, if I could have a battery or electric operated system, Dude, that's not even— that's not even part of the process anymore.

No, it's— it's— it takes— it eliminates a failure point. And anytime you eliminate a failure point, your— your efficiency level goes up.

Now, now, to be fair, on the electrical side, the failure points are way more expensive.

Oh, for sure.

Than the— than the gas-powered ones.

But— but most of the time, the failure point is the battery.

Yes, almost always.

Almost Always. Now, just like anything else, I mean, you, you're like on a chainsaw, you're gonna have to clean the sucker. Like, you don't want to, you don't want to put a chainsaw away after you've been cutting a tree up and just like leave it. You want to take it apart, clean it, make sure all the stuff doesn't like rust out your, your blade or anything like that. And you may have to replace the blade. The blade may pop off while you're using them. Like, all kinds of stuff can happen, right?

Yep.

But, um, you, you eliminate failure points, and that's a, that's a, a really good thing. So I started looking around and trying to determine what am I going to buy? Am I going to go buy a gas one? I ruled it out pretty quickly, um, and I'm going to come back to that because I want to talk about why I ruled it out. Um, but then I went to an electric and I was like, okay, I've got EGO equipment, I've got a weed eater. I've got a pole saw. I've now got a hedge trimmer that we're gonna talk about here in just a second. And I'm like, okay, I've got, I've got batteries. I've got 3 2.5 amp-hour batteries. So that's gonna get me, it's not great for a,

for a chainsaw, but it'll get me a little ways down the road if I need to. But then I went and I was like, okay, I'm gonna buy an EGO. That, that's really what I went in there for. And I, as I was looking, so an EGO is a 56-volt battery.

Can you, okay, real quick.

Yep.

Where can you buy EGOS?

At Lowe's. I think you can buy them at like Ace Hardware. I think there's a couple other places you can buy them.

But Lowe's is like the main—

Lowe's is the main place, right?

I'm sorry, go ahead.

No, no, no, no, it's good. So, uh, as I was there, I started looking at it and I was like, you know what, like Cobalt also. So, so low, uh, so there's a, there's a 16-inch, an 18-inch, and a 20-inch, uh, EGO chainsaw. 20-inch is standard for any, like, a tree trimmer is gonna have a 20-inch with them.

Right.

Um, I didn't want to pay for the 20, so I was looking at 18. I figured if it's, if I need a 20-inch blade, I'm calling someone. Uh, 18 will, 18 will be good. So I looked over at the Cobalt. They're an 80-volt battery. So you got a 56-volt battery in the EGO, an 80-volt battery in the Cobalt. And I'm like, Huh, it's $100 cheaper for the Cobalt. I'm like, I don't wanna get into a whole nother battery system, but for $100, like, is that worth it for the amount of times I'm gonna need it?

No.

No, it's not. But let me tell you, let me tell you why it's not. The Cobalt chain speed is, It, they, they, they measure it in milliseconds.

Okay. Okay.

The chain speed on the Cobalt is 10.5. The chain—

10.5 what?

Milliseconds.

Milliseconds. Okay.

The chain speed on the EGO—

Okay. 10.5 milliseconds per what?

I think it's per, per like revolution.

Rotation. Yes.

Okay. So, um, so it's 10.5. The EGO is 22.

Holy crap.

So, so quite literally, the chain is moving 2x plus, more than twice as fast on the EGO as it does the Kobalt. Okay. Now the Kobalt has an 80-volt battery, but it doesn't matter whenever the power is not there.

80 volts?

80 volts.

Is the EGO 140?

It's 56.

56.

Okay. It's 56. And like Ryobi is 40. That's their big one.

Okay.

Right. Um, but yeah, I was thinking, oh, more, more voltage means more power. Maybe. But if your machine only goes half the speed, it's gonna take twice as long. It's gonna take more than twice as long.

Sure.

To cut through something, right?

Yeah, if it's moving twice as fast.

Exactly. So, uh, I'll tell you this. So, um, it comes with a 6 amp-hour battery.

Okay. Big battery.

It's a big battery. It says it'll do 330 cuts on one battery. Now, I will tell you this, those are some small limbs that they're— sure. Uh, I, I was cutting, I cut almost this entire thing. I got to the end and I, I had to stop cuz it was so stupid hot outside. So I've got probably 4 more cuts that I need to make. Um, and I still had a third of the battery left. Like, it, it did a really good job of, of like using, using the battery. Um, and I also knew I had some other batteries behind it if I needed it. Um, but dude, I started looking at, okay, a gas-powered versus electric. We talk about this all the time.

