Small Chippers? Worth the effort/expense?

[Coconut]

Hello all,

I am thinking of getting a small chipper for the brush that I clear so often. In our climate, once a field goes fallow, small trees ("tan-tan" a legume and decent nitrogen-fixer) take over within 3 months and they will be 1.5" within 6 months. I usually whack these things off with the brush cutter and load them into the trailer, but chipping them might be economical, if the chipper doesn't suck.

But in my experience, small chippers are a disappointment. Is there a good one? Are there tricks to keeping them performing well?

Great site, first time poster.

Thanks.

[david shumaker]

The small chippers sold in stores are too slow for commercial work. I use a Vermeer 6" chipper for brush and limbs less than 6" in diameter. The chipper cost about $13,000, so you need enough cleanup jobs to justify buying one. I've seen some 4 and 5 inch chippers that can be towed but I've never used one. I think Northern Tool sells them.

[CkLandscapingOrlando]

I bought a small 10hp off crIGSLIST FOR 95 BUCKS USED WHAT LOOKS TO BE VERY LITTLE AND i THINK ITS GREAT.Lock ed the caps sorry.I use it for compost though not clean ups

[J&R Landscaping]

I've run a Brush Bandit 6" unit and for smaller limbs it does ok. I borrow it from another LCO when I need it. I myself am in the market for a 9" or 12" unit and have been looking for a good used one! I would check on Craigslist or ebay and grab a used machine with low hours. I don't see the point of buying such a small machine brand new. They do work well but your just so limited.

[P.Services]

look into a old chuck n duck. for around $3000 you can have a good machine.

[ed2hess]

These 10hp size chippers are for home owners making mulch or compost. Almost a playing around thing. I had a Troybilt and it was a solid built unit and cost close to $600.

[Chris B.]

look into a old chuck n duck. for around $3000 you can have a good machine.


I agree, invest in more shirts though, you could easily go home without one anytime you use it. LMAO

[P.Services]

I agree, invest in more shirts though, you could easily go home without one anytime you use it. LMAO

thats because you dont have the duck part down!!! :laugh::laugh:

the key is to duck then roll under the feed table then two fast rolls the the right and bam!! when done right it looks like james bond is working on the tree crew.

[corey4671]

I rented one of the 6" Vermeers about three weeks ago when I trimmed some Crape Myrtles....28 of them to be exact.
Spent the day trimming and then rented the chipper the next morning. It's $75 for a half day. I had them all chipped up and the chipper returned in three hours. I estimate there was enough brush there for about four or five trailer loads and I barely filled the back of my truck with the mulch from chipping them.

[SLC, LLC]

Corey -
I bought one a couple of years back. Found a good used powerful unit for like $3000.00. We do not do a lot of tree work, but if you have a little extra cash to part with - these things are extremely handy to have around!

[txgrassguy]

I was given an older recoil start, manual feed chipper by a neighbor.
Took me less than an hour to get it running.
My landscape crew uses it when hedge, shrub and Crape Myrtle tree trimming.
What used to fill a 20' trailer now ends up being about 1 yard of mulch I use in my vehicle/trailer parking area to keep dust down.
This little chipper isn't used for our tree jobs though just the landscape clean ups.
What I instituted as a process is for the trimming to start then one of the crew breaks off as the grounds clean up guy and can easily keep up with the two trimming.
Has really knocked down on the time/effort to load and secure the large amount of debris generated from clean ups.

[corey4671]

that's the thing...I don't do enough to justify dropping that kind of cash on a piece of equipment that'll just sit around. Its not a high demand piece from the rentals store so I can pretty well get it when I need it. Maybe some day I'll break dwon and buy one but no real need for it right now.

[J&R Landscaping]

Those little machines are very handy to have around. Back in October, we had some rain that changed to snow. It was a heavy snow and brought a lot of brances and some whole trees down. Borrowing that 6" unit made quick work of cleaning up and put some decent money into the bank.
IMO, If you buy a brand new 6" chipper for $13000 or so, it should take 5-7 of those little storms and it should be really close to paid off.

[White Gardens]

Here's what I would buy. I've heard nothing but good things about them. I would get the 9 horse honda.

http://www.patriot-products-inc.com/products.htm#eleccsv

[Ramairfreak98ss]

I bought an 8hp simplicity "home owner" one 3 years ago, i hardly use it though ever.. It only takes 3" and the limbs have to be completely straight. So the preperation to feed the machine isnt worth the time.

