Seasonal pruning of the garden in spring and fall is an absolutely necessary operation for the care of the garden and garden plot. Every time after pruning, a large amount of wood waste is collected, and the question arises - where to dispose of the branches after pruning the garden? There are three most common and affordable ways of solving this issue.
Burn the branches on the garden plot
Take the branches to a landfill by truck
Process the waste with a branch shredder.
Let's consider each of the proposed options in more detail and highlight the pros and cons. Burning branches is the simplest method, but also the most dangerous. In addition to fire danger, burning can harm the health of your family and spoil the relationship with neighbors. In addition, it is punishable by a fine. For this reason, the removal of branches will seem a more acceptable option, but if you take into account that branches after pruning the garden take a significant volume, it can cost a round sum. In light of the previous points, buying a branch chipper and recycling wood waste with a wind chipper looks the most advantageous. In addition to solving the issue of utilization, the resulting material can be used to fertilize the garden and bring additional benefit to your plot. But how to choose a branch shredder for the house? In this article we will try to understand and find the answer.
What are garden shredders for?
Choosing a branch shredder, the user puts certain tasks before the equipment. Depending on the type of equipment, the shredder is needed to remove branches in the garden, recycle them into mulch and fertilizer for the garden, if it is a chipper. If it is a wind chipper, which chops branches into pieces, then the resulting raw material can be used for heating in solid fuel boilers, stoves and fireplaces. Also, the material after the wood chipper can be used in grills, barbecues and smokehouses.
Device and principle of operation
Shredders of branches can be divided into two large types:
Chip shredder, or in another way - grass and twig shredders;
Wind chipper, which chops branches into pieces of firewood.
Chippers
Chip cutters Twig choppers
The first option has several possible designs. It can be a shredder in which a drum is placed in the cutting zone, with knives installed, or of the disk type, in which knives are installed on a rotating disk, which are the working element.
Also possible is a combined type of disk chipper with additional hammers in the cutting zone, which additionally shred branches cut by the disk, or used for shredding garden waste, through a separate hopper for feeding raw materials.
In the case of the wood chipper, which chops wood into pieces. It has three shafts, a drive shaft and two working shafts. The working shafts have knives of 3 pieces on each shaft. At the moment of convergence of two opposite knives, a part of the branch is cut off.
Main characteristics and capabilities
To the main characteristics of the household branch shredder and industrial branch disposers can be attributed the following parameters:
Mass-dimensional characteristics;
Maximum diameter of the branches to be shredded;
Fraction of chips or firewood that are formed at the output of the shredder;
Type of drive;
Fuel consumption.
Depending on the device and the principle of operation of the equipment depends on its capabilities. The equipment is selected for the type of work that needs to be done. For example, for the care of a homestead plot, greenhouses and a small garden, it is convenient to use the design of the shredder of the combined type, with a disk and hammers in one body. In it you can shred both branches after pruning the garden and any other organic waste, such as: grass, leaves, vegetable crop residues, bark and so on.
For industrial use, it is best to use a disk-type chipper, such as MK-170BD or MK-170TR. The design is specially created for professionals and for daily use. It has a number of features that allow you to use this type for heavy loads.
For example, a special design of knives, hydraulic feed system, feed control system "anti-stress", 360 degree rotating discharge socket. For fuel, it is best to use a branch chopper that chops into pieces.
In such a shredder, the resulting raw material fraction is suitable for further use for heating. This type of shredder has a long service life of the knives and is easy to use and maintain.
Engine types
Shredders are coupled with tractors equipped with PTO or gasoline engines with power from 7 hp to 35 hp depending on the power of the equipment. In ARPAL wind chippers use engines of Weima, Loncin and Grunwalt brands depending on the design. In low-power branch chippers single-cylinder 4-stroke engines are installed, in higher-power chippers two-cylinder 4-stroke V-shaped engines with electric starter are installed. The engines are covered by a 1-year warranty from the engine manufacturer.
Advantages and disadvantages of different shredding systems
All of these shredding systems have their advantages and disadvantages. For example, for the disk shredder system, the advantage is the fine fraction of chips at the output, but to obtain it, the knives of the chipper are subjected to great wear and tear and with active work, the knives need frequent maintenance and will have to be sharpened every few days. In the hammer chipper the greatest advantage is the presence of a calibration sieve in the output and more homogeneous fraction of the chopped material. However, this design solution entails certain operational limitations. For example, it is necessary to monitor the load on the motor and the filling of the working chamber in order not to overload the equipment. The most productive and easy to operate and maintain is a branch chopper of the chopping type. Because the knives contact branches with less frequency compared to the disk chipper. But also the fraction of chopped raw material is the largest at the output. Which is an advantage if the chopper is used to prepare fuel for solid fuel and pyrolysis boilers.
Additional functionality
To ensure comfortable work with the equipment, a number of additional functional solutions are provided. Some models of choppers provide an output hopper with the possibility of hanging nets, for convenient packing of firewood.
The hopper can be for one or two nets, depending on the capacity of the equipment. If there is no need for packing and it is more convenient to ship the chopped branches in bulk, the hopper can be detached.
For convenient movement of the wind chipper on the territory, the design is mounted on pneumatic wheels. More powerful, professional models are mounted on a trailer, for towing to the place of work. Powerful models are equipped with a conveyor for feeding chopped branches into the truck body, which allows to significantly increase productivity. And for transportation and storage, there is a constructive possibility to fold the conveyor and the input hopper.
Conclusions
Choosing a branch shredder is a responsible process. In order not to make a mistake with the choice, it is important to determine for yourself what material will be shredded wind chipper, how the material obtained at the output will be used in the future, as well as how often and with what load the equipment will be used. After that, you can proceed to the choice of a particular model, and as you can see, the price is far from the first and determining parameter. The company Arpal produces wood chippers for wood shredding of all examined designs. The equipment can be bought in Ukraine immediately from the manufacturer.