Chipping trees?

[NorthCaroliney]

Any recommendations for how to go about whole tree chipping / equipment to use (rental options needed) and/or what services to look for when hiring? My understanding had been that I could chip/shred downed trees, but now that I have downed trees, I am having a hard time finding actual options for rental equipment or for-hire work.

[btulloh]

Trees. How big?

Usually takes a tub grinder fed by an excavator. No such thing as a rental. Land clearing contractor can provide this service.

[NorthCaroliney]

Mostly < 10-12/14" -- only stuff we were comfortable taking out ourselves with a 7500# mini-ex.

[btulloh]

A tub grinder will eat those, stumps and all. Last time I had it done it was 400 an hour 16 hour minimum. Varies from contractor to contractor. Just get some quotes. The rig that was here could produce 800-1000 yds of chips per hour. (That sounds high. Could be a memory issue. It was ten years ago. It did a lot of work in a short time. )

[btulloh]

Thinking back, it was an amazing thing. They ground up 20 acres of too-big nursery stock including a big area of 30ft arbor vitae. It took 12 hours and then they did 6 hours grinding of blow down I had left from a hurricane. One operator, 45 ton ex, tub grinder run by remote by the excavator op. Kind of amazing really.

[Maine logger88]

Not sure if many loggers in your area chip or not but if the wood isn't to dirty a 20in disk or drum chipper would do the trick you might be able to hire them to come chip it up for you. I doubt if you could rent a chipper big enough to do the job most rental companies only rent small hand feed chippers. 

[Riwaka]

Probably be an appropriate rental machine somewhere. Cost likely to be high in diesel etc.
e.g https://www.vermeermidatlantic.com/rental-equipment

[treemuncher]

Find a local contractor that runs 300Hp class or larger mulchers. The terrain will dictate tracks or tires and carrier or excavator based. I don't care if it's laying or standing, if I can reach it with a cutter head, I can grind it up. The only drawback is that I don't put chips in uniform sizes and neat piles. I can usually spread the chips about a bit and make it look pretty.

I grind stump balls, stems, tops, bits and pieces. It just takes a lot of power to muscle through trees bigger than 4" diameter. Speed is also relative to available power. If the tub grinders get $400/hr with a 16 hr min, my rates would be competitive and half the minimum.

Pictures from a job where I had to completely clear whatever the loggers left behind. Many of those stumps exceeded 30" at the cut.



 
I was running my Barko 937 on this part of the job. This is after I first started cleaning up the mess.



 

Finished product after I processed everything. Ready to throw down grass seed and be maintained with a bush hog.

[thecfarm]

That looks good. Do that on my land and there would be rocks sticking up all over the place.