A quick Q on garden shredders

[Mentalguy2k8]

What's a rough comparison of the amount of space taken up by branches, twigs
etc before/after shredding?

For example, if I fill my car boot up with branches and other cuttings, how
much boot space would that same amount of stuff fill, if I shredded it
first?

[Dis Manibus]

"Mentalguy2k8" <Mental...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:knoedi$qmk$1...@dont-email.me...

Depending on the size of your boot, you'd probably get it down to a
bucketful or two. Mine ends up in the garden borders, but it soon
disappears. I like to think it's doing some good in the soil.

Great fun, too.

[Tim Watts]

Bloody loads.

<Real figures time>

I have a front garden bit of lawn about 80m2.

When a neighbour helped me chainsaw a 12' hawthorn hedge down to 4', we
filled the entire area to 1.5m high on average with branches.

One solid week (5 days) with an industrial hired chipper with powerfeed
trurned it into approx 15cm chippings over 25m2 so about 3.75m3 (by a path
where nothing grew and thge ground was low.

Needless to say a couple of years later the volume has halved.

My advice would be to either pile it in the garden and dig it in from time
to time, or leave a pile by the front with bags and a donation pot - get a
few quid and have a curry :)

--
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[harry]

I have a shredder. Probably reduces it to 10% or less of initial
volume.
Too valuable to throw away. Use for compost or mulch under shrubs.
Any keen gardener would take it away for you.

[Brian Gaff]

But very very noisy.. Pardon?

Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Dis Manibus" <d...@manibus.com> wrote in message
news:r8OdnUX7081EWgLM...@eclipse.net.uk...

[Chris J Dixon]

Indeed it is :-)

Make sure you get one of the "silent" type of shredder, the ones
with a blade whizzing round at high speed are prone to clogging,
which get's quite tedious after a while.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK
ch...@cdixon.me.uk

Plant amazing Acers.

[Andrew Gabriel]

In article <vhr0q89ftkn1pkuac...@4ax.com>,

The one I borrowed has a pair of blades spinning round. It's never
clogged and seems very powerful. It is quite loud though.

Some tips:
Make sure the blades are sharp[1] - then it cuts fast and self-feeds.
Let the cuttings dry out a bit first. They shred best when part
way between newly cut and completely dried out.

1. It was claimed the one I used didn't work. All that was
wrong was the blades were blunt, and as they were double-
sided, I just had to turn them around the other way.
They only last about 2-3 hours cutting before they need
resharpening, but I was shredding some rather dry 1" diameter
cuttings, amounting to about 2 years worth of garden clippings.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

[David.WE.Roberts]

Ask yourself how long it would take you to feed it all through the
shredder.

I sold my shredder because although it did what it said - reduced
everything including small branches to a mulch - it took so long that it
wasn't worth the time spent.

Over time, a trailer might be a wiser investment.

A big trailer may be OTT but our 2 ton twin axle trailer (roughly 8' by 4'
bed) can shift an enormous amount of garden prunings per trip and
generally you don't even have to spend time chopping it down to fit in
bags which will fit in the boot.

Big branches go straight in.
Smaller stuff goes into the builders bags you get sand and stuff delivered
in.

It is quite satisfying to load up the recycling skip with loads of stuff
whilst other people are trailing up black bin bags from the back of hatch
backs.

Depends on how often you need to shift stuff, but a small Indispension
trailer which can sit on its' back and store with the tow hitch straight
up in the air doesn't take much space and can shift quite a bit - one that
takes the aforementioned builders' bags is about the right size.

Cheers

Dave R

[charles]

In article <b0bqb5...@mid.individual.net>, David.WE.Roberts

at our Council "recycling site" you can't bring in a trailer without
putting it on the weighbridge first - and then paying.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

[Rick Hughes]

In my honest opinion the same ... as I have a shredder and always give
up and take it down tip as is.

Shredding just too slow.

[Another John]

In article <P82dnX9jfrn6njzM...@bt.com>,

Ditto. Gave it up long ago. Preferred methods:

(1) Bonfire. Once going properly, will reduce anything and everything to
a pile of ash about 0.01% volume of the original. But not always
possible so...

(2) Tarpaulin. (I bought a pair from Aldi some time ago.) Make large
pile in centre, roll up, and crush, ram in the back of the car. At the
tip lift to edge of the skip and let go one edge: all unloaded in 2
seconds.
- Don't make the mistake of making the pile so big that you can't carry
the roll-up.
- Never, never use black bags: bad enough to empty, but murder, and
sooooo time consuming, to fill.
- Never, never use a builder's dumpy bag (unless you have a big strong
mate with you in which case: great.

John
p.s. anyone want to buy a Bosch shredder?

[postmaster @ stejonda]

In message <vhr0q89ftkn1pkuac...@4ax.com>, Chris J Dixon

<ch...@cdixon.me.uk> writes
>Dis Manibus wrote:
>>

>>Great fun, too.
>>
>Indeed it is :-)

+1

And, since I use the shreddings for our composting toilet, doubly
useful.

>
>Make sure you get one of the "silent" type of shredder, the ones
>with a blade whizzing round at high speed are prone to clogging,
>which get's quite tedious after a while.
>

I disagree. I have just got rid of the 'silent' one I bought a year ago
as it spent more time crushing the wood than shredding it, needed
frequent adjustment to keep it even doing than and, whilst relatively
quiet, was 32Kg heavy and lop-sided. I'm much happier with the
spinning-blade type which, whilst noisy, is easier to move around and at
least shreds as I expect it to. Clogging only tends to happen IME if you
try and push too much and/or too wet material through too fast.

--
Simon

12) The Second Rule of Expectations
An EXPECTATION is a Premeditated resentment.