Question about aged vs green wood for chipping

[ijpom]

I'm presently in need of 5-10 yards of mulch to cover all my lots garden plots. I have access to lots of trees (see pic) some are standing dead and still solid, some will be green.
I can get a 6" chipper on daily rental for a few hundred bucks, and I'm considering a DIY wood chipping day in the future.

Anyone have experience with this type of plan? Anyone chipped dead rather than green trees? Is it doable?

My house is central in image with brown roof. Backyard is full of options for wood.

 

[old CB]

Dead wood is certainly chippable, though it's harder material and therefore works the chipper harder. Also, my drum chipper tends to grab dead material and make it explode, sending a few bits back toward the operator. Definitely not as nice an operation as chipping green stuff, but doable.

 

[arathol]

Chipping dead wood makes a mess. Lots of broken bits flying around, lots of dust depending on just how dry the wood is. Dead wood can also jam up a chipper wheel in a hurry if you feed too fast. Live wood makes nice clean chips that flow, dead wood just shatters and the resulting larger bits can wedge the wheel tight if you aren't careful. Don't count on dead wood for cover mulch either. Even if you do manage to get some decently consistently sized chips, chances are good that they could contain insects, fungus or other things that live in dead wood that you don't want to bring near your house or garden.
Dead trees don't always cooperate when you drop them. Cutting a live tree you can get a nice flexible hinge to direct the fall, but dead dry wood can just snap off as soon as it starts moving and fall in just about any direction. Sometimes they just won 't fall at all and need some input from you to get them moving. Problem is pushing or pulling a long dead tree can break it off and send it in any random direction. When it hits the ground, even a dead tree that looks solid can disintegrate into a million bits, especially if it still has a bunch of small branches. Lots of clean up by hand will result, and possibly not much left worth chipping either.
Just curious, have you compared the cost of having a few yards of good clean garden mulch delivered with the cost of doing this yourself? I don't know what sort of experience you have with this sort of stuff, but one guy with a saw and a 6" chipper isn't going to be able to cut and chip enough wood to get anywhere near 10 yards in a day. There is a lot more involved than throwing branches through the chipper. You'd need to have a bunch of stuff cut and trimmed to fit the chipper before hand, properly stacked so its easy to work the pile. It takes a considerable amount of branches to make 10 yards of chips if you figure something like a 20:1 reduction rate.

 

[Del_]

I'm an arborist and my suggestion it to save your trees and find wood chips that tree companies, line clearance crews, etc., give away.

You could even offer cash of way less then chipper rental fees for a really nice load of wood chips or two.

Call around.

 

[ijpom]

Thanks @arathol and @Del_ for your responses.

I appreciate the thorough response to the question. Avoiding chipping the dead wood makes for a lot less available limbs and chips, and will probably change the cost-benefit analysis.

Some trees need to be downed because they are huge and present a liability issue (falling on neighbor building), but only a portion of those could ever be fed through a 6" chipper.
There are a dozen other 30ft tall, 6"-8"" at base, trees that are bent, too close together, or otherwise wrong for a walk-able 'forest'. These are random unknown tree varieties, and would be left to decay in the forest, or have to be dragged to the curb for bundling and city pickup.

Purchasing wood chips is relatively cheap (cheaper than renting the chipper), but if I had to take down trees anyway, I wanted to see if I could find a good use for them (better than decaying ground cover, which I have plenty of).

Cheers

 

[ijpom]

Wood chipping saga, final conclusion:

The free woodchips available from the city, despite being of low quality, random variety and having consistency issues, presented too big a value proposition.
I used the my best available containers (4 large wheels trash/recycling bins), 4 hours of manual labor, and a rental van to move the 14 yards (est.) of chips.




This is the largest of the many places that needed mulch and weed control.

 

[Husky Man]

Wood chipping saga, final conclusion:

The free woodchips available from the city, despite being of low quality, random variety and having consistency issues, presented too big a value proposition.
I used the my best available containers (4 large wheels trash/recycling bins), 4 hours of manual labor, and a rental van to move the 14 yards (est.) of chips.

View attachment 920231 View attachment 920232


This is the largest of the many places that needed mulch and weed control.
View attachment 920233

I gotta ask, are you sure that you are calculating your yardage correctly?

The 5-10 yards that you originally expected to need is a LOT of volume, 14 yards is REALLY A LOT of mulch.


