If you have a bunch you want to do at once of larger diameter, it may be more effective to hire a team with a serious chipper for a few hours.

True, but my ultimate goals is to save money :-)

I generally spend about $700 /year on mulch (including delivery) and then spread it myself. My thought is that if I can find a mulcher or chipper for the same price then it would pay for itself in a year.

How many cubic yards of mulch do you need each year? And have you contacted local tree trimmers to see if they could supply you with wood chips?

tj

Consider renting a larger one from an eqpt rental place. Usually you can get a weekend for the price of 24 hrs during the week, and if you cut a lot of your stuff a few days ahead, that would maximize your chipping time. Just don't cut it too far ahead, because greener is softer and faster to chip.

No one wants that as firewood? How about letting someone cut, leaving you everything below a certain size that will fit your chipper?

BTW I would be skeptical of a mass market 5 hp chipper doing 3" branches without bogging down. I say this having used several of them over the past 30 yrs, including Sears Craftsman and MTD (which I own now). Green pine, maybe, but just don't expect miracles. That's why I suggested renting a bigger one.

Edit: Rental places near you have 25-35 hp ones that take 6" limbs, towable, like a serious contractor chipper. One quoted $395/d. That's quite a bit of coin but you could shop around. Or, look for a used one you could buy for maybe about what you'd spend on a new but smaller one from the big box store.

This is 8+ hp for $600.

https://winstonsalem.craigslist.org/for/d/kernersville-mighty-mac-chipper-shredder/7337570954.html

If you really want to save money, finding free wood chips from tree service places is the best bet I can think of.

I buy about 500 cubic feet at a time. I tried buying it from local sawmills, but it always came in with bugs that ended up being a LOT more trouble than they were worth! So I switched to using bags from Lowes a few years ago.

I didn't have a truck to haul it myself, so by time I paid someone to haul it for me it ended up being about the same price as the bags, anyway. But no bugs with the bags :-)

If I chop up my own trees, though, then at least it won't bring in NEW bugs.

@toxcrusadr, most of the trees I'm cutting back are field pine. No one uses that because they (falsely) believe that it causes excess creosote in the chimney. Which is kind of funny, really; I grew up with wood heat and my dad ALWAYS used pine because it's what we had. But now, you couldn't pay him to take it! LOL

I've given away a ton of beech, birch, and oak, though.

The issue with renting something is that it's going to end up costing almost as much as buying mulch, so it kinda defeats the purpose. I mean, $400 /year on a rental is still cheaper than buying mulch, but I'm not sure that saving $200 is worth the extra work (especially if the price goes up over time). So buying a used one might be the ticket :-)

I used to have an 8" Mitts and Merrill chipper that was powered by a 6 cylinder Ford gas truck engine. I bought that one in the mid 80's. I see them being sold, much newer, and for the price they're selling for it wouldn't cost anything except maintenance to own. I saw one sold at auction for $1650. I think I sold mine for a little more; but that was 30 years ago.

The one I owned needed cutter sharpening and a few new cutters. It chipped a 4 inch maple like nothing. The problem I had was I had 1000's of crabapples and it wouldn't suck it thru. Two problems, the wood is hard as hell and the top growth grows into a birds nest. Between the two I found it easier to cut them leaving one or two firewood sticks and throwing the rest on a bonfire.

I have owned a 12 horse Sears chipper for years and only chip what I prune off trees in my yard. Although I have access to forest land to hearvest firewood or material to chip, I have tree trimming companies dump firewood and chips free. Why should I wear myself, my chainsaw and chipper out when I can have it delivered free?

With today's catalytic stoves (OK catalytic back in the 80s and 90s, now the emissions are reduced through secondary combustion chambers), there should not be a creosote problem. I burn very little pine because I have oak and other species so I can't swear to it, but I would also guess that if the wood is dry, it should give off less creosote and burn more cleanly. But mainly if the stove is a decent one, it should burn pretty clean.

You would think that would be common knowledge, wouldn't you, @toxcrusadr! But nope. I've posted pine trees for firewood on the local sites for YEARS, and all I get are people telling me that you can't use pine for firewood :-/

I blame Fakebook >:-(

The only person that wanted any of it is a retired guy that makes wooden bowls for fun. But he only wanted about 4' of one tree, he said that would last the rest of his life.

I burn very little pine because I have oak

I took down a white oak in February with a 10" diameter (which is the size of my electric chainsaw). It took a week to get it down! It was so hard, it looked like I was hitting it with a sander instead of a chainsaw!!

I thought it had killed my blade, but no, I can still cut through pine like butter. Lucky for me, I don't have TOO much oak, but the ones I do have will probably need to be taken down by someone with a real saw.

White oak can be pretty hard, especially if it's dead and dried out already. I cut a 45" diameter old growth white oak once, and it was hard as iron. Have to have a powerful saw and a sharp chain for that. BTW the tree was being taken down by a developer and we asked if we could have it, I would rather it was left standing. It was probably 150 yrs old. We sawed it into incredible lumber and only burned the smaller branches that we could snag before they went into the chipper.