Recommended Garden Shredders, Please

[Ferdinand]

I have just had the salutary experience of a skip only absorbing about half as much brashing as expected, despite careful packing. SO I may need another skip, or an alternative.

 

So I am starting to wonder about shredders, for better packing next time and to be able to fit a lot more into the garden waste bin.

 

My need is to be able to shred material from hedges and trees up to the size I can cut myself ... if it is a big tree the treeman will bring a tow along shredder. Mine needs to go in the back of a car.

 

As far as I can see for electrics there are a lot of shredders with 50l or so collector bins with power around 2500w, which can style themselves 'quiet'. AN example may be the Makita UD2500, and a *lot* seem to have the same chopper mechanism. A!ongst these lighter duty ones, a Qualcast is available at £99 - 40% off - from Argos.

 

http://www.argos.co.uk/product/7305100

 

At the other end there is something like the Bosch AXT 25 TC, with three times the throughput using a Multibladed Turbine mechanism which is more robust, and quieter, but typically costs £400. Best deal I can see is £379 including a free pair of loppers.

http://www.garden4less.co.uk/bosch-quiet-garden-shredder-2500W-axt-25-tc.asp

 

PEtrol ones seem to be quite a lot more, and I am not sure if they go in a car.

 

Comments and recommendations are very welcome.

 

Ferdinand

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

Whatever you shred wont need to be skipped will it? You can suppress weeds with the mulch. So £400 could be seen as a bargain, provided you stick to shredding. 

I find the only way to do that is to employ a teenager: I can't stand the job.

[Triassic]

A neighbour and I hired  a Timber Wolf industrial shreader for a weekend for £75. We shredded brash and trees up to four inch in diameter. Well worth the money.

[MikeSharp01]

My experience is that you will be disappointed with an electric shredder as 2.5Kw is nothing, and they take forever to swallow even slightly engorged leaf stems. They often do not have simple ways of replacing, sharpening, the cutters - just disappointing. That timberwolf @Triassic had might have been 70Hp (50Kw) and will mince up branches all day and spit them a couple of meters into a big bag. My advice would be to get a second hand petrol one or hire as needed.

1 hour ago, recoveringacademic said:

I find the only way to do that is to employ a teenager: I can't stand the job.

Are these the little fellow we used to send up Chimneys?

[le-cerveau]

Exactly the same experience as @Triassic, I was taking down the leylandii that used to form our side border (30ft high) and shredding the branches, our neighboure lend us an electric shredder, and it was hopeless, so I hired a petrol driven one and it made mincemeat of the branches.

[ProDave]

Am I the only one reading this and thinking bonfire?

 

That's what happens to our hedge trimmings.

[Jeremy Harris]

28 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Am I the only one reading this and thinking bonfire?

 

That's what happens to our hedge trimmings.

 

 

After many years of battling with people lighting bonfires, and filling our valley with smoke, we've finally had them banned.  This summer has been great - no more having to sit indoors with all the windows and doors shut because some thoughtless pillock has decided that a nice, calm, sunny day is just the time to light a bonfire and fill the valley with smoke for a few hours.

 

The odd thing is that there had been a long campaign to get bonfires banned on the ground of the smoke nuisance, but the thing that swung it in the end was the increased volume of traffic on the road through the village, and complaints by drivers of severely decreased visibility.

[Stones]

My parents have a fairly large garden which produces fairly large volumes of cuttings and trimmings.  They use one of the electric shredders, but have to limit the size of anything freshly cut to a bare minimum.  They tend to let trimmings dry and leaves wither before they shred the stuff, to avoid jamming up the shredder. 

[jack]

For branches of any real size, I think petrol is a given.

 

We have one of the Bosch slow speed ones (the slightly smaller/older version of this). Instead of using a high speed blade to slash/chop, this uses a slow, high torque wheel with cutting blades on its outer rim. Mine can cut up about 1-1.25" from memory. It's very slow, but I can't tell you how satisfying it is watching one of these things slowly drag in and consume an entire branch.

 

Also, although it seems slow, it's amazing how much you get through. You tend to start one thing on its way, and while it's being drawn inexorably to its demise, you turn and get the next victim. Quite therapeutic in its own way...

 

Good for bushes, brambles, thinnings and small branches. It's also very, very quiet, unlike some of the high speed inertial ones.

[reddal]

We had a few acres of land that was completely overgrown with brambles and thick growth of everything else including some small trees - it was a completely impassable jungle. We wanted to get it cleared and asked a contractor what it would take - they said it would take a couple of weeks with plenty of machinery and would cost thousands of pounds (can't remember exact figure - but it was completely prohibitive).

 

Instead, we put proper stock fencing around the area and put a couple of pigs in it to see if they could make any impact. The result was within a couple of months they had cleared everything - brambles, bushes, even small trees!

 

Livestock can be a good way of clearing unwanted vegetation.

[Temp]

Have you looked at hiring a petrol shredder? Once the big stuff is gone it's gone so you may not need such a big one in future?

[Declan52]

I have a metal 50 gallon  drum that I use to burn any stuff I need. I cut it down let it dry out then burn it. Had a fire going most of yesterday. 

[ProDave]

5 hours ago, JSHarris said:

 

 

After many years of battling with people lighting bonfires, and filling our valley with smoke, we've finally had them banned.  This summer has been great - no more having to sit indoors with all the windows and doors shut because some thoughtless pillock has decided that a nice, calm, sunny day is just the time to light a bonfire and fill the valley with smoke for a few hours.

 

The odd thing is that there had been a long campaign to get bonfires banned on the ground of the smoke nuisance, but the thing that swung it in the end was the increased volume of traffic on the road through the village, and complaints by drivers of severely decreased visibility.

That shows the difference in location, and knowing how to be responsible.

 

It's rare for it to be dead still here for any length of time, and the population density is so low with so few houses around that having a bonfire need not be anti social.

[Ferdinand]

4 hours ago, Temp said:

Have you looked at hiring a petrol shredder? Once the big stuff is gone it's gone so you may not need such a big one in future?

 

Yes. Done that before.

 

On that occasion cut down 30 20 year old beaches and the beast shredded them in 2 hours giving me much less mulch than expected.

 

F

Edited June 22, 2017 by Ferdinand

[Ferdinand]

So .. bought one of the 2.8kw electric ones this morning for just around £90 (Qualcast / Argos), and it was happy to shred probably 80% of all the stuff.

Shredded some of the stuff already in the skip, which made enough space that the shredded remainder (except obvious fire wood) would fit in the space created thereby. @recoveringacademic will be keeping a couple of bulk bags full back so that I have some available if I need any.

 

The shredder is adequate for branches up to about 40mm, and just needs not to be driven too hard.

 

I can see me having this, and a secondhand lower end petrol powered one able to do things up to about 3-4" - and not one of the middle sized ones.

 

Thanks for all the help.

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited June 22, 2017 by Ferdinand