I have a nice 40' x 10' x 10 pile right now since i have the luxury of space, last county I lived in had a residential brush drop off though, free. $500-800 for a single purpose device once a year is pretty steep to me. You'd be well on your way to a multi-purpose trailer for hauling the brush at that point.
my .02
I picked up the HF chipper for $400 on sale. I've used it for four weekends and I've lent it to a neighbor whom I owed a favor, so I figure it's paid for itself already. I've considered making it available to other neighbors to rent to try to make my money back, but we'll see.
40x10x10 is a pretty serious project! Way more than I've needed to chip.
P3PPY said:I have a nice 40' x 10' x 10 pile right now since i have the luxury of space, last county I lived in had a residential brush drop off though, free. $500-800 for a single purpose device once a year is pretty steep to me. You'd be well on your way to a multi-purpose trailer for hauling the brush at that point.
my .02
My county used to accept brush and tree trimmings, but since the apocalypse, they accept it no longer. Dunno if and when things will get back to normal, but I wouldn't be holding my breath, I'd be taking action.
I have (and have had) MTD re-branded chippers with an eight (I think) HP engine. They work pretty good when new. They are loud. Some wood chips up better when green. Yes, it can be tough to jam branches down the chute. But you do learn quickly how fast you can feed them. When the blades are sharp it is amazing how the machine will take the branches from you when fed. And the machines are loud. The chipper will turn small branches and stick plus leaves into small piles of leaf sheddings and chips. You will need a bag also, the chippers I have had tend to want to shoot the shredded pieces across the yard while simultaneously digging a small hole under the outlet chute.
Scott
I bought a used crafstman that looks like this one (now shown as discontinued at HD) off of craigslist for $200. Best money I have ever spent. As long as you recognize the limitations, it works fine. Dramatic bends in branches will have to be cut. You aren't going to feed a J shaped branch through any small chipper.
If your municipality (or an adjacent one) has a mulch site, problem solved. Where I live there are two sites in town that you can drag yard waste to and they'll turn it into mulch, which citizens can take if they want it (but it's pretty gnarly, so I usually buy the commercial stuff). It's less of hassle to throw stuff in the truck and dump it out a few times a year than it is to chip/shred it (which creates its own waste issues).
My wife and I have two Honda Fits and a 280z. None of which are crappy enough that I'd want to haul brush in them. And I have no place to haul it to anyway.
I would use a chipper shredder a few times a week. Today I picked up enough sticks to fill half of a 40 gallon garbage can and I have three other 40 gallon cans that I've filled over the last week or so. Renting something once a year wouldn't cut it because in not going to make a huge, ugly pile of brush in my yard that hangs around for 12 months.
Looks like I'm going to go with the Harbor Freight chipper in the next few days.
Sheesh, man, that's a lot of sticks. Sycamores or something?
In reply to P3PPY :
One 60 foot sycamore, three 90 foot oaks and a crap ton of 40 to 60 foot maples.
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