As a point of reference, this is what a 12 yard dump truck looks like, you wouldn’t need the drop axle for mulch, but that is a lot to load and haul in a rental van, especially in just 4 hours.

Maybe, I’m wrong but that is a lot to do in a little time, at least with what you had to work with.


Doug

 

[ijpom]

So, my assumption is that the largest bin I have is 96 liter. Couldn't quite fill that up and then lift it over the three foot bed of van. So it got 90% filled.


1 liter is 10cmx10cmx10cm.
So approx 9 liter in 1cubic ft.
9 cubic foot per cubic yard.
Means 9x9 liter in cubic yard (81 liter)

I estimate second bin to be 75/80 liter.

Other two bins est. at 3/4 cubic yard.

One trip is 3 1/2 cubic yard.

Made four trips: approx 14 cubic yards.

Maybe my assumptions are out by 10%. Or other error in calculation. Point it out.

 

[Husky Man]

A cubic Yard is 3’x3’x3’=27 Cubic Feet per yard, be Thankful that you didn’t order a 10 cubic yard load delivered, it would have been approximately double what you got

To put it in terms that Firewood cutters would easily understand, 14 cubic yards is 378 cubic feet, just a touch shy of 3 Full Cords 378 cubic feet = 2.95313 Full Cords)

You were confusing Square Yards with Cubic Yards, I wasn’t trying to be mean, the numbers just didn’t add up to me, now I see where your mistake was.

We all make mistakes, I didn’t mean for you to take it personal

Doug

 

[cookies]

pile that mulch up thick, minimum of 4 inches deep. I spent 2 full days putting 5 cubic yards of wood chips down this spring. Im hoping I only need 2 next year as a touch up.

 

[Stonewoodiron]

Ijpom, how many in your mulch hauling crew?!. Man! You did a TON of work in a short period of time! I think you made the right decision to get the free mulch.

 

[ijpom]

@Huskybill
I play with an open hand, thus the calculations. Fear not about my feelings, I have thick skin, care little, and come from a land of "call it like you see it". Damn the consequences.

Wish I had that double load of mulch, because I fear what I have landed out is too sparse, and will only last a season.

 

[arathol]

So, my assumption is that the largest bin I have is 96 liter. Couldn't quite fill that up and then lift it over the three foot bed of van. So it got 90% filled.


1 liter is 10cmx10cmx10cm.
So approx 9 liter in 1cubic ft.
9 cubic foot per cubic yard.
Means 9x9 liter in cubic yard (81 liter)

I estimate second bin to be 75/80 liter.

Other two bins est. at 3/4 cubic yard.

One trip is 3 1/2 cubic yard.

Made four trips: approx 14 cubic yards.

Maybe my assumptions are out by 10%. Or other error in calculation. Point it out.

Those bins seem like they are standard 96 gallon recycling bins or somewhere close (that large blue residential recycling bin anyway). One gallon = .00495 yd³, so .00495 x 96 = .475 yd³.

Oh, and 1 yd³ = 27 ft³....3 x 3 x3 = 27.....
So given the size of those bins, maybe 1 1/4 yard for all 4, maybe 5-6 yards total....

 

[Husky Man]

@Huskybill
I play with an open hand, thus the calculations. Fear not about my feelings, I have thick skin, care little, and come from a land of "call it like you see it". Damn the consequences.

Wish I had that double load of mulch, because I fear what I have landed out is too sparse, and will only last a season.

ijpom, you are the second person in a week to mix up me and HuskyBill, I’m starting to see a trend here, (Grin)

Well, maybe it is actually too Bad that you didn’t just order a 10 yard load delivered, but I guess that you still would have had to shovel it, from the driveway, into a wheelbarrow, instead of into your bins.

Doug

 

[Huskybill]

The last time I used fresh chipped mulch within a short time the bugs moved into it too. I got rid of it all.

 

[Huskybill]

ijpom, you are the second person in a week to mix up me and HuskyBill, I’m starting to see a trend here, (Grin)

Well, maybe it is actually too Bad that you didn’t just order a 10 yard load delivered, but I guess that you still would have had to shovel it, from the driveway, into a wheelbarrow, instead of into your bins.

Doug

Ya were two different peoples who like husky saws. I like older husky dirtbikes. And other Swedish products. Kitchen stuff bakeware.