[LeeH]

Had anybody bought a decent chipper and mulcher for around 500 pounds?

I'm anoying the neighbours trying to burn off all the wood and debries from my new overgrown grounds. 

Must be petrol. 

Thanks. 

[cloddopper]

Lee , I'm not sure that you can get a machine that will do both .

 Most chippers will not mulch soft green stringy plants and neither will a lot of garden mulchers .

Whilst I have a heavy duty electric chipper machine , here is what I've found out ..I strongly suspect it will also apply to an engine powered chipper .

 I've recently processed about 60 foot of tree line from next door's garden . It was the cuttings & prunings  that had come from their 24 foot tall Leylandi pruning's  ... they are now down to 9 foot tall ( they were planted 2 foot apart 12 years ago ).

 I had a lot of broad bean stalks , pea vines , comfrey , spent gladioli, finished tall flowers & all manner of garden weeds that Alison had pulled out .

The only way I could get to stop them turning to long bruised fibres  and wrapping round the shredder's gear type cutter was to feed a little of the green stuff in with each feed of Leylandi prunings.

Even then I had to stop & disconnect the machine a fair few tines to un bung it of the softer greenery that became so wrapped round the whole of the cutting mill /gear that it was just sliding over the pressure plate .
This meant that the teeth of the milling gear were covered in plant material so could not grip the thicker branches even if i pushed it hard down into the machine. .

As a result I've taken to drying the longer thicker green stuff on a wire frame raised well off the ground ,  so it loses almost all its water content .. they now shred lovely .
The smaller softer green weeds are being put as is into the composter bins .

It may help  to make a big heap of the softer stuff and let it compost under a weighted down plastic sheet till next spring and only chip the harder woods . Then come spring 2016  mix both heaps together along with plenty of cow byre cleanings inc straw or stable muck , wet it well as you build the heap , recover in sheeting and leave it to compost till spring 2017 or  spring 2017 .

[pgkevet]

I doubt £500 will be anywhere near enough.
I bought one that cost £2K and sounded like the real deal with both top and side hoppers on wheels. the top hopper feeds through hammers and is supposed to be for loose stuff. leaves etc with the side feed for upto 3" branches. It's a PITA.
It's wheelbase isn't wide enough so towing over anything except perfectly flat terrain and it tends to tip sideways. You have to be careful about feed rate in the wide top hopper or it clogs up and fr the side feed branches.. well they all have to be trimmed first (trimmings through the top) then rammed in manually. If branches aren't reasonably straight then they won't go. You also have to keep shovelling the exit area clear.

It will do the job but you end up spending ages recutting all that brash to do it. keeping th exit clear and wheeling it on a  few feet for more space. A decent 6ft by 6ft by 6ft pile will take all day to sort. So if I do do a proper amount of cutting down ... say a felling a medium tree or ripping out invading shrubbery then it ends up piled and buned or consider hiring the stuff the arborists use where you just check the whole raggedy branch at the feed rollers. But I'd guess they'd be about £200 for a day and cope with a barn sized pile.

I do use it for the autumn simple pruning stuff and the end result is nice but not the sort of job where you go out to play wth your toy.. the sort of job where you go out hating the darned machine

[LeeH]

Thank you both for you in depth reply.  Looks like it won't happen then, I'll just have to burn real late at night when everybody is indoors. 

I found this on fleabay but it's Chinese and not a lot of information on the web. 


 http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=281784831231&globalID=EBAY-GB

[devonlady]

My great nephew has been clearing a large garden and hired a petrol driven chipper for a weekend (Friday night 'til Monday morning) it did a really good job and the hire cost was £60. He was also moaned at by neighbours about bonfires though looked at the government web site concerning burning in a garden and discovered a lot of surprises and debunked a lot of myths about it.
He was told that burning was only allowed between 8pm and 6am...rubbish, you may burn at ant time providing the smoke doesn't impede a public highway and you are not burning anything noxious. It would be a courtesy to tell neighbours that you are going to burn in case of washing on the line etc. but as long as you are only burning wood how can anyone object!

[cloddopper]

You still have to take in to account the antisocial behavior angle for living in a community .
The law might allow something but if enough naybrayers decide to get up & start yorping  saying your doing it on a regular basis to the councils enforcement officers , make an official complaint and do the follow up actions .
You could end up with a fine up to around £ 2 k , 2 yrs jail ,  an ASBO type order and a criminal record if you don't desist .
It could also be classed as a dispute between neighbours and affect the selling of all of your houses thus resulting in folk trying to sue for their losses if they can't sell easily or have to accept a reduced offer .

[regen]

"I found this on fleabay but it's Chinese and not a lot of information on the web.  "

Dont bother- they block up with softer green material and the 1 inch plus material must be straight to get any sort of feed going. Exit blocks up as not high enough from ground and falls over due to narrow wheel base. uses huge amount of fuel to do not much and will regularly break down/fall to bits.

Mine was £499 about 4 years ago and it has stood in the corner of the barn for the last 3 years quietly rusting away!

Regen

[kingnigel]

m.ebay.co.uk/itm/201443294380

i bought a camon 150 chipper years ago second hand, its a fab piece of machinery, i paid i think about 650 quid for it, its been well worth it. same as in the link