Making affordable moves to electricity

Stihl MSA 60 battery chainsaw cost $350

We will only be taking one vehicle to Red Lake from this point and that will be our eight-year-old Dodge Grand Caravan, not our 16-year-old pickup truck. That means we will have our chainsaw inside where we are sitting. Our great old Husqavarna leaks and reeks chain oil and gasoline so we have purchased a new battery electric chainsaw for the cabin. It is the Stihl MSA 60. I was able to get this for $350 which includes the battery and charger.

It is a small saw with a 12-inch cutting bar but it should do the job for us at the cabin. Mostly we will use it for cutting up wind-blown trees but we will also probably cut about a third of a cord of firewood each year.

In other electric news at our house, our Rinnai on-demand propane hot water heater has stopped working after just six years and there seems no one in Thunder Bay interested or capable in fixing it. So, it has become the most expensive piece of artwork we have on the wall and we have gone back to our electric hot water tank which we still owned.

Finally, the electronic oven control in our propane kitchen range died. We will be replacing this in the future with an induction stove top and electric oven.

We are a ways off replacing our vehicle with an electric one. For one thing we are not going to pay double what a gas vehicle costs and will wait until mass production brings the costs down.

The only thing left after that will be how we heat our home. Currently we do it with a propane furnace and a wood-burning stove. The furnace is over 20 years old. When it dies, we will need to come up with an electric alternative.