Is a winch on a chipper worth it?

[ClimberBusinessman]

I have a Giant G1200 TELE with a power-rotating grapple. Currently we still haul brush and logs in a 16' long, 14k rated (9500 pound capacity) dump trailer. Not the most efficient setup in terms of the number of loads of brush we're hauling. I'm thinking of getting a wood chipper some point in the future, and have thought about a 15-18" chipper, and it needs to be below 10,000 pounds as it would be towed behind a chipper truck (I'd need to get one), and and I'm trying to keep things under-CDL. I don't want the discussion to turn into a lengthy debate on what I can and can't do under CDL. I did contact my state DMV and they had someone, probably their legal counsel, email me back (took them at least a couple months) and said I could legally drive a 10,000 pound chipper behind a 26,0000 GVWR chipper truck, and that would be under CDL and could be done with a regular license.

I contacted Morbark, Bandit, and Carlton. For Morbark, their new 19" chipper, the BVR 19, with the diesel, you can only stay under 10,000 pounds if you forgo the winch. With Carlton, you're limited to a 15" chipper with a diesel to stay under 10,000. With Bandit, with their 18xp, if you have the winch and the 174hp diesel, it puts it above 10,000, unless you go with the smaller diesel (I believe it's 139hp) or the 165 HP Ford Gas, or the 174hp diesel in the 15xp chipper.

Here's the questions:

1. Would you guys rather have a gas engine or a smaller diesel engine and a winch, or no winch and a bigger diesel engine?
2. The other, possibly cheaper option is go big diesel engine (174hp) but smaller chipper, like the Bandit 15xp, or the Morbark BVR16, or the Carlton 2015. In that case, I believe you could do a winch in those configurations and have it be under 10,000 pounds.

Which of these would you do, given the weight restrictions? What would be the best on a day-to-day basis? We do probably 60-70% removals and 30-40% pruning work, but currently no crane work.

 

[ShezTreeNThar?]

Honestly, having done a ton of chipper work, on a typical day most times the brush can be hauled by hand faster than the winch can get it there. Personally, I can get two runs of brush to the chipper before the winch gets one there…. And if one is too long or heavy to carry I’ll cut it with the saw quick and go, throw it into the feeder and run back for the next. However, with bigger ridiculous logs (like a whole smaller tree-30’ or less but still too big to drag by hand) we used the crane to feed the chipper, would support it until we didn’t need to, stop, remove the line and then just let it feed itself. With all that said, I’d rather have a bigger chipper engine and no winch, at least then it’s not getting bogged down and causing a holdup. And speaking from a lot of engine work experience, I would go for the bandit, diesels.. definitely. Stay away from gas engines, they just aren’t cut out for the long hot idle time and then the sudden high revs. Nor are they suited for all the jostling around this sort of equipment has to tolerate. Just don’t hold up well at all. Diesel is always the most reliable way to go for pieces of equipment that have to take abuse and still last a long time.