Should I shred or should I burn?

[Pallet Fancier]

This year I have a lot of leaves and branches. More than usual. Didn't help that I did some long overdue pruning. And now the pile is bigger than I'm tall!

So, I speculated previously about getting a gucci smokeless woodburner so I have more opportunities to burn without smoking myself and the neighbours out. However, looking at this heap, I'm wondering if I'd be better off with a shredder.

However... seems you can't get a decent one for less than £400. The own-brand one on Screwfix comes with glowing reviews at the top of the page, but there are enough one stars, that talk convincingly about problems, that it makes me wonder if a good one that can handle branches with leaves still on can be had for cheap money. Recommendations welcome!

 

[Lorenzl]

By a coincidence I hired a shredder on Friday; a Viking 355 which retails at about £500.
As I say it was a rental so has probably been abused. I went for this one as it has a large tube without restrictions, and it was electric.
The first branch which was cut a couple of weeks ago and was no larger than 30mm diameter stalled the machine and blew the fuse.
I managed to get through quite a pile of new cut wood and bamboo in six hours but had to be careful not to strain it. If there was any bits left on the cutting disc it wouldn't start again which meant taking off the feed tube and clearing it.
Dry wood was scary as 20mm? pieces would stall the machine and they could rotate in the tube hitting your hand. Pieces were ejected ( 400mm long ) with quite a bit of force and were painful if your hand was in the way. Some were sent over 3m from the shredder. I had to push most of the pieces down and especially the banboo as the self feed wasn't great.
One piece even rotated and whacked me on the side of the head.

I was using a full face shield with ear protectors and I wouldn't recommend anything less.

 

[johna.clements]

Could you hire a shredder for the weekend. Do you have a place to compost the results.

 

[Spectric]

I use a Bosch, one of these Bosch AXT Rapid 2200 Corded 90kg/hr 2200W Electric Shredder | DIY at B&Q

It has been abused and had several blade changes but it still keeps going. I put all the shreddings into my compost bins and it will take a 40mm branch with leaves so long as you feed gently. When it starts to become hard work then you know it is time to change the blades, each blade is reversable so another pair of cutting edges and don't bother trying to sharpen. Also only buy genuine Bosch blades because they are what makes this machine work.

For collecting the shreddings I use a plastic flexy tub.

 

[Jacob]

Chopping by hand up to say 15mm dia prunings is easy and quicker than you might think, with a good sharp hatchet and an end-grain wood chopping block. Bigger stuff I do with the band saw.
Small stuff burn or compost, bigger stuff burn only.
Helps if you have a wide or long woodburner so you can get longer stuff in.

PS wood burning relatively smokeless if well dried, and small stuff dries quickly.

 

[Lorenzl]

Out of interest @Spectric I thought about buying that shredder but decided I wouldn't use it a lot so decided to hire instead. Anyway I found an interesting video on youtube to fix it if it keeps stopping after a few seconds. There is a doughnut shaped magnet on the end of the motor that breaks up. Something to remember if it happens to yours.

 

[recipio]

I have an older version the Bosch. It's fine for branches up to about 20 mm thick but you have to stand over it feeding them one by one. This type of shredder is useless for greenery like Leylandii branches. I'm looking to upgrade but all the heavy duty units use a propeller to chop the branches and as usual the more power the better.

 

[Jacob]

By a coincidence I hired a shredder on Friday; a Viking 355 which retails at about £500.
As I say it was a rental so has probably been abused. I went for this one as it has a large tube without restrictions, and it was electric.
The first branch which was cut a couple of weeks ago and was no larger than 30mm diameter stalled the machine and blew the fuse.
I managed to get through quite a pile of new cut wood and bamboo in six hours but had to be careful not to strain it. If there was any bits left on the cutting disc it wouldn't start again which meant taking off the feed tube and clearing it.
Dry wood was scary as 20mm? pieces would stall the machine and they could rotate in the tube hitting your hand. Pieces were ejected ( 400mm long ) with quite a bit of force and were painful if your hand was in the way. Some were sent over 3m from the shredder. I had to push most of the pieces down and especially the banboo as the self feed wasn't great.
One piece even rotated and whacked me on the side of the head.

I was using a full face shield with ear protectors and I wouldn't recommend anything less.

Trim the bigger stuff first with an axe and then band- saw it.
Reading the above - sounds like shredders are a complete PITA!

 

[Lorenzl]

Couple of problems with your idea @Jacob is I don't have an axe or bandsaw

I trimmed off the larger pieces with some long handled pruners and have them in a heap. I will either cut them up and put them in the wheelie bin or dry them ready for burning in our untried wood burner.
Since cutting them down I have purchased a small Makita chainsaw. The previous owner left the most of the back garden covered in piles of wood; a lot of it to rotten to use. The piles of wood are under the fresh cut wood.

 

[Spectric]

There is a doughnut shaped magnet on the end of the motor that breaks up. Something to remember if it happens to yours.

Mine has many parts missing, I now have to switch it on / off on my power lead as the switch on the actual machine gave up and so I just bypassed it as a replacement was not cost effective. Your choice will come down to patience, if you don't mind a leisurely day in your garden where you are making your compost beast happy with the shreddings then you need a commercial shredder. For compost the blade types are prefered over the grinders. Looking at your pile, if it was mine then I would cut out all the really large stuff over 45mm and put it somewhere as a bug house in the garden and then my Bosch would shred the rest with no problems, just feed gently and listen to the machine which will be noisy.

