Not another helmet battle!
This gets beat to death pretty frequently around here. I am rather surprised that anyone on this site still has the guts to admit they don't use a helmet. There seem to be way more non-helmet guys around here than there is tree spikers.
What I see in the field among tree services is WAY more tree spikers than there are hard hat wearers. Go figure.
Myself: I love my hard hat. In fact, I have two. The Stihl hat fills in when I loose track of my favorite, the Husqvarna. I wear it when I mow the yard, cause it has my hearing protection and it lets me walk into the bird feeder by accident when I am looking down.
Chaps: No. Not that I have anything against them, it's just that I always know where the chainsaw is, and where it is going. I can't say that for all the things that fall out of trees. Chaps are pretty good in heavy underbrush, but they also bind up your legs on high stepping maneuvers, and they are certainly hotter in the summertime. Curiously, OSHA seems to require chaps for tree service workers, and I almost never see a tree crew wearing them in my area, even on the utility crews.