Best Pole Saw Attachments Guide

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Lacey Jackson

Lacey has always loved the forest and is lucky enough to be able to live on her little slice of it. She understands that a lot goes into maintaining a forested area, and there are a lot of unique tools and skill that comes with it. She's used the skills she's gained maintaining her home to clear paths for mountain bike and horse endurance races. Now she's using that knowledge to help others find the products they need to get the job done on Forestry Pros.

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When I studied abroad, I lived in a house with a small yard. In that yard were some tall grape vines, an oversized cherry tree, and many smaller trees that ran alongside the yard. 

For security, we had a solid wall around the property with barbed wire on top (I didn’t choose to study abroad in one of those nice European places that most people pick). It was our duty to ensure the trees didn’t grow into the neighboring yard or droop over the street. 

Growing up with a lot of gardening and landscaping expertise, I was the only teenager who knew we needed a pole saw to reach the dangling branches. However, there wasn’t exactly a Home Depot (List of best Home Depot Ple Saws) or Lowe’s in the country. 

I ended up modifying a broomstick handle by duct-taping a knife to it. Then I stood on a rusted ladder, left in a pile of refuge behind the dilapidated shed. 

Now, as my partner says, “It isn’t stupid if it works.” It worked; therefore, it wasn’t stupid. It certainly wasn’t safe or fast, but it got the job done. 

Thankfully, stateside you can buy the best pole saws, and the best pole saw attachments to avoid such a situation. 

Bottomline UpFront

The best pole saw attachments are those that suit your needs. If you are only doing mild-to-moderate pruning and trimming, like you would when trimming your hedges or preparing certain trees for winter, a regular saw blade attachment will get the job done.

If you need to do something a bit more heavy-duty, the chainsaw attachment for a gas or electric-powered pole saw gives you a lot more freedom and power. I recommend a telescoping attachment or another extension if you need to reach branches higher up.

Best Pole Saw Attachments Guide: All You Need to Know

When to Use a Pole Saw

My opening story might be a little embarrassing, but it does help demonstrate under what circumstances you would need to use a pole saw. For the most part, you would use a pole saw to:

• Cut tree branches, 
• Trim your hedges, 
• Clear away debris after a storm (like we had to do when a winter storm broke half a dozen branches off our tree), 
• Prune large trees or bushes, or
• Cut wood that you otherwise can’t reach

Interesting read: Comprehensive Guide to Using a Pole Saw. 

Types of Pole Saws

Firstly, there are three types of pole saws:

• Manual: These are basically large broomsticks with saws on the end, not unlike what I made while studying abroad. 
• Gas: These run on gas and only have a small tank.
• Electric: These can be corded or battery-powered. 

Today I have a manual with the Extendable Branch Trimmer for tree trimming. I like the manual pole saws because they give you a lot of flexure. We do a lot of jiu-jitsu, and one of the main tenets of Jiu-Jitsu is to wear your opponent out before you get worn out. You shouldn’t be expelling a lot of energy in a fight or a competition; you should be calm and steady while your opponent expels all of their energy trying to get out of a hold. 

I apply the same level of mindfulness and awareness to outdoor activities: when I hike things like Angels Landing, I do it very slowly, but I maintain the exact same clip from start to finish while I watch newcomers all around me race at the beginning thinking it’s the hard uphill part talked about in every guide. I walked by them slowly as they stopped at the corner of every switchback, still thinking they had hit the hard uphill part (they hadn’t) and were completely out of breath.

When I’m pruning and trimming tree branches, I want to use as little energy as possible, and that’s why I like to use my extendable branch trimmer with extension attachments to reach things that are very high up. You can safely use multiple extension attachments with a saw blade attachment and capitalize on the flexure or force of each push and pull to cut branches easier. 

Interesting reads

• Best Husqvarna Pole Saw Models
• Best Ryobi Pole Saw Models

You can watch this video on the proper technique for using manual pole saws with lots of extensions:

We also have an electric, which is effectively the same thing but with a chainsaw at the end and a cord. We have to make sure we use an extension cord (or two or three) to plug it in somewhere when we work. Considering the majority of my tree trimming has to be done on the back part of our property where there is no electricity, I end up doing everything by hand for the most part.