Yeah.

And, and we— I, I would say—

We got in a fight with this about a— with a landscaping guy Not too long ago.

Yeah. And, and I, look, I will say that if you are a, like, I, I talked to my tree guy one time and I was like, would you ever consider going electric? And he was like, no way. And, and I asked why. And he said his immediate answer was, I don't need to ever have downtime. And for him, he's running his chainsaws every day.

Yeah. He can always, he, for, for guys like that, they can always pour more gas.

That's the thing.

In the tank.

That's exactly what it is. He's like, I can just put more gas in it, pull the chain again, and it still goes. So that makes a lot of sense to me. If you're, if you're out in the field and you're doing, you're putting 8 hours a day in, you're gonna have to have a lot of batteries.

Yes.

For that.

Yes. And, and I think that's worth noting because we, we, we've talked about this several times because like the battery tends to be more expensive than the tool.

It, well, it is. In fact, if you go buy a 6-hour SIMP, 6 amp-hour battery at Lowe's, and you may be able to find it somewhere— for EGO. Okay. You may be able to find it somewhere cheaper, but the 6 amp-hour battery at Lowe's is $389.

That sounds about right.

But the, the chainsaw with the 6 amp-hour battery was $399.

See, like, you're paying mostly for the battery, right?

It was, it was $400, and it was on— it was— yeah, it's— I mean, You got the 6 amp-hour battery basically for free.

I mean, you could look at it one of two ways. You can say, I got the battery for free. I got the tool for free. I got the chainsaw for free. Yeah, that's right. Because the battery honestly is going to be the more valuable asset in the first place because, like, if you got a mower, you got a blower, you got whatever it is, it's transportable. You can put it on any of those and use it.

Right.

So how long does it take to recharge that 6 amp-hour battery?

That's a good question. I don't actually know. I've not done that.

So for me with Ryobi system, I have a 4 amp-hour, 40-volt battery and those are 56-volt, right?

Correct.

So it takes my 40-volt, 4-volt—

4 amp-hour.

4 amp-hour, sorry. About 30 to 45 minutes to recharge.

Okay. So that's not bad actually.

I have 3 of them.

Okay.

And so if I'm running my blower, Uh-huh. Which is the one that sucks the most energy. Sure. Like, I can have one on the charger that's recharging while I'm running the other one, have another one in the waiting. I can run those 2 by the time the other one gets done recharging. So, like, you, you, you have that ability, but, like, you have to have enough batteries. And you do. And, but, like, that's expensive.

It, it, like, to get 3 of these, I mean, you're $1,000 in, a little over $1,000.

For the, for the 6 amp.

For the 6 amp hours.

Mine are 4 amps. So, like, they're, I think they're like $200 a pop. Sure. But still, I mean, you're talking $600. Yeah, but if you want, if you just want to buy the batteries.

Right. And I think you have to, you weigh that against, you know, $3.50 a gallon for gas right now, plus the oil.

Well, you got, I think you have to do it over the lifetime of the tool because, you know, when you start looking at like trimmers, how long do you typically keep a trimmer?

I don't know.

10, 15 years?

That's what I would say.

I would think that's reasonable.

Right.

Like how much gas are you gonna spend? Probably not a whole lot.

Not a whole lot in a trimmer.

But like, it also depends on like the size of your yard.

It does.

There's a lot of factors that go into that, but I think you're still gonna outlive the gas for sure.

And you're definitely gonna outlive the frustration and the cost because, yeah, yeah, for sure. Because like, here's the deal. Whenever I was ready to, to use my, uh, my chainsaw, I picked it up and I pulled the trigger and it went zoom.

Right.

And when I let go of the trigger, it stopped and there was no noise.

This is, I think this is like one of the best case scenarios because an edge trimmer, like when you're talking about like a weed whacker, whatever you want to call it.

Yeah.

Like that's something like most people I think are going to use on a weekly basis, maybe on an every other week basis. For sure. And so it may not feel like, A chainsaw.

Yeah.

On the other hand, if you can get one that's as powerful, that's battery operated, that you're not having to like clean the gunk out of the carburetor, because how often are you going to use that thing? It's nice to have.

Not that often.

