Chipper Do I need a chipper?

[rob in ore]

I'm trying to keep some walking trails covered in chips to avoid mud. I've calculated that I would like about 20 cubic yards per year to do the job.

The trees and limbs that I harvest are used for firewood down to 2 or 3 inches in diameter. Currently, everything smaller than that is burned or left to rot.

I'd like to know how much material I'd need to produce a yard of chips. Let's say you have a pickup truck bed of debris that is less than 3 inches in diameter. How much would you have if you chipped it?

 

[newbury]

Have you looked at chipdrop?
linky

 

[grsthegreat]

Heck if i know. I can produce a yard of chips in about 2 hours of chipping. But i have to cut and haul to chipper. I chip anything 3” and under. I spread these on about 1.25 miles of trails. Heres an example. First pic is pile of wind blown trees. Next picture is after chipping. Final pic is pile of chips. I rough spread pile with bucket, but they clump up. I have to run spring tooth harrow over trails when i finish chipping.

 

[ericm979]

I'd like to know how much material I'd need to produce a yard of chips. Let's say you have a pickup truck bed of debris that is less than 3 inches in diameter. How much would you have if you chipped it?

Very roughly a yard depending on the material and how densely and high it was piled.

The chips I make with my PTO chipper are a lot smaller than the ones that come out of a big tree service chipper. They disappear faster.

 

[bigtiller]

I'm trying to keep some walking trails covered in chips to avoid mud. I've calculated that I would like about 20 cubic yards per year to do the job.

The trees and limbs that I harvest are used for firewood down to 2 or 3 inches in diameter. Currently, everything smaller than that is burned or left to rot.

I'd like to know how much material I'd need to produce a yard of chips. Let's say you have a pickup truck bed of debris that is less than 3 inches in diameter. How much would you have if you chipped it?

To answer your last 2 sentences.
It depends. But most likely you would get about a wheelbarrow full of chips.

 

[oosik]

I have a Wallenstein BX62S chipper. Chips are about 1/4 the size of a normal playing card and about 1/8 inch thick. If I chip an trees along my driveway - that is where they stay.

Every couple years I thin my pine stands. This project entails - identify, fell, drag to many piles, chip. I will fell 800 to 1000 small ( 1" to 6" on the butt ) pines. I do not use or spread these chips. They stay in the long rows where the chipper blows them.

So..... all over my 80 acres there are piles of chips. Some piles are over 15 years old and still in good shape. Meaning - they have not broken down, rotted or decomposed.

The chips on the driveway will last many years. Eventually they will be bladed off the driveway when I clear the snow.

20 cu yds of chips will mean chipping a whole lot of trees. After all my pines have been hauled to centralized piles - I begin the chipping.

I can chip 80 to 100 trees per hour. I chip for two straight hours then take a 15 minute break.

Like grsthegreat - I would guess two hours of chipping would equal a cubic yard of chips.

That would mean - a big enough tractor, a big enough chipper, a WHOLE LOT of accumulated trees and at least 40 hours of chipping.

Chipping and getting 20 cu yds of chips is going to be a really BIG project.

Remember - I can remain in one place and chip for two straight hours. Only because I have drug all these trees to many central piles.

 

[CliffordK]

I had a small portable mulcher that I shoved a lot of laurel prunings through. Loose, it would have been enough to fill a small U-Haul truck. Chipped, I don't think I even got a yard.

It really depends on your supply of prunings to chip.

On the other hand, I've been flail mowing some mature blackberries, and I think I'll end up with a pretty good ground cover of berry chips throughout the blackberry patch.

 

[fatjay]

I hate the chipping process in every sense of the process, and wood chips are of no use to me. If I need to dispose of debris, it's via fire. Chipping is a violent process that is hard on the ears and hands and the machine that does it. The only machines that make sense are the massive ones that I'm not buying to do my back yard chipping. As mentioned earlier, chipdrop if you want chips, fire if you want to get rid of wood.

 

[oosik]

I will admit - dragging all the felled pines to central piles can be painful. A stand ends up looking like a giants game of Pick-Up-Sticks. Pines lying in all directions and over each other. Stumbling and falling is just part of this dragging chore.

Chipping is the fun part. The reward for all my effort.

I do not burn for two reasons. The pines a still full of sap and "juicy". They just do not burn well. Burning, around here, is a winter activity. The chances of starting a wildfire are just too great to do any other time of the year.

 

[rob in ore]

Thanks to all very much for the replies. I do get the free chips from the tree trimming crews when they are in the area. Unfortunately, all of my neighbors have the same idea so it's not a reliable source for the amount that I'd like to have.

From your replies it sounds like I don't want a chipper of my own. I don't have enough material for supply given the reduction in volume from the limb stage to the finished product. That's why I asked the experienced, thanks, you probably saved me a bunch of money too.

 

[nyone]

Why buy the cow when the milk is free? I have got delivered over 400cuyrd of wood chips for $0. All you have to do is contact a few tree companies. I used chipdrop.com 1x and it took about 9 months to get my first load. After that I told the guy to just drop off chips any time he had any and the rest was history.

With that being said chips make a decent trail base for the first 2yrs but after that they suck. To soft and never lock into place.

 

[ericm979]

I hate the chipping process in every sense of the process, and wood chips are of no use to me. If I need to dispose of debris, it's via fire. Chipping is a violent process that is hard on the ears and hands and the machine that does it. The only machines that make sense are the massive ones that I'm not buying to do my back yard chipping. As mentioned earlier, chipdrop if you want chips, fire if you want to get rid of wood.

The OP is in Western Oregon and like here, they can't burn during fire season.

My fire season is half the year. The time it's actually safe to burn is a few months in winter. I don't want to leave piles that long.

Power feed chippers aren't hard on the hands and for the noise I have good hearing protection.

 

[grsthegreat]

Why buy the cow when the milk is free? I have got delivered over 400cuyrd of wood chips for $0. All you have to do is contact a few tree companies. I used chipdrop.com 1x and it took about 9 months to get my first load. After that I told the guy to just drop off chips any time he had any and the rest was history.

With that being said chips make a decent trail base for the first 2yrs but after that they suck. To soft and never lock into place.

Personally, i like them on my trails. Just dont get them too thick. The trees i chip are referred to as junk wood (jack pine). Has so much pitch and some creosote in it that it makes poor fire wood. But that same property keeps weeds from growing on my trails. Where i have chips, no weeds for over 15 years. Where there is no chips, i have to mow weeds.

 

[oosik]

Every few years or so - I have to "clean up" the small pines that will grow right on the edge of my driveway. The DO look nice in the summer. They become a wholly nightmare in the winter. The snow load causes them to bend into the driving lane.

So...... down the driveway with the chainsaw. Cut them all down and pile them into piles on the driveway. Then down the driveway with the chipper. I blow the chips onto the driveway.