When we had a tree trimming company come out, they had a gas pole saw that they could easily use on every part of the property without much effort, but it generated a lot of smell and no choice because of the gas.

Types of Attachments

Let’s start with the manual pole saw. 

1. Extendable Branch Trimmer

As I mentioned, I have an Extendable Branch Trimmer. This is a little goofy when installing it, but it works well. 

2. Extendable Branch Trimmer with Hedge Clippers

This version is for high-altitude trimming and pruning, with a slightly larger and longer blade. Both have the saw blade for sawing, but the other version has the hedge clippers too. 

In either case, you attach everything directly to the end of your pole saw, and you can use the large blade to saw away at tree limbs, or you can stick a branch or limb inside the hedge clipper if it’s small enough.

When you use hedge clippers, you have to squeeze them together in order to snap the blades shut on either side of the branch. But, when you are reaching overhead, high up in a tree or a bush, your hands can’t reach, so there is a cord at the opposite end of the pole saw attachment. Pulling that cord does the same thing and snaps the blades together, cutting your small branches and shrubs.

Note: We have a few different fruiting trees that must be pruned every year. But I’m simply uncomfortable with the idea of holding a massive chainsaw up over my head, knowing how clumsy I am. With the manual, it’s not nearly as heavy because the pole saw attachments don’t contain any type of motor, large blade, or chain. This makes it a lot safer and easier to manage if you don’t have a lot of upper body strength.

3. Saw Blade Attachment

If you only want a saw blade attachment, you can buy separate hand saws based on the blade thickness and length you need for your trimming. This model does not have the attached cord, so you can only saw manually back and forth until the limbs drop. 

4. Telescoping Attachment

Should you need more height, this telescoping attachment is the bee’s knees. I really don’t like standing on a ladder underneath the tree, hoping that the branches I cut won’t accidentally hit me in the face when they fall.

As it turns out, I recently discovered that I’m not the only one with this fear; when my partner decided that they could reach some of the higher branches on a ladder with ease, they didn’t make it more than two rungs before their panicked yells echoed “Can you hold the ladder please!!!! Make sure it doesn’t move, and I don’t fall!”

That turned out to be enough excitement for the day, and we went back in and ordered this telescoping attachment. Two days later, it was a much faster job because we could lengthen the telescope to reach the branches that we really wouldn’t have reached even on the ladder.

Note: With this telescoping attachment, you can still use other pole saw attachments on the opposite end. The telescoping attachment comes with a pruning pole saw for trimming branches, but that company sells a lot of household cleaning attachments as well, like window squeegees and feather dusters, so you can use it indoors and outdoors.

5. Chainsaw Attachment

If you are working with a gas or electric, you can buy a chain assembly like Kerlista. This is a chain saw attachment that you can use to trim bushes or cut branches. This model, much like a saw blade attachment, can only go back and forth in one direction. The difference is you don’t have to manually push and pull; you can let the chainsaw do it.

6. Articulating Chainsaw Attachment

Similarly, the Sunseeker is a universal articulating pole saw attachment. The articulation just means you can change the direction of the chainsaw. So this is a similar chainsaw attachment, but you can pivot the direction of the chainsaw so that holding the pole is more comfortable.

Now, normally I take issue with any type of articulating or pivoting point on machinery because that just represents another potential point of failure, and those are usually the things that break first. However, first-hand experience has taught me that it doesn’t matter how quickly it breaks, it is worth the investment just to be able to position something more comfortably and reach branches that might be tucked into a small space or surrounded by other plants. 

FAQ

Bottomline

Again, it comes down to which attachment best suits your needs. The best pole saw attachments are the saw blade, chainsaw, telescoping, or extension attachment. If you are working with a manual pole saw, a basic saw blade is going to get the job done, but you can invest in a slightly better version that also comes with the hedge clippers so you can snap limbs off quickly and effectively. 

If you have a larger property to maintain, invest in the gas or electric-powered pole saw and get a chainsaw attachment. No matter which you choose, if you have to reach something that is high up, do it safely with a telescoping or extension attachment.