If you have a gas one, it's nice to have, but like in, in dire— and like I've had some situations even around here. We like, look, I think it was 2 years ago. We had a neighbor who had a tree fall. on a gas line. And, and the utility company was like, we can't get there. And, and so like, there was like 5 or 6 of us, like, what do we do? And it's like, we just started chopping the tree up to try and get pressure off of the gas line because it wasn't leaking. But like, we were like, we need to get this thing off here because if it continues to apply pressure, right, we could have a real problem on our hands.

Right.

And so we, and, and, and not only that, it was crossing the road and we needed to create access for people to get through, for emergency to get through. And so we just started chopping the tree. Well, like if you have a gas-powered chainsaw, which, you know, typically reliable, but if you haven't, if you haven't pulled the thing in 4 or 5 months.

Well, there's a number of things that could happen. Number one, yeah, it may not start. Number two, have you ever yanked the, the chain or the, the puller right off of the pulley?

I have.

And now you gotta open that thing up and just replace the string to pull it with.

And not to be fair, that's mostly happened on like push mowers. But it also happens on, on, on chainsaws for sure.

Eventually, like, there's, there's failure points here.

Yes.

And if you're, if you're gearing up to go do something, especially if it's a storm situation, you need to just go out there and get it done. And you gotta wait 2 hours cuz you gotta— or what if you can't find a carburetor? Or what if you, what if you don't have the tools to take it apart to shoot?

I mean, like, clean it. If you're in the middle of a storm, O'Reilly's and AutoZone is closed.

They're closed. What are you gonna do? Like, Amazon's not delivering?

No.

A carburetor to you?

I, I think, I think electric is like the best case scenario when you're you start talking about like emergency situations.

Yeah, except that you, you're, there are gonna be people that go, well, what if you can't charge it?

Well, it should have been charged.

It should have been charged. And oh, by the way, it, you know, if you're the type of person that has a chainsaw, you probably have a generator, right? I would think so at least. So, yeah. Um, all that to say, I, when I started looking at gas versus electric, you're gonna have people out there that will tell you, Well, the gas is gonna be more powerful.

And I think on the, I think, I think on the more like commercial side.

Yeah. Okay. So yes, but let's talk about that.

Yeah.

Would you, when you think of chainsaw, what brand, like what brand comes to mind that you would wanna go buy?

Stihl.

Stihl. Yeah. That's exactly what I did a comparison on. Direct comparison. First of all, Steel's gonna be a 2-stroke gas engine. There's no, there's no, we got a 56-volt battery. That's the, those are the power components.

Which by the way, Steel does have an electric version.

They do. They actually do. I've not actually done a lot of research on it, but I don't wanna get into another battery ecosystem.

I'm just putting it out there.

But they do have one. I know that they have it. So a, when I say CCs, of an engine, do you know what that means?

Yes.

Okay. What, can you explain what that means? Do you, can you explain it?

I mean, I, I, I essentially know that it's the amount of power that it produces.

Yeah. So it's, it's ex— what it actually is, it's almost like, it's a, it's almost like your lungs. It's the amount of capacity that can pass through the pistons at one point, which delivers the power. Right. Okay. So you're, how much breath you can take into your lungs. someone with bigger lungs can take out— can take in bigger breaths, right? Right.

I mean, the way I would— the way I would compare it, like, for guys like me, if you grew up— like, look, if you were born in the '80s, you understand the difference between a 300, a 350, and a— and a 450.

That's right.

Engine on a Chevy.

That's right.

Like, you, you just understand, like, like, one's bigger than the other, it produces more power, it has the more— it has more potential.

For power.

For power.

That's right. So, um, the steel 18-inch, uh, bar, same. I'm trying to do apples and apples as much as possible.

Okay, this, this is actually a good, a, a good point to make because sometimes we start looking at length of blade.

Yeah.

And that doesn't necessarily translate to power.

No, it doesn't at all. It doesn't at all. The length of the bar—

I don't want to interrupt you, but like, I just want people to know, like, they're Just because you have a length of blade doesn't mean that you have the same amount of power.

No, the length of blade just lets you cut through a bigger, bigger tree. That's all that it does. That's really all it does. Um, so the Stihl is, uh, the actual engine is 45.6 cc's.

Okay.

Okay. The EGO is 50.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

So I mean like bigger, not incredibly bigger, but bigger.

But bigger.

