Thanks again to all who have responded.
Here's a little bit of the "why" so many of you have asked about.
As a "Volunteer Active in Disaster Relief (V.O.A.D.)" member, we mobilize volunteers to cut downed trees up and carry them to the curb for pickup. Our target demographic for those we serve is homeowners with little to no insurance, widows, first responders, etc.
At the moment we send two "sharp" chains out with a "sharp" saw. When the saw becomes dull, the operator simply trades out the dull loop for a sharp one. In my 29+ years of industry experience, only one tree company I worked with did anything like this. Most showed up to the job with sharp saws ready to work and touched them up a couple of times through the day when necessary. On most crane jobs where the brush is literally dangling behind the chipper, it was entirely possible to go all day with no need to sharpen. However, the individuals cutting brush on a crane job are usually trained (or at least experienced enough) to keep the saw out of situations that will dull it.
Our Volunteers are mostly homeowners with an occasional firewood cutter in the mix. As you can imagine, keeping a sharp saw on a work site is next to impossible. The spare loops usually don't get traded out until the saw just won't cut any more. It is not uncommon to have to replace clutches on two or more saws during a single response (typically 2-5 weeks). The saws are all Stihl and mostly professional models like the 241, 261C, 361, 362 C, etc.
Let me apologize now for cutting many of you off, but I don't need a solution to this problem. I'm not some eager rookie trying to figure out how to keep from dulling saws. There are any number of approaches that would be a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, my hands are tied in implementing any industry standards, much less new protocols on how we address these issues.
As our internal discussions come and go, I find myself in the middle of a group of folks who believe the approach above is legitimate mainly because "that's the way we've always done it... ." No matter how many mentions of ISA, TCIA, Arbormaster, ACRT, NATS, FAT, or any other reputable training entity, the result is the same. At one point I thought, maybe that is how other people perform cleanup operations and I'm just out of the loop as most of the companies I've worked for/with have been production based tree services. The survey above was my attempt to find out whether my background is the exception or the norm. Based on the results I'm seeing so far, it appears the group is pretty well split evenly into those who switch out loops regularly as opposed to maintaining the chain on the saw. This tells me my perspective is the exception as opposed to the norm. If nothing else, it is going to help me be a little more patient in discussions around this issue, so thanks!
For the record, I always had duplicate saws on the truck and showed up with very sharp chainsaws ready to go to work. I rarely changed a chain out on the site the exception being when we hit metal or some other embedded object. As a matter of fact, I even had an old 044 with an almost wore out chain that was used exclusively for the stump cuts. If I hit barb wire, rebar, a two inch yoke, or any other foreign object I didn't really care as the chain was pretty much done anyway. For the most part I can touch up a 20" or smaller chain in less time than most would take to change over to another loop. It took a while to get to become proficient with a file, but for me it has been worth the investment.
