Home owner wood chipper?

[Mustang71]

Does anyone own one of these? I tried to buy one today for 160$ for the 5hp 3 inch chipper but I was to late. I have branches scattered all over my property and more to come. I could really use a lot of wood chips and a lot of less branches laying around. My new chicken coop is almost done and I'll need wood chips every year. Anyone have one of these and have anything to say about them?

 

[siouxindian]

give us a link to the chipper.

 

[svk]

I’ve heard less than stellar reviews on the small ones FWIW.

 

[old CB]

I'm pretty sure that if you are looking to clean up branches on your property you'll find a little homeowner wood chipper to be very frustrating. For the time, energy, and expense involved there's better methods. Load your pickup with branches and find a drop-off spot. Many municipalities have places that convert such material to mulch.

Those little homeowner chippers might handle your garden trash, but little more. Wood chipping, like wood cutting, requires super sharp knives and real power. I've seen a few of the homeowner machines but never heard anyone speak favorably about them.

Speaking as someone who operates an 80-hp diesel powered chipper, you'd be surprised to see what it takes to turn branches into chips. If all you have to deal with are forsythia bushes of maximum 1/2" diameter, buy a homeowner chipper. For anything more you'll need the real thing. Go to Home Depot (or elsewhere) and rent a 6" chipper. If nothing else, it will give you an understanding for what it takes to reduce limb wood to chips.

If you need wood chips for your chickens, you probably have arborists nearby who would love to dump you off a load. Disposing of chips is a regular cost (and pain in the ass) in the trade.

 

[Mustang71]

I'm pretty sure that if you are looking to clean up branches on your property you'll find a little homeowner wood chipper to be very frustrating. For the time, energy, and expense involved there's better methods. Load your pickup with branches and find a drop-off spot. Many municipalities have places that convert such material to mulch.

Those little homeowner chippers might handle your garden trash, but little more. Wood chipping, like wood cutting, requires super sharp knives and real power. I've seen a few of the homeowner machines but never heard anyone speak favorably about them.

Speaking as someone who operates an 80-hp diesel powered chipper, you'd be surprised to see what it takes to turn branches into chips. If all you have to deal with are forsythia bushes of maximum 1/2" diameter, buy a homeowner chipper. For anything more you'll need the real thing. Go to Home Depot (or elsewhere) and rent a 6" chipper. If nothing else, it will give you an understanding for what it takes to reduce limb wood to chips.

If you need wood chips for your chickens, you probably have arborists nearby who would love to dump you off a load. Disposing of chips is a regular cost (and pain in the ass) in the trade.

I have a tree company coming next week to cut a couple ash trees hanging over my house. Hes dropping me off a dump truck load of wood chips. He seemed happy to do it lol.

 

[Mustang71]

give us a link to the chipper.

It was a used 5hp on Facebook market place.

 

[Sandhill Crane]

Good thing you missed it.
I bought a used DR 18 hp chipper.
It did up to 2" well, 2 1/2" at best with soft wood.
It was work using it if the branches on the stuff your chipping radiate at 90°.
Really had to work those into the in-feed or use a lopers and break them down.
I doubt 5 hp would be worth the trouble.

 

[Ted Jenkins]

I have been thinking about getting a chipper on the small side for up to 3'' limbs. I have no way to check some thing out until I actually buy one. I would not be interested in paying more than $1000 for one. I can easily buy a unit that can chip up to 6'' reasonably priced. I would like some some thing that will fit in the back of a pickup. I had one that had about a 7 HP BS motor which worked OK, but at that time working with the USFS they wanted limbs just scattered. I took piles of dry brush and drove over them with my crawler leaving a nice looking landscape. Thanks

 

[Multifaceted]

I got an old MTD chipper/shredder with a 6hp Briggs engine from my father-in-law a few years ago. Didn't run, ended up rebuilding it, taking off the flywheel cutter, sharpening the blades, fixed the engine and got it running. The thing is, the cutting wheel, at least on this one, was direct drive. So when you pulled the recoil to start you in turn had to rotate the flywheel cutter. I would snap cords left and right just trying to get it started with all of those masses rotating. Ended up cutting out the recoil and starting it with a pneumatic driver to get it started. You would need to run crap all day to get any amount of usable chips, and unless you had some sort of catching net or container, the chips would be sent out at such high velocity that you'd spend more time cleaning them all up because they would spread all over the place. I found it much easier just to burn brush and limbs, then again, we don't really have use for wood chips. I ended up dismantling the entire thing down to just the engine, scrapping all of the steel housing and components. The engine now starts up with a new recoil effortlessly. No idea what to do with a horizontal shaft 6hp Briggs engine, but it's still sitting in my shop until I come up with an idea.

Homeowner grade chipper/shredders just seem underpowered and pretty much ineffectual, IMHO.

 

[Mustang71]

Good thing you missed it.
I bought a used DR 18 hp chipper.
It did up to 2" well, 2 1/2" at best with soft wood.
It was work using it if the branches on the stuff your chipping radiate at 90°.
Really had to work those into the in-feed or use a lopers and break them down.
I doubt 5 hp would be worth the trouble.

That's what I was wondering. They all say up to 3 inches on them. I wanted to chip all these ash branches and 4 to 5 inch diamater stuff gets burned for fire wood. So it seemed like a good idea but if the 18hp dr had a workout with 2 1/2" stuff then I bet a 5 hp would really struggle. If the branches burned right from the tree I'd burn them while I cut.

