Shredders

Peter T

Hi all,

Recently moved and my gardens been neglected for some time. Plenty of shrubs, briars and tree's which have taken over and have not been trimmed in some few years.

The plan is to pear it all back and remove most of it so I can start clean and go from there. Hence thinking of getting a shredder due to all the material I'll have. I can leave it in a heap and mix for compost or kart it off in a trailer some day.

Are electric shredders best avoided ? I was thinking I could buy a petrol one and sell it on once I've the work done. I've a fair few pines around the place too that will get the chop so I could feed some of that through it too ideally depending on size.

magicbastarder

i have a cheap enough one that has been reliable - not blisteringly fast by any stretch though.
i think they're about €150 in B&Q here.

https://www.diy.com/departments/mac-allister-mshp2800d-2-corded-2800w-silent-shredder/3663602627357_BQ.prd

I've a bosch one,something like this but older

https://www.conrad.com/p/bosch-home-and-garden-axt-rapid-2200-mains-impact-shredder-2200-w-824084?WT.srch=1&vat=true

it'll take branches as thick as your thumb,plenty for me.

Harry Palmr

The model I use is basically like the above bought in Homebase for about 180 euro, the maximum width is about 2" in theory with the cutting blade opening at it's biggest. Its a great way to create a semi permanent "mulch" or just reduce bulky waste. Be careful about feeding in branches/twigs with damp leaves, as it just tends to clog.

Peter T

Thanks all. The electric ones seem fine for running most normal trimmings from the year. I guess I could pic one up, do what I can with it and hire one for a day or two for the more heavy duty stuff

magicbastarder

i've used one similar to the bosch also - it's faster IIRC that the different design used in the B&Q one, but as mentioned is more likely to clog.

looksee

Agree with what all the others have said, have a Lidl electric shredder and it does great work, as said, it does not like is summer leaves and to some extent excessive amounts of some sorts of conifers, easily munches through wood up to about an inch dia. and its great for individual briars.

The Continental Op

I hate electric shredders with a passion. They are just so slow. Maybe thats because I've used big hydraulic chippers.

There is a point to note here. Most shredders will take soft material along with soil and the odd stone, a lot also have a small separate chipper feature. A dedicated chipper will clog up with soft material and be damaged by any stones. You can't rake up along a path and throw it in a chipper if there are stones present. Make sure you understand how any shredder/chipper you get works because that will help get the most out of it.

I use one similar to this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forest-Master-Electric-Lightweight-transport/dp/B08KY8Y6Q6/. Its a chipper thats rubbish on leaves and hedge clippings but will power through inch and a half inch timber all day. 2 inch is the max and it needs feeding cautiously (not just ramming in) but again it will do that all day and 10 seconds isn't long to wait. The other downside to that small size of chipper is that the material you feed through it needs to be straightish. A bent oak branch with side branches needs a lot of cutting down. Material like overgrown dogwood flies through it. Pine branches would go through OK provided they will go through the narrowest part of the feed chute just in front of the cutter drum.

I've also used what I call a hammer mill type shredder similar to this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chipper-Shredder-Electric-Titan-Pro/dp/B009IKA4MM/ its great with leaves, bracken (makes good compost), weeds and hedge clippings all put in through the top hopper and has a useful chipper on the side. The chipper part isn't as good as the dedicated chipper above.

Edit> If you can get them to answer emails this isn't a bad firm to deal with https://hyundaipowerequipment.co.uk/garden-machinery/wood-chippers/ they can also get spares. Their 7hp chipper at around €900 is quite a beast but its a chipper not a shredder.

The Continental Op

A quick point OP in case you are new to gardening. Just because a tree or shrub grows doesn't mean you have to prune. Prune for the right reasons. Prune to increase flowering for example but don't prune because someone tells you that every plant in your garden has to be trimmed into a tidy ball.

Peter T

I'm not doing either. I'm clearing back to a blank canvas and getting rid of the stuff that's gone out of control or dont like. Not a total newbie, spent my summers working with a landscaper during school. I'll admit I payed no attention to the plant side of it and had more interest in the hard landscaping and machinery

magicbastarder

The Continental Op wrote: »

The other downside to that small size of chipper is that the material you feed through it needs to be straightish.

forgot to mention this about the cheapo B&Q one i mentioned above - if you've heavily branched material, it can be a PITA to feed it in as there is a 'letterbox' about an inch and a half wide that the material has to go through.

looksee

The lidl shredder has a 4 to 5inch long by 1inch or so wide slot with a round approx 1.5" shape at each end, if branches are very hard and brittle (knobbly old hawthorn for example) they may not go through, but to a large extent it will 'fold' side branches in, provided the end of the branch will go into the round bit, it will take it.