Not only that but you have to fight the machine to take the wood, so you have shaken hand syndrome after a few hours even with gloves. were looking to just get a 7-8k hydro feed PTO bear cat chipper for the tractors this coming year. We dont do that much were we have to tow a chipper all over. Anything that large i can just trailer the tractor and chipper with us. Otherwise we bring it all back to our place in the trailers and then can split it and chip up what we need to.

[ed2hess]

We got a Vermeer chipper that sat the entire year. Much much faster and easier to just cut the stuff up put it in the trailer and haul it to mulch guys. We did one big job that had maybe 50 trailer loads and we rented the bigest vermeer we could find and shot it into big long dumpters. That went well. Still say the 10hp units are good for playing around with making compost and that is all.

[Coconut]

Thanks everyone for the insights!

I have friends with the bigger style of chipper, I am thinking of something in the under-20 hp range simply to save me a trip to the landfill now and then. I find myself hauling a lot of small but bulky debris needlessly.

[2 clowns mowing]

i started out with a small troybilt found i had to break up the limbs first to fit machine. second i bought a mackissic 3 1/2" worked well but still had to break it down first. the i bought a eliet mfg super prof 2000 wheel drive. wow what a machine. 5.5"x20" shreader with hyd feed and self propelled. shreads into a conveyor and dumps into my dump truck can do a large pile in less than an hour. i've had it for 300 hours and no breakdowns yet! only replaced teeth once has 24 blades turning at 3600 rpm's. 18 hp engine. can buy them in track drive and they have smaller models available. check them out at www.elietmachines.com

[regl]

Interesting shredders. How much do they cost?

[Michael J. Donovan]

I thought I would bump this back up and also let you know that we do have a Tree forum as well now - www.treeservicessite.com - thought you may want to start up a discussion there as well

[JS Landscaping]

I would not even bother with any of the smaller chippers with a capacity under 6". You can find a used Bandit 65 or a small vermeer of that size for a pretty good price. Some of them come with 4cyl Wisconsin Gas motors on them, they chip pretty well for the smaller stuff. I wouldnt waste my time or money trying to fight with a home owner style chipper. Besides not looking professional, those things can not be productive with a 10HP motor. Your best bet is to rent a small bandit or vermeer, unless you are going to be using it quite a bit, then buying one might be an option.
You can also look at the older chuck and duck's as mentioned before, there are always a ton of them for sale, asplundh was one of the big makers of them. The key with those is to keep the knives sharp and your bed anvil gap correct and they will chip extremly fast with the smaller stuff.
Got big stuff to do? Go rent a Bandit 1890XP, we have 2 of them at work as well as a 250xp, the 1890's are one bad a** machine. Whole tree? No problem in it goes and out the chips fly.

[topsites]

I wouldn't use a chipper that takes anything less than 6" either, really I would
prefer a foot in diameter but they do get pricey, still it's a thing if by the time
I have to cut off all the small branches anyhow...
The big chippers save not just time on-site but also there's less chain dulling.
I'm working on a job right now with about 20 smaller trees, 2-3 cedars, gone through 3 sharp chains already...
Lucky me I'm almost done, and I did think about a chipper, but a big one.

Granted it would save me a haul (or 3) since chips take up less space, but when in terms of on-site
labor it's all the same and I still have to run back home to ready up more sharp chains, phhhh...

So I find most of the smaller ones are mostly a waste of time, there's just
something about feeding a whole tree into one of those things :p

[Marek]

I priced out a Bandit 150 that was pretty decked out , 25,500. We rent the same several times a yr for 400 a pop plus a fuel charge. My father in law found a Bandit 90 that had less than 300 hrs on it but had a bad cylinder, he got it for 1k and put 2 k into it and it runs great. He says we can use it whenever we want but I dont like to barrow things. There have been several times over the years that we had big storms come thru . If we knew they were going to be bad we would call the day in advance and reserved 12" chippers that way the guys who just showed up at the rental place were out of luck . Here a big wind storm can be more profitable than a snow storm.We will add one over the next couple of yrs, nothing like having your own stuff.