Yes.

It's at least equal, but it's bigger.

Yeah, it's equal. It's definitely equal in performance.

It is equal in performance.

But like, does it, does it put it out? I know you said it was like so many, like, but does it do it like in RPMs?

It, so kind of. So, um, Um, they do it by, by chain speed, and the chain speed, they typically look at milliseconds. But, um, I do think there is an RPM value somewhere. But here's what's interesting: Stihl doesn't publish a spec for the amount of, like, the speed of the blade. They just don't have a spec for it.

So with, with, with chainsaws, I would imagine that there's a difference between running speed and starting power. You know what I mean?

Sure.

Because like, I don't know how often you've used a chainsaw, but there's been occasions where I use a chainsaw, I stick it in a tree and all of a sudden it bogs down.

Yeah. You know, that's actually something that I will say is a negative about electric. If it bogs down, it stops. Okay. And that's a problem. Now I will say that's a bigger problem on my pole saw than it is on the chainsaw because the chainsaw is cutting Like the speed of the blade is so much faster on the chainsaw than it is on the pole saw that it's getting bogged down. Like it, I didn't have it bog down on me once, but the pole saw, if it bogs down, it will just stop.

It'll just get hung up.

Right. And a gas power will at least try to move. That is a benefit of a gas power. But I will also say the reason that it, that it does that is to protect itself.

Sure.

It's not just—

It'll burn up the motor.

It's, it's not just going, I'm not gonna try anymore because I suck. It's gonna go, I don't want you to have to buy a new tool, so figure out a way to get me out of this situation.

Right, just get me outta here.

Yeah, get me outta here. So, uh, you know, if, if you— I, I'll say this, um, the— when you start doing the work of comparing it between a gas engine and Stihl is the one. I didn't compare it against a, I don't know, Craftsman or something like that, right? Like I tried to do—

In my brain, there's not really like another brand that I go to that I'm like, what's another good chainsaw?

Husqvarna, maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe. But like Stihl's the one.

I mean, I have another brand. I can't even, I have a gas-powered one in my shop. I can't even tell you the name of the brand.

Right.

It's just a regular chainsaw.

Right.

But like, if I were to go buy one right now, like, because the one I have out there is at least 10 years old.

Oh yeah.

Now it's great.

Sure.

I can't tell you the brand of it, but if I were to go shop for one right now and I was buying a gas-powered one, yeah, I'd go buy a Stihl.

Right.

That's what you buy. There's not even, to me, there's not even any comparison.

No, I, I would completely agree with you on that.

Like, if you like, especially now, like I, you know, 20 years ago, Craftsman, sure, I might shop that brand.

Sure. But, but not today.

Craftsman is crap. It is today, in my opinion.

No, it is today. Yeah, absolutely. So at the end of the day, what I will tell you is that if you, if you start doing the research, it's at least as powerful, if not more powerful than, than the gas engine. You have zero issues with Fuel, oil, uh, you know, things like, like some stuff that you may or may not even think about. Like, you still have to do the bar oil though, right? You still have to do bar oil. It's not that big of a deal. You just, it doesn't take, like, it's got a compartment for it. I will tell you that the, the maintenance on this thing is pretty easy. Like the way that you like tighten the blade or do it, it's really

simple.

I mean, if it's anything like their, their weed whacker. Yes.

It is. It's very, it's very simple to work on. I had to— the, the chain came off once. It was, it was so simple. Like, it was so simple to fix. Um, so here's the other kicker. I— now this one was on sale. It was regularly $3— it was regularly $450 to buy it. It was on sale for $50 off, so it was, it was $400. Um, the steel is also on sale right now. Uh, $50 off. It's $480. Yeah. It's $80 more expensive. So, like, if you're already invested in the, the EGO system, you've already got other tools, you've already got the batteries, all that kind of stuff, like, it's a no-brainer. It's a no-brainer.

Well, okay. So this is, this is something interesting that Ryobi does as well. And I don't know if EGO does this, but do they have a tool-only price? Yes.

Uh, I think they do, but I think you have to buy that online because at, uh, well, not the 18 or the 20. I didn't see one. Um, I think they have one for the 16-inch, but I didn't want the 16-inch. I thought that was going to be smaller than what I needed. Um, but I think you can buy tool-only online. Okay. If you want to, but at Lowe's you can't. And honestly, For the amount of tree I needed to cut up, I needed the battery.