CelticRambler

Peter T wrote: »

Are electric shredders best avoided ? I was thinking I could buy a petrol one and sell it on once I've the work done. I've a fair few pines around the place too that will get the chop so I could feed some of that through it too ideally depending on size.

With a very large garden and a constant supply of material to be shredded, I looked into the petrol vs. electric side of things a few years ago. My main concern about the electric ones was the handicap of needing to be within reach of a socket, so I was primed to settle for a petrol machine.

In the end, the difference in price for machines of a similar spec seemed very much in favour of electric, so I did more research on that side of things. In the course of that, I came across the Bosch machine linked above and had an opportunity to ask the guy in the shop to explain to me what that one could do that justified a price that was twice or even three times that of the rest of the models on show. The best he could do was say "the quality of the woodchips, if you want to use them as a decorative mulch."

In the end (a few months later) I opted for the old-style Lidl one at 90€, and bought a couple of extra-long heavy-duty outdoor extension cables to add to my existing camper mains lead. I can now work at a distance of up to 100m from the back door, which is more than enough for me.

I can confirm all the remarks above - it's slow, it's a real pain when the prunings have a sharp angle or a knobbly junction that's just a bit wider than the feed slot, and the cutting effectiveness can be very variable if you put a lot of thin, green material through it. Also, the drop into the collecting box is off centre, which means that it fills unevenly and you have to shake it every so often to leave space under the chute.

But: it works more or less as it should. I've put 40mm straight branches through without any problem (and get perfectly good "decorative" chips, and would have it running continuously for anything up to four hours at a time (apart from stopping it to remove/empty the collecting box.

These days, knowing its peculiarities, I'd usually try to roughly sort the material that I'm going to put through it later. Some stuff is best left a few days anyway to let the leaves dry and fall off; other things like brambles are better shredded with the blade tightened down more than appropriate for 20-40mm diameter wood.

I specified above the "old style" Lidl shredder, as I saw recently that the one currently on offer has food-mixer type blades, which I think would be too delicate for real country life, whereas mine has more of a cog-wheel crusher that doesn't get upset by the odd stone, bottle cap or nail.

Harry Palmr

Clearly no portable DIY superstore shredder is going to break up branches over about half an inch diameter that's what you are for - snap (or snip) and feed, that said I do all the prep in this regard before hand.

CelticRambler

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Clearly no portable DIY superstore shredder is going to break up branches over about half an inch diameter ...

Half an inch? That's only 12mm in my world - I'd shove three of those into my Lidl machine at the same time and it'd chomp through them without a pause.

CelticRambler

For real-world reference (cottage measures 11m gable-to-gable):

Before:


After:


Everything you see heaped in the foreground in the second picture went into my Lidl machine; and then everything you can't see for the next 50 metres up the lane to the left (unless is was thick enough to be cut up for the fire).

Machine is now parked in the far corner of my property, ready for duty on the final 50 metres across the back.

Harry Palmr

Yeah I must mean an inch, mind you sometimes it's the type of wood that matters, whether it's old and dried or full of sap and bendy etc.

magicbastarder

CelticRambler wrote: »

Half an inch? That's only 12mm in my world - I'd shove three of those into my Lidl machine at the same time and it'd chomp through them without a pause.

yeah, that's barely the size of your little finger. any shredder would easily be able to handle that.

CelticRambler

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Yeah I must mean an inch, mind you sometimes it's the type of wood that matters, whether it's old and dried or full of sap and bendy etc.

That's true. But also, as I mentioned above, what blade setting works best for a spindly bit of green willow or a 5-m long briar will be completely unsuitable for a 25mm length of oak. It took me a while to get used to it, but now I can prune-and-sort quite efficiently as I make my way along the work zone, throwing stuff into different piles according to what needs to happen to them. Making the lop cut in the right place is important too, so as to avoid having a chunky heel on the waste that you'll end up having to cut off later.

But if you can tolerate that level of inefficiency in the operation, even the budget machines should be able to do the work, if you ask them nicely.

looksee

Both the circumstances and experience CelticRambler relates (even to the extension cables at the top end of the acre!) are very similar to mine. For the price the lidl machine plays a blinder!

magicbastarder

worth mentioning that there seem to be two types of shredders in the cheaper price bracket - one depends on a spinning disc with raised blades, which spins and chops a bit like a food processor blade (a bit like the blade at the 4 o'clock position here):



the second type (which seems less liable to jam in my experience) works using what looks like a really wide (wide along the axle) cog with sawtooth teeth, which run against a plate, and the rotation both pulls the material in and chops it up. you can see it at one minute into this video, they tend to be slower but quieter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0mADmByvh0

Funsterdelux

If you are doing a big clean up over the course of a few days/weeks. Pile the material up in manageable heaps in such a way that you can easily pick up branches without it being all tangled up and hire a heavy duty wood chipper thats rated to do at least an inch more than your max branch diameter for a day/weekend.