 

[Pallet Fancier]

By a coincidence I hired a shredder on Friday; a Viking 355 which retails at about £500.
As I say it was a rental so has probably been abused. I went for this one as it has a large tube without restrictions, and it was electric.
The first branch which was cut a couple of weeks ago and was no larger than 30mm diameter stalled the machine and blew the fuse.
I managed to get through quite a pile of new cut wood and bamboo in six hours but had to be careful not to strain it. If there was any bits left on the cutting disc it wouldn't start again which meant taking off the feed tube and clearing it.
Dry wood was scary as 20mm? pieces would stall the machine and they could rotate in the tube hitting your hand. Pieces were ejected ( 400mm long ) with quite a bit of force and were painful if your hand was in the way. Some were sent over 3m from the shredder. I had to push most of the pieces down and especially the banboo as the self feed wasn't great.
One piece even rotated and whacked me on the side of the head.

I was using a full face shield with ear protectors and I wouldn't recommend anything less.

Wow. That sounds like fun

 

[Pallet Fancier]

I use a Bosch, one of these Bosch AXT Rapid 2200 Corded 90kg/hr 2200W Electric Shredder | DIY at B&Q

It has been abused and had several blade changes but it still keeps going. I put all the shreddings into my compost bins and it will take a 40mm branch with leaves so long as you feed gently. When it starts to become hard work then you know it is time to change the blades, each blade is reversable so another pair of cutting edges and don't bother trying to sharpen. Also only buy genuine Bosch blades because they are what makes this machine work.

For collecting the shreddings I use a plastic flexy tub.

Interestingly, the same money would get me a gucci smokeless wood burner.

 

[Tris]

Couple of problems with your idea @Jacob is I don't have an axe or bandsaw

I trimmed off the larger pieces with some long handled pruners and have them in a heap. I will either cut them up and put them in the wheelie bin or dry them ready for burning in our untried wood burner.
Since cutting them down I have purchased a small Makita chainsaw. The previous owner left the most of the back garden covered in piles of wood; a lot of it to rotten to use. The piles of wood are under the fresh cut wood.

View attachment 144186

Could be worth putting the bamboo on Freecycle, someone may have a use for it on an allotment. The brash can be dealt with by making 3 or 4 H frames and fixing them to cross pieces so you can pile the brash into them. Rope the brash down and run the chainsaw through it to get useful lengths to burn or compost

 

[artie]

I think a gucci smokeless wood burner would be a very slow solution to your problem.

My nearest neighbour is a half mile away but I wasn't entirely comfortable burning a pile of hedge clippings similar in size to yours.

The smoke was blowing across the road.

I have considered getting a shredder but have not done any research.

How about putting them in a trailer and taking them to the council tip?

 

[clogs]

we've done a lot of pruning.....so borrowed my mates 5-8HP Viking petrol shredder....
"B" hopeless.....no power feed, had to feed by hand then the sticky out branches jammed the shoot up which was to high anyway....
he paid around £4000.....
and we'd already trimmed the thicker stuff for the wood boiler......
everything went on a V'V large bonfire.....I felt bad about the smoke at the start but it soon got burning cleanly.....
Had a hose nearby just in case....no neighbours for 1/2 mile....
unless u go professional they are a waste of space....

 

[Jacob]

Couple of problems with your idea @Jacob is I don't have an axe or bandsaw

Axe is cheap and small electric chain saw ideal for the bigger stuff. And a lot cheaper and faster than a shredder by the sounds of it!
You'd need a chopping block and a bit of a saw horse.
Smoke no prob if dry and fast burn with a good draught.

 

[johna.clements]

Axe is cheap and small electric chain saw ideal for the bigger stuff. And a lot cheaper and faster than a shredder by the sounds of it!
You'd need a chopping block and a bit of a saw horse.
Smoke no prob if dry and fast burn with a good draught.

If he chops off the leaves etc now and stack to dry until the beginning of November then have a bonfire! Plus all the rotten wood. 5th is on a Saturday this year so a good opportunity to burn stuff when people expect smoke.

 

[Lorenzl]

A guy with a mini digger is coming tomorrow to dig a trench for the new electrical supply so needed to make some room for him to maneuver.

An axe is soon to be purchased @Jacob as I have a nice stack of logs to the correct length now but a lot are too large for the burner. Not sure what style of axe though or a maul?

 

[Jacob]

...... Not sure what style of axe though or a maul?

Too long means chainsaw.
Splitting big stuff means big axe and perhaps a maul. Smaller stuff a froe and lump hammer. For trimming off the twigs and thin branches a well sharpened small hatchet.
Any easy freehand axe sharpening advice needed?

PS forgot to say - I've got a 14" Makita electric chain saw too. Excellent bit of kit for the occasional user like me. Handy to have 2 chains so one is sharpened while you use the other. Sharpening £10 locally - much better value than my feeble efforts, I just don't do it often enough

 

[TheUnicorn]

we had a viking machine years ago, it wasn't aweful, but I spent a lot of time taking it apart, clearing out jammed up blades etc etc, just a pain in the bum really. It was just a lot easier to load up the car with tonne bags (definately underloaded) and take it to the dip. We ended up giving away the viking machine, it just took up space.

I recently was given a black and decker shredder, secondhand, on freecycle. it was truly truly useless, I took it for scrap metal.

I watched a tree surgeon recently, chipping six inch branches in seconds, he said that chipper cost £30,000 or more.

I just don't think any domestic / prosumer shredders are ever going to do what we need them to do