 

[rarefish383]

On those little machines, green and dead wood make a huge difference too. I took down a Maple in my friends front yard. His neighbor had an ancient Craftsman 10 HP. It did amazingly well on the green stuff. Dead branches, you had to push all the way through. Having grown up behind a 16 inch Asplundh chipper, with a 300 CI Ford inline 6, I'm not real impressed with homeowner grade stuff. I have been thinking about one for the 3 point on my FEL, but my 3 cylinder 20 HP diesel is at the bottom end of what the machine calls for. You could always rent one of the little ones for a day just to see if it would do the small work you need done.

 

[Sandhill Crane]

Rarefish383 is right. A very small amount of what I did was dead sassafras. The DR machine did not like it one bit, even with brand new knifes in it.
I bought it used and resold it a year later when I was done with clearing one acre.

 

[fiasco]

When I worked at Homer Despot, the 5hp Made To Die chippers had a return rate above 50%, the 10hp still probably 10-20%. The hot ticket is to rent one of the tow-behind Vermeers. When I moved over to rentals, I found those were pretty good if you followed the directions (ease the belt drive into tension so you don't burn it up...changed a few of those).

I burn stuff. But if I couldn't, I'd do an annual rental of a chipper instead of fussing with a little chipper.

 

[rarefish383]

I like the Vermeer BC1000, I think it will take up to 10 inches. I used to pull it with my 96 Dodge 1500. The last time I asked about it, they said I had to have a 2500 series truck. All of the rental places said the same thing. Some one must have had an accident in a 1500 and sued the rental company. I've used the Vermeer 6 inch. The feed hole is 6X6 and it does not have the oomph to fold limbs in, so you have to trim stuff pretty good. But, it is a nice little machine. I used to rent a 10" Morebark with a 25 or 28 HP air cooled diesel. With the self feed, I'd drag whole trees 30' long up to it, get them started, and by the time I got the next one, the first was gone. Great little machine. The owner of the rental place I dealt with promised if he ever sold one of the two he had, he would call me. He bought two of the BC1000's when they first came out and sold the two diesels.

 

[Mustang71]

On those little machines, green and dead wood make a huge difference too. I took down a Maple in my friends front yard. His neighbor had an ancient Craftsman 10 HP. It did amazingly well on the green stuff. Dead branches, you had to push all the way through. Having grown up behind a 16 inch Asplundh chipper, with a 300 CI Ford inline 6, I'm not real impressed with homeowner grade stuff. I have been thinking about one for the 3 point on my FEL, but my 3 cylinder 20 HP diesel is at the bottom end of what the machine calls for. You could always rent one of the little ones for a day just to see if it would do the small work you need done.

I had an f150 when I was 16 with the 300 straight six lol. Those had some torque. I was looking at the pto chipper for my 23 hp tractor but the price tag is to much. I keep pushing and dragging branches into the woods. Once all these ash trees are cut this wooded 5 acres is going to look like a waste last and be a fire hazard. My local homedepot doesn't rent anything but renting a chipper might be the best idea.

 

[Sandhill Crane]

Renting didn't work for me, as it was an ongoing project, dropping a few and cleaning up, repeat. I started dragging and stacking, thinking I'd rent a chipper and knock it out. It was slow going and a lot of walking/tugging/piling. As the piles got wider and taller, it was obvious even with all the butt ends aligned, chipping was going to be a pain as well. Certainly not a one day rental.
Buying new wasn't going to happen.
I started looking in MarketPlace online and found the DR, knowing I would sell it when done.
If you can, buy something used, and a bit bigger. They are out there, people doing what I did, buy/use/resell after the project is done, maybe a year or two down the road.

 

[nathan4104]

it's nice reading everyone's thoughts and experiences. i'm trying to decide on buying a PTO powered unit for the tractor. I have a bunch to clean up, can't rent anything locally. Which also mean no one else can either. Have put feelers out to see if people would hire it out, and pay to show up with it and have their brush chipped up. Burning solves a lot of people's piles, but some years/ this year, there are fire bans. And even though the dump takes it for free, that's a lot of time and hassle to load, unload and drive the distance to the dump..... Hoping i can justify the $3g+ to get a 6" size unit. I have 60hp at the pto.

 

[rarefish383]

I had an f150 when I was 16 with the 300 straight six lol. Those had some torque. I was looking at the pto chipper for my 23 hp tractor but the price tag is to much. I keep pushing and dragging branches into the woods. Once all these ash trees are cut this wooded 5 acres is going to look like a waste last and be a fire hazard. My local homedepot doesn't rent anything but renting a chipper might be the best idea.

My tractor is a Chinese NorTrac. Check out Circlegtractors. They have a self feed Jinma chipper that takes up to 8" for $1800. I started doing searches and found a bunch of Kubota owners that bought the Jinma and had nothing but good things to say about it.

 

[Big_Eddy]

I have a 4” ~$1500 chipper that I mount on my JD855. About 22 pto hp iirc.
Simply put. If it fits, it chips. I have been pleasantly surprised how well it works. The chipping funnel is narrow enough that it does take some stuffing to get large limbed stems in, but it does a pretty good job pulling things in. I put our 7’ spruce Christmas tree through it earlier this week with no trimming needed.

Honestly, it doesn’t get a ton of use, maybe 4 to 6 times a year, but it can demolish a huge qty of branches in an hour. I filled my 5’x8’ dump trailer with chips 2’ deep in under an hour this week. Probably 100 white pine limbs 6’-8’ long and 3-4” at the base.

I used to burn. Much faster and easier just to chip. No question at all. I’d buy it again in a heartbeat.

Got it from TSC (Canada).



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[muddstopper]

I used mine to chop corn for the chickens, it was worthless on brush much bigger than you finger. I gave it away.