I'd like to get a chipper for brush around my house. I'll probably use it <10 times a year, so I'm not looking for a pro grade machine. Any recommendations or words of wisdom?
Was not very impressed with the Yardmax 7hp unit. Disclosure: Have not been around many of them. Best insight I have.
I have a chipper that hooks up to my tractor PTO and has hydraulic infeed. It cost me 3500. I.e. it is the exact opposite of what you want. It's BARELY adequate. I would not recommend buying a consumer chipper. Find another way to process your sticks.
I went through a couple of chippers ranging from 8 to 14HP, they all sucked, than I found a DR chipper with a 19hp Kawasaki engine and it is barely worthy to be kept around. I would consider it a decent homeowner grade chipper. no where near a professional grade at all.
The DR are decent. Bare minimum for sure. To break it down further, the reasons why consumer chippers suck is because: - They lack the flywheel weight to actually work; you need a minimum of about 100lb flywheel weight to do anything with even 2" hardwoods - They lack the actual power. Mostly relates to above, but there is no replacement for displacement and you want like 10 horsepower minimum. Keep in mind the point of a chipper is to mostly bridge the gap between trash and firewood. - Their blade and anvil material are inferior alloys. A decent set should run a couple hundred by itself - They lack the frame stiffness to hold all that together and to the correct tolerances - They usually lack powered infeed which means you spend all day force-feeding the unit. And even for the ones with powered infeed, they lack the throat capacity to get any real work done. It's not about accepting a 5" log, it's about accepting 50" of brush without clogging up
https://files.catbox.moe/arcmod.jpg Here's a bonus shot of me setting the tolerances on the cutters on mine. Look at all that heavy gauge steel. This thing is barely adequate lol
Just one more thing, while I'm thinking about it this; free mulch from your woodchipper is awesome but it's not as great as you might think. I can get a bag of mulch from Ace for like 3 dollars or whatever. Most of the trash you feed a chipper means you get really subpar mulch out of it, and then you have to deal with the garbage mulch. I blade it around behind my garage and one day it will make a really swell garden, but it's something else to deal with. If I want to make high-quality cedar mulch I have to basically create a side pile while I'm clearing woods and stack only the premium branches specifically for that purpose. It's about a 5:1 ratio for me.
Define homeowner grade? After being an arborist for the last 25 years I’ve spent my share of time chipping brush. I’ve run everything from the classic whisper chipper (the good ol chuck n duck) all the way up to 19” triple axel monster units. If you’re talking the little chipper/mulcher units with sub 10hp engines I’d say forget it. They aren’t worth your time. It’s better to pile the brush and rent a commercial chipper every couple years. That is if you cannot just have a bonfire and skip the chipping all together because chipping branches sucks no matter what machine you use. Heck even hauling it to a yard waste recycling center is preferable. Having said that, I’ve been super happy with my woodmaxx Mx9900 pto chipper. With 30 pto horse power it will eat up to a 9” branch. But I think I would put this unit in the “pro-sumer” or light commercial category.
I have a MacKissic, Mighty Mac 12PT1100. I'm thinkin I've had it about 10-11 years now. This year I replaced a couple of tires on it, a few years ago my son made an extra set of hammers for the shredder and a couple of extra knives for the chipper. I haven't had to replace the hammers or knives yet, (I have sharpened the knives a couple times) I have 2 wooded acres and I have put a lot of brush through the Mac. One time I had a brush pile over 60 feet long about 7 feet tall probably 10 ft wide, that took a few days, but the Mac got rid of it. For a homeowner chipper/shredder, I am very satisfied with the MacKissic. I think it is built very well and is very serviceable.
Just my .02¢ . What ever you decide to go with, don't run with dull blades and don't forget about the anvil. It's pretty important to watch the gap between the knives and anvil. Angle of the grind also effects the feeding and kickback.
I have an Echo Bearcat SB5670. Honda 20 hp chipper shredder, stand alone unit , chipper portion 5x5" intake, shredder up to 1" branch size this about a 18x20 craw for input. not a cheap unit when i got this a number of years ago it was $8k. it is a gravity feed never had to push anything. They make a couple other models as well. I never have had it jam up. I have had smaller units always were lacking, jamming all the time. Tractor PTO driven have to watch out for reqiured HP at pto, just like the pto tillers.
There are certain tasks that require not skimping on a tool. wood chippers are one such time. you’d be better off and plan on doing two chipping sessions a year, spring and fall. and renting a REAL machine like a Vermeer 1600 and doing the job quicker, easier and less expense. You’ll find you can reduce larger wood you’d otherwise not be able to and put more back into the ecosystem. I’d love to burn this pile, but eventually I’ll chip it and turn it into mulch instead to put it all back into the yard. It’s the branches off the 4 trees. it’s why I’ve been getting monster brushhawg for reclaiming the yard grounds because I’m just mulching the branches instead of cleaning them up and then chipping them and then spreading them out again. That’s an 84” Diamond Pro-X brushhawg and the machine to run it. It ate up and spit out trees to like 10”. When they say “stay clear 300’…”. They are not joking. This reduced so much of 20 years of deadfall. I did in an afternoon what would have been 6 months of manual labor or more. Probably $45,000 for the mower and another $85,000 for the machine. Cost me $350 to rent it for a day. Now I get by with a 66” Bobcat brushcat that lets me get into smaller/ tighter places and still munchers stuff to 4-5” diameter. I can run this on my Bobcat 773G no issues. This costs me $150 a 24-hour period. I’ve used it three times this year total.
If I needed one, this would be the minimum that I would be after. In reality, I would end up renting a pull behind unit as needed.
I have 2 bearcat chippers. One I put a 10hp electric motor on it and it works ok now. At least it's able to work out a plug without killing a engine. The other is a PTO drive 5540 iirc and I'm quite happy with it. It can out shred the capacity of it's blower though.
I agree for the average homeowner with a large rural lot renting is the smart move. It would take a lot of one day rentals at once per year to equal the cost of the mx9900. I have a Vermeer 935 with a 50 hp perk-apiller diesel in it. It’s not the smallest commercial unit as there are many 6” chippers out there. However, a 9” is about the smallest I’d want to run. The wodmaxx 9900 will chip right with the Vermeer 935 though. I’ve been pleased with it. The main benefit to me is I can bring tractor and chipper in one trip and have all the tools I need to complete my clients projects.
This is a point I make every day to clients. The chips from their removals or pruning projects are a valuable byproduct that they should keep. Once I explain the soil building benefits they typically agree.
