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toddheyn
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# Posted: 21 Feb 2012 06:04pm
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I am considering the purchase of a chipper for use at our cabin. I am torn though. Is it worth it to buy one of the chipper/shredders that are available at Lowes/Home Depot? They seem to have only a small capacity and are best suited for light yard work.
I would like to use this to chip the branches and saplings that I am clearing on my land to use as mulch on tree planting beds etc.
I can rent a large chipper (handles up to 6" stuff) for $125 for a full day. I just hate the thought of spending this money when I could own something for a bit more.
The smaller chippers sell for approx. $300-$500 new and are available used on Craigslist for $100-$200 all the time.
What are your thoughts? Are the box store models under sized and powered or am I just overthinking this?
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toyota_mdt_tech
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# Posted: 21 Feb 2012 06:56pm
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I own an 8HP chipper/shredder and have used it for years. Not much each year, but when I do use it, I run it all day. It makes a huge branch opile into a small pile of chips that decomposes quick. Before i removed all my maple trees, I'd use it for shredding leaves. If you buy it, you will use it over and over...
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Anonymous
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# Posted: 21 Feb 2012 07:42pm
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I would caution one against leaving anything of such value at your cabin if you are frequently away. Burglars might get it!
My cabin neighbor partially disassembles things to make them look non-working. Not nearly as attractive when it looks like it'll take work to fix it!
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MtnDon
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# Posted: 21 Feb 2012 07:53pm
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We own a chipper; I forget the name, but we got it thru Home Depot. 15 HP. Advertised as 4 inch capacity. If you have a close look at the chipper input port on virtually any make the port is oval. In our case 4 inches in the long direction, 3 inches in the smaller dimension. I had figured that out before we bought it so at least that did not come as a surprise after we took delivery.
It does chip very nicely, plenty of power. It really likes the sticks to be fairly straight and free of a lot of small protruding branchlets. We do make a fair amount of use making mulch. One that takes larger size branches would definitely be nice but are definitely more expensive. Personally I would not want a smaller one.
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brokeneck
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# Posted: 24 Feb 2012 11:02pm
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We own a small Home Depot type chipper -- works ok to chip up small branches but if you want to do any real clearing of brush a larger rental type unit is a must -- we cleared and chipped about 1/3 acre near the creek last spring -- -- pic is shows the type of growth we cleared
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Just
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# Posted: 25 Feb 2012 09:03am
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it is much better for the ecology of your property if you can let things stay were they fall but i under stand that is, not, always the case.
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brokeneck
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# Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:31pm
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I agree that keeping things natural is best -- but most of our land is vertical so we wanted to clear out what meadow we do have. The brush we removed was mostly bushes and scrub that grows near the creek. We used the chipped mulch on our paths to keep the grass down and keep the paths clearly marked so we would not trample new paths causing additional erosion.
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beulahfarkward
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# Posted: 25 Feb 2012 07:17pm
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We bought a used professional grade chipper as we have a lot of dead trees. A logger is taking all the tree trunks but we have A LOT of slash. The chipper will take anything about two inches and smaller. Bigger than that we use for fire wood. We are using the chips to spread on the road leading to the cabin. Looks nice too.
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sparky1
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# Posted: 26 Feb 2012 06:20pm
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I have a 8 HP one i bought Home Depot---i love chipping, I have cut expecially Gum & cedar & Pine---smell so good, I put them along the drive way, I also put the chips along the fence line,
sparky1
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brokeneck
Member
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# Posted: 27 Feb 2012 05:56pm
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Quoting: sparky1 i love chipping
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TomChum
Member
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# Posted: 28 Feb 2012 11:26am
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Quoting: brokeneck i love chipping
I bet sparky's chipper when he's chipping!
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Seto
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# Posted: 28 Feb 2012 04:30pm
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I have experience with a Vermeer BC600XL from work, they are great and we use it for stormdamage cleanup (6" capacity) a local hardware store rents the same machine for $125 a day, its a trailer size chipper, to buy one costs in the multiple thousands and maintenence isn't cheap. but we can chip 2 acres worth of brush in a day. if the rental is a similar machine and well maintained, and you only need it the one time i reccomend renting for the heavy duty. if you will need to use one over the course of several years in smaller batches then i reccomend renting.
personally when i cleared the place for my cabin i used a bow saw to everything over 2" as firewood, takes time but i have a 10 year supply, other saplings i used for fencing
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