You'll have it shredded in a few hours, even less with an extra pair of hands.

NewClareman

looksee wrote: »

Both the circumstances and experience CelticRambler relates (even to the extension cables at the top end of the acre!) are very similar to mine. For the price the lidl machine plays a blinder!

I have a Lidl shredder, that is at least ten years old. It has two reversible blades, mounted on a rotating plate. I am now on side two of the second set of blades. It has shredded loads of bushes and quite a lot of very large weeds (also called Leylandii).

If you need more room to collect chips sit your shredder into a ton bag .
The bosh one I have uses a screw type blade.

looksee

BrownFinger wrote: »

If you need more room to collect chips sit your shredder into a ton bag .

My initial reaction was, what a great idea! Then I realised that the lidl shredder will not work without the container being actively locked into position, safety mechanism.

Though we do now stand the shredder on a tarp when doing extensive sorting and shredding on the grass, saves picking up all the bits of broken twig and leaves that scatter themselves as you handle the material.

CelticRambler

looksee wrote: »

My initial reaction was, what a great idea! Then I realised that the lidl shredder will not work without the container being actively locked into position, safety mechanism.

I've been thinking about cutting off three sides of the container so that can I stand the machine in a trailer! I'm half-heartedly looking out for a second compatible container that I chop up ... but only half-heartedly, as I know it'd be easy enough to bypass the safety mechanism if I really wanted to.

few on adverts for nothing

https://www.adverts.ie/power-tools/bosch-garden-shredder/22363987

NewClareman

CelticRambler wrote: »

I've been thinking about cutting off three sides of the container so that can I stand the machine in a trailer! I'm half-heartedly looking out for a second compatible container that I chop up ... but only half-heartedly, as I know it'd be easy enough to bypass the safety mechanism if I really wanted to.

The one I have is the older one, that doesn't have a container. I have a small area of the garden, out of site, where I shred. I then just have to rake it into a heap. It is way faster than using a container.

CelticRambler

NewClareman wrote: »

The one I have is the older one, that doesn't have a container. I have a small area of the garden, out of site, where I shred. I then just have to rake it into a heap. It is way faster than using a container.

I have the one with the "cog"-type blade, so it's already slow enough that having to stop, remove, empty and re-fit the box isn't really add that much extra time. I'd say I spend far longer re-cutting branches that don't fit in the slot.

Depending on where I'm sending the chips afterwards, I might have a garden waste bag, a barrow, the mower's trailer or my full-size 750kg trailer pulled up beside me and tip the container of chips straight into that.

As far as the speed is concerned, it's not really that big an issue. Not sure if looksee would maintains the parallel, but as the interminable feeding of branches doesn't use any great amount of brainpower, I typically use the time to think about what resources my next project is going to involve, whether or not I have everything ready, and how I can integrate it into my other plans.

looksee

It becomes hypnotic, a job I enjoy. Once you get a branch going you can tell if it will go straight through and you haul out the next branch ready to go. Sometimes a branch needs a bit of pushing but its all very peaceful - the machine makes a fair noise but its not a penetrating sort of noise, you can live with it!

Turbulent Bill

magicbastarder wrote: »

the second type (which seems less liable to jam in my experience) works using what looks like a really wide (wide along the axle) cog with sawtooth teeth, which run against a plate, and the rotation both pulls the material in and chops it up. you can see it at one minute into this video, they tend to be slower but quieter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0mADmByvh0

I've a new-ish Lidl shredder which has blades like this. It's pretty good (especially for the price), but needs the plate to be set properly before use, otherwise spindly stuff just wraps around the blade and clogs it. If the blade is just rubbing off the plate, it'll motor even through soft stuff (put fresh seaweed through it recently).

For a full garden clearance it would be tedious, better just to stockpile the stuff and hire a professional unit to run through it in one go. The Lidl one is great for ongoing maintenance, cures the boredom of chopping stuff up small for the compost.

CelticRambler

Turbulent Bill wrote: »

For a full garden clearance it would be tedious, better just to stockpile the stuff and hire a professional unit to run through it in one go. The Lidl one is great for ongoing maintenance, cures the boredom of chopping stuff up small for the compost.

