Wood chipper

I am looking into buying a wood chipper for the property. Live on 2 acres and pretty wooded lot. Want a gas powered that I can tow around with my UTV. Anybody have any reviews or pros and cons on what to look for when buying. Don’t want to break the bank but willing to spend1-1.5k. Thanks

 

IME pile it and rent a $10,000 chipper for a weekend

I know that is not answer your looking for

 

I was thinking the same. If I only had two acres , which all can't even be woods if you have a house and yard there. I would rent a chipper ever few years when I wanted one and chip my pile I made, that or get by with a cheaper $500 one. You certainly can't be chipping that much stuff on that size property!

 

Too small, too cheap...those models don't work worth a poop!
I could have had one for free from my FIL a couple years ago...he bought it new and used it a couple times then it just sat in the garage for 20 years until he decided to get rid of it...he said I could have it if I wanted it...I clean the carb and got it running, so tried it out...no thanks! It only brought $50 at the auction...and it was a nice (not a cheapy) unit! Still looked brand new and the 8hp (10?) engine ran great!

 

Then that answers my dilemma. Pile it up til the wife bitches at looking at it and rent one. Problem solved.

 

Or make a burn pile and burn it. That's free. But you may live in a place that might not like smoke and freak out and keep calling the fire dept on you?

 

You’re avoiding so much disappointment with this route. I’m sure there’s some decent small chippers, but everyone I’ve known who has bought one is disappointed. You’ll fight with it all day long to chip way less than you anticipated. Can’t imagine you have anything of much size to chip, but even if you rent like a 6” Vermeer pull behind chipper for what you’re describing, you’ll be done by lunch if it has sharp knives. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

 

Rent is good advice. My Pop has I think a 7.5 horse jobby. Very unimpressive for anything bigger than a thumb sized branch. I think the PTO powered units are good, but need a tractor and probably more money to purchase.

 

A number of years ago, I helped a friend of a neighbor up north chip up some pine branches. He rented a chipper; I think it was a 16+ HP. It was a Koehler V-Twin IIRC. Thing worked well!

If you can stack it for some time and chip it in a day, you’ll be good.

Not that I’m one to shy anyone away from getting a new toy.

 

I agree with everyone that for that amount of money you will be disappointed.

 

Same as everyone else. Rent and be done in a day. The smallest chipper I'd consider using is one of the ~25 hp 6" rigs. Anything smaller and your wasting a lot of time and effort.

 

If you can’t pile and burn, maybe you can pile and hire a tree service with a good chipper to to do it. They’d probably make short work of it and might haul off the chips if you want. Maybe cheaper than renting a “real” chipper.
I bought a used 12” woodchuck high roller 1200 last summer for $6000 and it is a little rough looking but works pretty well. ( not really sure why I bought it)
Green stuff chips way different than dried.

 

While there are great subcompact chippers out of Europe in the sub 6”/25hp category they cost a lot more than 1.5k. This guy here just demoed one and is strongly considering buying one for his pruning oriented arborist operation. Who could that be:







That unit will actually shred just about any yard waste you can jam into it. Having shown a really cool subcompact chipper/shredder that costs 7 times your budget you’re probably gonna want to rent like everyone has already said.

If the Vermeer 6” chipper is all you can get your hands on make sure that you have your branches properly processed before you go and rent. The opening on that chipper is much smaller than other 6” chippers. You’re going to want to break down any wide branch unions/crotches as they will easily get jammed in the 6”x6” opening of that machine. If you can find a bandit 6” to rent go with that machine.

 

I've got a Woodmaxx DC1260 wood chipper. It works great! Self feeds, goes thru 4" stuff easily. We've chipped up to 5.5" by "burping" the chipper so it doesn't bog down. Highly recommend it.

 

I bought the Harbor Freight gas chipper and picked up a tow package on Amazon. It comes out of the barn 2-3 times a year. 2.5" is about all it will take. I do a lot of trimming during mowing season so I do end up with lots of branches. However, for the effort involved, I burn about as much as I chip. If I had to do it again, I probably wouldn't consider owning a chipper and do as others have suggested, which is to rent one.

 

$?

 

Do you recall what kind of wood it chipped at 5.5?

 

Hopefully your name isnt Richard Crafts!

 

you’re going to be into it for about 3k by the time you pay shipping and your Uncle gets his cut:

WoodMaxx DC-1260 Gas Powered Wood Chipper

they are decent units. I ran all sorts of wood through it. I started out with one several years ago. I did have trouble with knives on mine right out of the box. Had one fail after one branch. It was clearly a manufacturer defect in the knife. Woodmaxx didn’t see it that way. My unit went through belts pretty regularly. It did not like dry dead wood. For much more than light home owner use I wouldn’t recommend it unless you are handy.


Seriously just stage your branches with the butts all facing the same direction and you can chip a very large pile in less than 4 hours with a 6” rental unit.