Sure. Yeah. Well, like, but like, I, I bring that up because sometimes people are invested in certain platforms.

Sure.

For tools and batteries and things like that. And, and with Ryobi, I mean, like, you can get an 18-volt chainsaw.

You can.

I don't recommend it.

I wouldn't either. I'd rest— if, if you're trying to like get one of those handhelds, like you can just like cut stuff up for firewood or something, maybe.

But like, if you're doing like like thicker, thicker hedge trimming. Sure. Maybe, maybe. But like, if you're actually like going at a tree, right?

No, no, you couldn't do it.

It's not, it's not a thing. So, but they do have like, if you're like, if you're like me and you have 3 batteries and you're like, I don't really need another battery. Right.

Right. You can just get the tool.

You can just get the tool. Correct. And it's way cheaper. Yes. I don't know if EGO's like that, but I know Ryobi's like that. I know Milwaukee's like that. Yes. I know, uh, you can buy, you can buy the chainsaw only. Okay.

Uh, it's, it's a different model number, but yes, you can absolutely do it. And, um, you, okay, so you can buy it on Ace, you can buy it on Amazon, and then there's a couple other smaller places.

Ace was the other one I think we were looking for earlier.

Right.

Because it's Lowe's and Ace. And Ace is, what's, what's interesting about Ace is Ace is typically at franchise. Right. Location. And so, like, they may not necessarily have everything.

They may not.

There.

But you can order online.

But you can get it. You can get it.

Right. So, uh, on Amazon right now, if you go buy the tool only, it's $279.

There you go.

But for, for another $100, $120, you can get one with a battery. You can get one with a 6 amp-hour battery.

So you get an extra battery. Right. 6 amp-hour battery. That's a, that's a significant battery.

Uh, it is. No, those, that's a significant battery. So, and you can, you can buy replacement batteries that are not EGO brand. They're pretty good.

Yeah.

And you can do that. In fact, I found right now you can get a replacement one, 2 6 amp hours for $280. Oh, wow. And they're probably gonna do what you need them to do, you know?

So, well, let me, let me tell everybody this. I'm, so I, I have my chainsaw and we actually have in the back of our property right now, we have a couple of dead trees that I'm looking at cutting down. Um, my wife is hesitant to let me do it, um, because I think it was 3 years ago now, 2 or 3 years ago now, uh, my uncle actually died.

Oh, that's right.

Cutting trees down.

Yeah.

He had a tree fall on him.

Yeah.

And like, to be, I mean, like, and I'm not saying like he was being irresponsible, like the man knew what he was doing.

Sure.

Um, he was just a freak accident. Yeah. But like, the man had been doing property management for decades. I mean, like, he was not an idiot.

No.

Like, he knew what he was doing.

Right.

But like, a tree fell on him and it killed him.

Yeah.

And so I've been telling my wife, I'm like, hey, I've got some dead trees in the back of the property. I need to cut them down. She's like, well, you can't do that. I'm like, babe, look, I've cut trees down before. I'm going to cut them down again. We'll be fine. All that to say, Um, one of the projects I'm working on right now is me and my son are building a test cabin in the back of the property. Oh, so it's a 6 by 12 cabin.

Okay.

And we're looking at doing some test work on solar and water collection.

Interesting.

Just to see what we can do. And then also like, uh, insulation, like just to see what you could do because, you know, like one of our dreams Not one of our dreams. One of our goals is to eventually own a large piece of property out in the wilderness where there's not power, there's not water. And it's like, what could we do to mitigate some of the things that we're accustomed to having to have at this property?

To be off-grid.

And so like, we're gonna build this little 6 by 12 cabin.

Cool.

And I think we're actually gonna double the size of it because we're gonna do a 6 by 12 cabin with a wood fire oven, Um, and then I'll add on an additional 6 by 12 porch.

Okay.

So that we can get a better slope so that we can do a better water collection system. Um, and, and just test some stuff out from there.

Sure.

Uh, we're also working on, for, I mean, for those of you that have been following the show for the, uh, following the show for a long time, you know that we have the party barn. So we're gonna be working on an outdoor kitchen.

Oh, cool.

That we're fixing.

We have the bar. Oh yeah.

We're going to be reframing the bar and restructuring the outdoor section behind the bar to be a more functioning outdoor kitchen for entertaining and things like that. So not necessarily like a stove and a fridge and all that kind of stuff, right? But like a more outdoor-suited kitchen.

