Michigan Wood Chipper Rental

[oppermancjo]

Anyone have any thoughts on where I could rent a wood chipper? I'm located in Mid-Michigan near Frankenmuth. North of Flint, Southeast of Saginaw.

I'm going to start cutting back some of the fence lines around our fields and think it will be easier/faster to chip rather than mess around with trying to burn big piles later in the year.

I'd like something that could handle up to a 6" limb but bigger is usually better...

I did call a local tree service. They have one that they rent out but sounds like it won't be easy to get a hold of. Local hardware store rents them but they are too small. My FIL knows a guy that has one but he only rents it out if he

Ideas anyone?

 

[blades]

Got any Home depot around your area, they rent a 6" around $240 a day. Did a quick guesstimate on how long I would need one. Bought a used one off CL. If you have around 25 or more hp at the pto on a tractor with a 3 point, I 'd just find a used one, that is current and in decent shape and get that. I got a Echo/Bear Cat, 5" (used) works well for me. For what I paid vs rental fees , chasing back and forth ect. i would say I broke even over the course of the warm months.

 

[shelbythedog]

Rent-Rite in Saginaw and the Midland Home Depot both have chippers for rent.

 

[Evanrude]

Excellent post. I've been wondering this myself. I cut down large ash at my mothers house and going to have more brush when I get over there to drop a silver maple. I'll check into the local HD's and pry poke around some more in the coming week.

 

[blades]

The bear cat unit I bought is a stand alone 20hp, I just figured that if he was talking fence rows that must be farm. hence the 3 point option which using the pto makes purchase less expensive. The bear cat had no problem with 4"plus wet or dry buckthorn and locust and that is some tough and dense stuff. generally anything 4" + goes in the wood pile, with this stuff just hate dealing with the thorns.

 

[GeeVee]

Just a thought...

Piling brush as snags for wildlife aint a bad thing. and it costs so much less labor to burn it later, you'll get your space back eventually.

When I did commercial landscaping, I'd renovate 100-300 acre shopping malls and campuses, office complexes, and pile debris in a few parking spaces during the week, and have my tree service come by. In a matter of hours they'd chip and clean up huge cubic yardage of tree trimmings, hedges, mulches that had composted, for like 75 bucks an hour. I'd work a ten person crew two weeks just cleaning it out, and the service would blow out a hundred yard pile in less than a day with two guys.

My service guy loved me for it. He always had two guys ready to either fill up their week or make up for a missed day, and they worked on flat hard concrete for a change and merely had to keep backing up their truck and chipper to the pile.

Hard for me to estimate their production, but they were always ten times faster than I thought it would be.

I used to have to trim Palm Trees at four or five big complexes, once a year, every year. Palm fronds are just stupid bulky, and toting them to a landfill was just a stupid. Same with Crepe Myrtle at a lot of commercial places- once a year.

I personally can't see a capital purchase such as owning one, but maybe owning it to use and then sell, the difference being your rental cost.... I never could justify owning one.

 

[oppermancjo]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I did some more looking to see what I could find. The purchase option isn't a bad idea but I think if it's something we spent too much money on, it wouldn't be worth it. I found new PTO models online for between $2000 and $6000. If we can spend a few hundred bucks just to rent for a weekend and be done, I think that's the way we will go. I will keep my eye open to see if something worthwhile comes up on CL or something though.

We've been neglecting to clean up these fence rows for a while now. We're talking a couple miles worth of fence row if you add it all up. Just need to get it over and done with. Should be a nice supply for my campfire bundles though. The majority of the wood is Popple, Boxelder, Cottonwood, and a smattering of Birch, Cherry, Ash, and various species of Maple.

 

[beerman6]

On the block tomorrow,might be worth checking out.

Badger Wood chipper, Model 4-24975, Serial #793332, 97 Metered Hours,... - Repocast.com®

 

[old_soul]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I did some more looking to see what I could find. The purchase option isn't a bad idea but I think if it's something we spent too much money on, it wouldn't be worth it. I found new PTO models online for between $2000 and $6000. If we can spend a few hundred bucks just to rent for a weekend and be done, I think that's the way we will go. I will keep my eye open to see if something worthwhile comes up on CL or something though.

We've been neglecting to clean up these fence rows for a while now. We're talking a couple miles worth of fence row if you add it all up. Just need to get it over and done with. Should be a nice supply for my campfire bundles though. The majority of the wood is Popple, Boxelder, Cottonwood, and a smattering of Birch, Cherry, Ash, and various species of Maple.

No offense man but are you serious about chipping two miles of fence row with a 6 inch chipper? That sounds like madness to me. and i like to work outside

Even with a 12, or 18 inch chipper would take way longer than a weekend. trust me i've done lots of fenceline since i was 11 years old. we found the best way to get through was to fell trees in a straight row, cut off the wood we wanted to keep (usually 6" rounds for us), then go through at the end of the day and push all the tops, brush etc with the loader into a big pile to burn.

avg trees were 12 inch diameter we could get 5-600 feet per day with the two of us. and 3 cord of wood hauled in.

Not sure how small you keep but around here there is lots of brush trees like mulberry,olive, wild rose which are just cut and shoved into piles to burn.

Tree tops are easy to chip but I cannot imagine trying to shove all that brushinto a tiny chipper, especially two miles of it

If you have never used a small chipper like that, i think you will be disappointed