How Many Extensions Can You Add To A Ryobi Pole Saw?

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Few tools are more useful than a good pole saw when you need to remove the limbs from overgrown trees. These allow you to cut through thick branches with ease while keeping your feet firmly on the ground, thus minimizing any accidents that might result from trying to use power equipment on a ladder. Ryobi makes over a dozen different models and is widely regarded as one of the best major pole saw brands. It has a corded electric model as well as numerous options that are powered by its 18V One+ and 40V battery systems. These are available in a range of saw sizes and some of them even come with special features, the HP series' brushless motors or the Whisper series' quiet functionality.

But one thing that they all have in common is that they have detachable power heads that allow you to add extension poles. This makes it so you can adjust the length of the tool so that it's easy to use, whether you're trimming from the bottom branches or trying to cut limbs from further up. Some people have trees that are quite tall, though, and even an extended pole saw can only reach so high.

Each of the saws only comes with one of these poles, but some users have borrowed extensions from similar tools, such as the Ryobi Hedge Trimmer, and additional poles can be separately purchased from third-party manufacturers on sites like Amazon. This has led many Ryobi fans to question exactly how many of these extension shafts you can get away with adding to the tool while continuing to use it safely. The short answer is that Ryobi doesn't recommend using more than two, but some users have found that even that might be a bit of a stretch.

There doesn't appear to be any sort of built-in mechanism in any of Ryobi's pole saws that stops users from adding as many of these shaft extensions as they want, but just because you can chain a whole bunch of them together doesn't mean that you should. The general consensus from both users and the manufacturer is that these kinds of telescoping Ryobi tools will start to get dangerously unstable anytime you attempt to add more than two extensions.

 The company's official FAQ section doesn't elaborate on the details, but it does state that "Ryobi recommends a maximum of two extension bars at any one time." This seems like a reasonable amount for most practical applications. Each of these attachments adds about 3ft. to the overall length of the pole saw. Since most of them are already about 6.5ft long to start, this means that the saws can reasonably get up to 12.5ft long before reaching the upper limit of what Ryobi recommends. Add in the height added by the user holding it, and you're cutting branches that are ~15-18 ft. from the ground.

Users seem to agree with the two extension limit. Quite a few users have tested using up to two extensions, and generally found that the saw remains reasonably stable at this length and that it continues to work well. "I had a couple of limbs that were always just a little bit too high for me to feel comfortable trimming with the core Ryobi set. This extra extension let me get them, and it worked just fine," said one Amazon reviewer who used a third-party Ryobi accessory extension. "I will say that at the full height it starts to get a bit wobbly, and I definitely wouldn't feel too comfortable adding even more extensions, but it solved my immediate problem." This fear doesn't seem to be unfounded either, as reports from those who have attempted to add more extensions have raised some serious safety concerns.

"I have run three extra sections in mine," said one Reddit user in a thread discussing the stability of using multiple extension shafts. "Saw on a stick gets pretty darn sketchy." That doesn't exactly sound like a ringing endorsement, since the last thing you want is an unwieldy piece of power equipment lurching in the wind while you're standing underneath it. There are also those who think that even two extensions is pushing it. The simple truth is that adding more extensions than the manufacturer intended will continue to decrease the stability and control of the tool. The more you add, the more this problem will continue to compound.