Okay.

We got kind of inspired because we got the Gosney oven. Yes. That you've got over at your house now. And I'm thinking maybe we want to try and get like something bigger out there along with like a smoker and a griddle and something like that just to get like a more complete cooking system out there. So we're doing some fun stuff and some interesting, some experimental stuff.

That'd be cool.

The water collection system is the one I'm actually the most interested in.

Oh yeah.

But also the solar system for the cabin, man. I mean, like I was playing around with AI and I was like, how much, How much solar do I need if I wanted to like plug a mini split onto this cabin to actually like cool it?

Right.

And it was like, oh, like that's totally doable. And it was like, you can get this system right here. It was like $600.

Really?

For the solar. Yeah. Like the battery, the solar and everything.

Wow.

The inverter and everything.

Wow.

And I was like, oh, okay. This is kind of cool.

Yeah.

Because I don't need that. Like when I think about what I need, not what I want, what I need out in the wilderness, Like if I could have air conditioning at night.

Oh, that's a big deal. That's a big deal.

To sleep?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And just like lights and fans.

Yeah.

I mean, like, dude, I've got it made in the shade.

No doubt.

So, um, be paying attention to that because we're gonna be putting up some content. We've already got the, um, the subfloor framed.

Okay, cool.

I need to come check it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so my son and his, uh, his lackey friends in the neighborhood, they've been filming content out there while we were framing this thing up.

That's fun. That's fun.

Um, so, which is big fun for them.

Yeah. So, well, let's, uh, let's talk just real quick, um, about, uh, the last, the last thing and we'll, we'll do this really quick. I also bought the 26-inch hedge trimmer.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. 26 inches is a lot, by the way.

That is a lot.

And, uh, it has, I mean, it, you know, well, so I've heard.

Maybe for other guys. Right. Yeah.

Right. It's, it's about how you wield it, but, um, The, so it's got a dual action cutting on it and it'll cut.

When you say dual action, it's like the 2 teeth that kind of do this number.

Yes, the 2 teeth go back and forth and, um, and there's, the blades are sharp on both sides, so to speak. Um, it has a 1.2-inch cutting capacity.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. It will, it will, it'll eat some stuff up.

It'll chew through some hedges. And, uh, my— and it's, it's super easy. It's got a, like, the, the, the handle on it rounds all the way around.

Mm-hmm.

And you have to, you have to hold the handle and pull the trigger for it to, for it to go.

Yeah.

But where you hold the handle, the entire handle is a, is a trigger all the way around.

Oh.

So it's super easy no matter where you're holding it. And you might think, oh, well, that'd be good. 'Cause sometimes, like, you may need to turn the trimmer. to go like up and down rather than, you know, side to side. Um, EGO thought about this. Craziest thing ever. The handle swivels.

Oh.

It's got 5 positions that it'll swivel into.

Does it like lock in?

It locks in.

Okay.

So like right, right under where the trigger is, there's another little, uh, it's a, it's like a trigger. Uh, but you just pull it and it unlocks it and you can swivel that, that handle. And so if you're trying to do— and so it's got a, it's got 90 and a 45 on both sides and then the zero position. So if you're, if you're trying to make an angle cut, just turn to that 45 and your hands stay in the right position.

Nice.

You don't have to turn the blade. You don't have to like, like wrench your wrists or anything like that. And your hand stays in the— and then same thing. If you, if you need to do a, a 90, you just turn the handle. The blade is this way and, and your hand—

So is there like a button to like manipulate the, the trigger?

Yes.

Yeah. That like, and then you feel it kind of like click into place.

Yeah. Like, like you just, you literally just kind of unlock it and turn it and it clicks into place.

So when you're unlocking it, can you pull the trigger?

I imagine at the same time.

I imagine that's a safety feature though.

I actually, I don't know.

I've—

I don't remember if I tried that or not.

Ever tried to be stupid?

Yeah, I don't know if I ever, ever— if I tried that. But I mean, dude, I will tell you, it was— it, it made light work. I've got some big hedges at the, at the front of my house, right? And I had a, a, a blue Ryobi hedge trimmer. Oh, okay.

Old one.

Old one. Uh-huh. And it's on the the 18-volt system, and it's fine. It gets bogged down quick, and it's, it's not super powerful. It's not really long. I think it's probably 18 inches instead of 26.

