Alternative to noisy chainsaw

[splodger]

chainsaws are really quite a modern invention - it wasn't that long ago that all tree work was done by hand - we have run quite a few training days for people who want to use only traditional hand tools - and no modern kit - but after a day or two of really hard graft (especially after an hour or two on a double handled saw) many walk away and buy a chainsaw when they realise the time and effort needed to work with just hand tools.

so it is possible to use no machinery at all - but i think your biggest problem might be finding somebody who is prepared to work in this way - and i'm guessing you'd have to pay them to carry out the work, as the timber alone might not be incentive enough

[SimonFisher]

We have quiet cars and quiet generators so why havent they thought of quiet chainsaws?

There's a demand for quiet vehicles and generators that make them commercially viable?

[Terry]

only options I would think are hand tools or electric chainsaw.
Any of the guests into the gym of life? an hour a day of bow sawing should see them build up a good sweat
Everything else is noisy/intrusive/damaging in some way

What size (diameter) are the trees you are wanting to cut?
If you just want to create paths, presumably you can steer clear of the big stuff?
Mind you, for paths you will be wanting the stumps out of the way - that being the case, the noise of a chainsaw will be drowned by a stump grinder.
Either that or a digger to dig them out.

Do you have no period in the year when you do not have guests?
Perhaps when you are next doing significant disruptive maintenance to the buildings such that you have no guests, you can get a local tree company in to blitz all the noisy stuff at the same time?

[TerryH]

I think you need one of these, it should like the Lake too.

beaver-away.jpg

Very funny

Off-topic I know but we saw some of these amazing creatures at work in Canada a few years ago. To see them build and maintain such large dams, complete with an inward curve so that the water pressure held them together ! Really clever...