Our old wood chipper has been just too hard to keep running, so it was time to retire the devil. These are not inexpensive items, but we really do benefit from having one of these around. We are committed to composting as well and so I chose one that will reduce the volume to about a 15:1 ratio.
What’s more, this one has a vacuum hose that we can use to slurp up leaves in the fall. If it works as I hope, we can save ourselves a few hundred dollars a year on leaf removal.
This piece of equipment seems a fair bit lighter than the devil and it has a more powerful motor. I did the assembly over the course of about an hour. I filled it with oil and made it ready for work.
When it arrived, we had a ponderous pile of yard debris already queued up to chip. This would be a good first test of the new machine. We had removed three ancient heavenly bamboo, two massive rhodies, a prehistoric butterfly bush and a whole bunch of lilac, blackberries and some viburnum.
We had the pile down to size in about 90 minutes.
The remaining question is what to do with the old one. It makes sense to me to see if I can get the engine running better. There is some potential sell it for a few bucks to someone if I can get it at least that far along. On the other hand, do I need one more project?