Yeah. Um, it's for your 5-year-old daughter.

Correct.

Not your 5-year-old daughter, but a 5-year-old. Yeah.

Uh, also the cutting capacity is pretty small, and it would get hung up. I, I think it wasn't as sharp as it used to be also. But like this one, dude, like it was just like— it's like butter cutting through— a knife cutting through butter. Like it was just— it was incredible.

Like when you've— when you've experienced the difference in power between something that's actually sharp and, and well engineered, there's— there's no comparison.

No comparison.

Like it's like, oh my gosh, I could have been doing this like 5 times faster than I was last time, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, and it's not— it's not cheap, The tool only, it's $179. That's not bad. But I'm telling you, dude, light work. It was, it's unbelievable. So here's what I'll tell you. And, and we, we've talked about this a whole lot. EGO is unbelievable.

Oh yeah.

Like their, their system is so good. I would tell you for just our experience, we really like Ryobi tools.

Sure.

They're great for hand tools. When it comes to lawn tools, go EGO.

Sure. I mean, well, I mean, here, here's the thing is like, yeah, we use Ryobi. We do for hand tools.

We like them.

I use Ryobi for, I actually have a weed whacker that's Ryobi.

Okay.

It's fantastic. I have a Ryobi blower, 40 volt, and like that's on the 40 volt platform.

Sure.

Not the 18 volt.

Right.

There are people that have the 18 volt blower. They love it. It's like for blowing off their little bitty porch. I have one.

Yeah, I, I have one, you know, but it's, it's underpowered in comparison. In, in comparison, if you just want to blow dirt off your porch, it's great.

Sure. My, my 40-volt blower. Yeah, it's fantastic.

Yeah, it'll, it'll put some CVTs out.

I can— and, and again, like, I'm on 6 acres. I— and the, the amount that I have to trim with a weed whacker is about an acre and a half.

It's a lot.

I can do it with a battery and then still have battery left over to run the blower when I'm done.

Perfect.

And it has no trouble whacking any of it.

Yeah.

I don't trust— I'm not, I'm not so bought in that I would buy the Ryobi zero turn.

Oh yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And I think that's on a 60-volt platform now.

Well, but it— I think it is too. And I think it— I think you use like 4 batteries for it at once.

That's a whole different thing. That's it. Like, I'm still on gas.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and, and, and so, and, and that does have to do with capacity on, on acreage. Like the EGO has a 2-acre capacity on it.

Right, right. And then so like, I, there are limitations to this.

For sure.

On, on, on both ends. I, I will, I will say this, the Ryobi stuff that I've used, and I'm, I'm interested to actually try the Ryobi chainsaw because I know they have the 40-volt one.

Yeah, they do.

I don't remember how expensive it is.

I don't either.

Um, I imagine it's around the same price point.

I would assume so.

Like, not like exact, but it's probably within the neighborhood.

Yeah.

I'm interested to try it out.

Yeah.

Because I have a gas-powered one and it's fine, but I'm interested to try the electric one just to see if it performs, especially now that you've had the EGO one that you're, you know, you're saying it performs just as well or actually better.

Yeah.

You know, so, but like, that's the thing is like, you need to try these things out. And there's reasons that you watch shows like ours. It's like, okay, get a perspective before you actually go make a purchase, right? Like, what— like, who are people that have actually used this thing in the field and how has it performed, right? You know, like, for me, with the, with the Ryobi, uh, weed whacker, that thing's fantastic.

Sure.

I've had it for several years now. It's never not performed. Yeah, it has a really great reloading system. I will, I will confess it's not as good as the EGO reloading system.

Yeah.

Um, but it's pretty good. It's still better than like a traditional weed whacker.

Sure.

Um, so like there, there's all sorts of things to take into consideration when you're making a purchase.

Right.

And like, because when you go to Home Depot, I, what are the, what are the brands that they have there now? I know they got Ryobi.

They got Ryobi.

They got Kobalt.

They got Milwaukee.

When it comes to like gas-powered stuff, Toro.

That's the thing. They did not have a gas-powered chainsaw.

Who didn't?

Lowe's.

Really?

They didn't have one.

That's crazy.

It was crazy.

Like, not one?

Not one. Not on the show floor.

Interesting.

Because I know you can buy them online.

Because Lowe's is Craftsman now, right?

Uh, yes.