I have to drive 40 minutes to get to my landfill. So somtimes I pile brush at my shop and deal with it later. Thinking of buying a wood chipper- not those $20,000 one you see a tree man pulling- but not one of those sears $1000 ones. Is there a nice chipper out there for about $3000. How much maintenace is invoved in a chipper. I know alot of you are going to say just rent one.- I'm limited to space at my shop and would have to rent one every month, sometimes more. Plus if I owned one I would probably use it more.
I doubt you will find anything other than a heavy duty homeowners model for 3K. I think anything that would be worth your while will cost at least 10K, unless you get lucky and find a great used one. What I do is I have a good freind who is a tree man and if I do a job where we cut up a lot of brush I arrange that we do the job in the morning and pile the brush neatly at the curb and my freind comes later in the day and runs it through his chipper and he hauls it away. He rarely charges me over $100. This is cheaper for me than renting and I don't have to worry about disposal either.
If you buy a smaller, cheaper one, you will soon outgrow it. I am in agreement with renting or hiring someone to do it for you. Then you don't have to worry about maintenance, storage, insurance, etc. But, if you are in need of a chipper several times a week it would be beneficial to buy a big one.
I used to own a Craftsman 8 Hp Chipper/Shredder. It was made by Garden Way, Inc at the time. It was the stand up type; did only chipping and shredding. It was not the type with a hose for sucking up leaves. I used it for many years with no problems and actually, no maintanence. You have to remember, even the homeowner models don't get a lot of use. You can chop up a very large pile of brush in no time so you should get pretty good service out of one. Which brand did you have in mind? How much is it?
I personally would rent one if possible. Pile up as much as you can stand the rent the shredder. Just a thought... Tim
I have 6 different chippers and they are all useless. Way to small fo what I actually want to use them for. I know they say will chip 5" but it's bull if there is a crook in the branch it won't pull it in. We do use the vac one for hedge clean up but the rest just sit there waiting for the next sucker to come along. If you can buy a big one and try before you buy if possible.
Check these out...We own the 16HP tow behind model - IT'S AWESOME!!! www.chip.com follow the link to chippers. Right now they have pre-season sale LIST= $2999.00 Sale = $2549.15. Call or email and request the free video - see for yourself. BTW - we re-sale the chipped wood mulch - goes towards paying for itself in addition to the NO MORE TRIPS to the dump and fees savings. -=KC=-
