Chipper Opinions

[diltree]

Gregs all upset that im turning my back on brush bandit.....The choice of NewEngland Tree Service...he gets very emotional when it comes to equipment

 

[treeman82]

Greg, just how much firewood are you selling each year? There's no money to be made in firewood unless you are selling LOTS of wood, and its cord, not chord.

 

[treeman82]

That's pretty ???? good for somebody in the business for such a short time. Anybody I know who sells wood has taken a LONG time to build up their client base.

 

[Eagle1]

Erik. Hello my friend.
And to answer the original question, stay with Bandit...DISK. Unless you chip alot of 1" branches.
Bandit 254. :blob5:

 

[NeTree]

Erik. Hello my friend.
:

Howdy stranger! How's things?

 

[Yellowdog]

Lots of clients means lots of work, especially when others get slow. The word of mouth generated from more contacts is worth the extra stress of having to keep up with multiple personalities especially when it comes to bidding and keeping in touch when we all play "phone tag".

For the chipper question: I like big. I run a 20" and it's great on the little stuff. Can feed a lot at one time and it rarely clogs. Chip quality isn't always the best on the little stuff but the fact that I can go all day without sawing a crotch or limb is worth it. Big horsepower, though, making these machines loud for in-neighborhood use but I still like the benefits of having a big machine.

 

[a_lopa]

I'm not fond of big contracts. Start depending on one and loose it and then what? Lots of diverse clients are better IMO.

im with you on that one big contracts suck.i liked my altec c'n'd, but the happiest moment was selling it.

 

[diltree]

DilTree, try using a 6" chipper, than getting in the firewood business. Anything over 6" could be used for firewood. I dont know what your area brings but mine brings around $200-$225 PER CHORD. Forget spending the big bucks for a big chipper. Invest in a small chipper and big log truck, and the return will be huge. Good Luck. Cheers!

Greg...you are a funny guy

 

[diltree]

Treeman, I didnt know you had a degree in Spelling. Thanks for bashing me in front of the whole Arborist Site Community. I sell between 717-735 cords a year. I bag it in little bags, and distrubute to major supermarkets and gas stations. It yields around $750 a cord.

Do thay ofer degres in spelling????? That woold have bean a great majore in colege. Greg, your getting into the little bag thing too???? Great money, I still cant believe people pick those up at the gas station......."wow gas prices are high maybe i could save on heating feul and burn wood, ill start with this 6 piece bag for $5" People just cant get enough

 

[TreemanFJR]

The bandit 280 is a wonderful machine. We dont do firewood, so anything that doesnt go through the chipper is usually hauled away. It makes a significant difference in whats left to haul. It's MUCH quieter than the morbark model 13 that we also run.

I dont have anything against Chuck n' Ducks, they just dont taylor to our needs. Never know down the road though.

 

[diltree]

Today we used the 12" carlton.....it is brand new and our 01 bandit kills the carlton. Bandit over Carlton all day long

 

[NeTree]

Vermeer.

 

[teamtree]

We went from a Bandit XP90 to a Vermeer BC1400XL w/ winch. The jump in effeciency is unbelievable. I am very satisfied and get more done each day. Not to mention what the winch has done for employee moral on the big jobs.

 

[teamtree]

Not to mention that it chews up a Bradford Pear whole. Two or three cuts at most. Great after a storm. Winch it to the street and letereat.

 

[diltree]

Greg......you are insane...I love it

 

[rbtree]

Gee Greg, I, as do many, like our Bandits, but many feel Woodsman and Morbark are equal or superior. And I have yet to hear anything negative about the new drum Vermeers.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

If ypur line crew does not do a lot of removal work, and is chipping mostly brush, then the medium chuck-n-duck is the way to go for productivity and fuel economy. The lighter the chipper the less fuel the truck will use. Disks will allways be heavier and cost more due to the balancing of that big hunk of steel.

Most line crews around here stack wood roadside for the scavengers to take anyways. Since you sell firewood, you probably have logs stacked for later retrieval anyways, and don't want to chip hardwoods of any real diameter.

Biger is faster with lots of piles, but does that crew make lots of big piles? Get a low cost chipper and use the savings for an ATV to haul brush out.

 

[DDM]

I Like the C-N-D For Pruning and small removals. But On the larger jobs 3 out of 4 customers want to keep the chips so my Bandit 200 Chews up alot of Hauling.

 

[Koa Man]

I like my Woodsman 18X. I just chipped over an acre of hale koa (extremely hard wood) for another contractor. It was 4.5 days of chipping. He has a Chipmunk C&D and it would choke on 3 inch hale koa. This stuff is very difficult to chip. He told me the Woodsman is very impressive and seems to just suck the brush in compared to the Bandits and Morbarks he has seen. He said they are real slow compared to the Woodsman. Actually, I doubled the feed rate on my chipper by disconnecting the 2nd hyd. motor and running all the fluid to one. My Woodsman chips at around 180 ft. per minute now. Sure makes the job go faster, but you definitely need a 2nd person when chipping with my machine. It is just too dog gone fast. I think I need to put on a variable feed controller like I have on my Gravely.

 

[Proj Eng]

Koa, you may want to just add on a cheap Prince valve for variable speed feed control. They can probably be had for like $150 or so and are very common. The one thing I would becareful of though right now is running such a high flow through your one motor. You may blow it up sooner just because it maybe wasn't meant for such high flow especially at a peak pressure.

Great idea though.