It all depends on the timescale and the size of the garden. If you're going to attack the job with a full week of good weather ahead of you, a complete set of working chainsaws and strimmers and lops and rakes and maybe a few helpers, then yes, blitz the place, heap everything up and get a big, fast machine in to pulverise it at the end of the project.

But if you have an acre to clear on your own, and have to fit that work around dozens of other commitments and uncooperative weather, there's every chance that the piles of clippings and prunings you've made will have collapsed on themselves and be invaded by brambles and blackthorn long before you've amassed enough material to justify hiring a semi-professional machine.

My garden clearance (5000m²) has gone a heck of a lot faster since I spent the 90€ in Lidl, mainly because I no longer have piles of woody branches decomposing for months in a spot that seemed convenient at the time only to become the target area of my latest project. Now, if I get a single day that I can dedicate to clearing the next 100m², I know the job will be 100% finished by sunset because the shredder is immediately available to turn those piles into chips and leave the space ready for mowing or digging or paving or re-planting or whatever. For me at least, the psychological benefit of knowing that there isn't an unfinished part of the job (hidden somewhere) more than compensates for the couple of hours spent feeding branches into the slot.

looksee

We are clearing an acre, a good deal of which was brambles and both fallen wood and surplus overgrown shrubs and a few trees (willows and sycamores mostly, dammit). We do mince a lot of stuff, clearing and shredding goes on pretty much simultaneously. You recognise the stuff that will make really nice mulch, but some of it looks kinda rubbishing even when it is chopped. This goes into 'the heap'.

The heap is a huge - as in about 6/7m x 4m area that was outlined with large chopped down stuff, mostly willow, roughly staked, and woven together as we went along. This has taken large bits of old tree trunks/branches from all round the site, large soft growth - mountains of nettles, briars, strimming stuff, and currently it has been 'full' a couple of times but has continued to settle and we have added some grass clippings (it will be the home for grass clippings in the future) and the scruffier chippings, leaves, weeds, all sorts goes into it. Every now and again it needs someone to get up and trample and do a bit of rearranging.

As it has filled up we have reinforced and tidied the sides and it looks reasonably inoffensive, even though it is up against a boundary in a fairly obvious place. We have put a couple of plants/shrubs in front of it but it is by no means hidden. It will take a long time to rot but eventually we see it just becoming a natural large rise in the scenery that will grow stuff we can just keep strimmed as necessary. I have some honeysuckle and wild rose slips growing that can be planted round it. It has been a blessing, it would have been impossible to build enough 'normal' size compost heaps, and most of the early stuff was way too big anyway.

We also have a large wildlife corner of big dead branches with briars and nettles, which was cleared out but reassembled and is returning to nature. That will stay. Apart from one more corner which we haven't attacked yet, we have more or less got to the end of the serious clearing.

Sorry, this has gone OT for shredders, it seemed relevant when I started!

The Continental Op

Theres a lot to be said for stacking all thin woody material along with weeds in a sort of mini hayrick. Supposed to be great for wildlife. I know a few larger historic gardens do this rather than burning which was always the main stay of getting rid of anything unwanted and woody.

CelticRambler

looksee wrote: »

Apart from one more corner which we haven't attacked yet, we have more or less got to the end of the serious clearing.

Sorry, this has gone OT for shredders, it seemed relevant when I started!

Not entirely OT as you've hightlighted both the benefits and limitations of the machine, and having it available as and when needed.

With regard to the other sentence though ... :pac: :pac: :pac: That's what I thought, about three years ago. Last month, I started re-clearing the area that I cleared ten years ago then took my eye off for a bit ... This particular area is nearly all woody, contorted, thorny stuff - completely unsuitable for shredding. I'm using a mini-digger rip it out and I'm heaping it up in one spot to rot down, much as you're doing, but with the deliberate intention of making it into a hügelkultur-type bank.

looksee

CelticRambler wrote: »

but with the deliberate intention of making it into a hügelkultur-type bank.

That is exactly where we started, with the hugelkultur thing, but that kind of got lost along the way and it will take so long to rot down - and we have chucked so many bramble and nettle roots on it - I don't see us ever growing anything on it! Its only going a year though and judging by the way that it settles it might end up as a growing bed, Its more likely to be a general wild area.

Its about 3-4 foot deep/high overall at the moment. There is a great view from it as it is now level with the top of the ditch/wall/patchy field-hedge, looking towards fields and a mountain.

ednwireland

might have to buy the stihl ghe355 one ........