Author Topic: Are shredders any good?  (Read 6173 times)

genlistlass

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Are shredders any good?
« on: April 02, 2009, 08:56:40 »
I have a Green Bin which the council empties twice a month in the growing months. This is not enough for my bushy garden. Either the bin stands nearly empty for weeks or I have a huge pile of twiggy bits waiting the next bin day or the followijng one or the even following one! I usually end up lugging it to the local dump which is a 19 mile round trip......... I dont reckon I'm saving the planet, just providing the local council with free compost at a cost to myself of £20 per bin per year.

So I thought ...solution....get an electric shredder and lay it as ground mulch.

Most of my garden waste is twiggy shrubs and the odd bag of grass clippings.

Would like your opinions please

Gen in NBL where its a lovely still sunny spring day
No allotment but medium sized garden with greenhouse, small-ish raised veggie plot and little shed.....my little kingdom:-)

lorna

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2009, 09:05:45 »
I shared the cost of a shredder £100 with my son-in-law. I wanted it mainly to shred the conifer prunings. I found it useful with the bigger pieces but the smaller ones went straight through.  Also found it time consuming. I have now had all conifers removed so the shredder is never used.

woppa30

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2009, 09:14:44 »
My allotment neighbour was bought one by his son. It was a strange present becasue he had always said he would never use one. He has three com[post heaps on the go (one ready to be used, one maturing and one on the go) but since his son bought it he ahs used it to shred most stuff before it goes on the heap. I must say I am fairly impressed with its effectiveness. Not only does it chop everything up samll so it rots faster it aslo acts as a mixer so you don't end up with layers and his suff now rots at an impressive rate and the compost produced has a wonderful texture with no big bist of sprout stalks. If we ad power to the site I would think about getting one. Peter, the above mentioned allotment neighbour, has to carry is shredded items to the bottom of his 240ft garden, through a gate and onto his allotment. I'm not jelous at all........

wetandcold

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2009, 09:56:27 »
A friend of mine gave me his old shredder and I use it quite a lot at various times of the year. By shredding the old stems of my lavatera, bamboo, phygelis etc. I generated about 5 bucketloads of finely chipped mulch which went straight into the compost bin. Within about 2 days it was overrun with worms and generating quite a lot of heat and now, two weeks later, it has already rotted down lovely! It does make a great addition to the compost and gives it some bulk. It is useless for leaves and fine soft shoots though.

However - mine was free. Would I pay that much money for one for the amount of use it gets??? I'm not sure to be honest ???

Baccy Man

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2009, 11:06:30 »
Shredders are effective as long as you pick the right one for the type of material you are shredding.
Rapid shredders use a spinning blade. The rapid shredders work like a food processor and can handle soft stems and green foliage as well as long thin woody stems.
This is fine until your blades become blunt,  then the cutting efficiency is reduced and blockages occur and the "shreddings" become long thin and stringy.
The blades can be sharpened but only a couple of times. Typically replacement blades cost between £10 and £15 a set.
The Bosch AXT Rapid 2200 gets very good reviews.

Quiet Shredders use a cog and drum mechanism to cut & crush material as it passes through. These are reliable and well tested, they cannot be sharpened and are more expensive expensive to replace if you wear one out.
The crushing cog type shredders are self feeding pulling in big woody stems as long as you trim the bottom side shoots off first.
However crushing cog type shredders are not so good at handling soft stems and green foliage, as some may pass through uncut. Which is not really a problem as it will rot down quickly anyway.

As you are generating mostly woody waste I would suggest you look at quiet shredders the Bosch AXT2200HP is often the most highly reccommended from the point of view of quality & the fact you can get spares easily. The electric shredder I own is a Flymo Pac A Shred the only reason I bought this rather than the Bosch was that it folds away for storage, since then Bosch have brought out a new range of folding shredders AXT 25D which uses a cog and drum mechanism & the AXT 25TC which uses a new cutting mechanism (8 rotating blades) which they refer to as a 'turbine cutting system' which looks as if it will deal with soft material as well as woody. I would probably be looking at these new models if I was purchasing a new shredder now.

Bosch axt2200hp in use:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3zBZcA4adY
Flymo Pac a Shred in use:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VH1UcTsvho&feature=related

jellied

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2009, 12:06:16 »
I got a Bosch off ebay [sorry, model not to hand]. great for shredding the XMas tree and other prunings once a year, but only to create stuff to lay on the paths.

An excellent source of advice is http://www.fredshed.co.uk/homepage.htm - lots of reviews and actually testing.

I recall you have to have alot of stuff to shred on a regular basis to make it worth while.

caroline7758

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #6 on: April 02, 2009, 16:20:20 »
I also got one off ebay for 15 quid- no postage as it was close by. It's not greatr and only takes fairly thin bits but good forshrdding prunings before I put them in the compost, so reckon I've had my money's worth.

manicscousers

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #7 on: April 02, 2009, 18:39:36 »
Ray bought one for 20.00 from a car boot, took a chance 3 years ago..brilliant, we have lots of trees in our garden, it's useless for ivy and honeysuckle but we use the shredded stuff in the fruit cage  ;D

sazhig

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #8 on: April 02, 2009, 20:33:52 »
The first house we bought had a 100ft garden with privet down the whole of one side...and very overgrown privet at that. PIL bought us a shredder one xmas and it was fabulous! No more piles of sticks laying about waiting for a trip to the dump (no green collection back then) or waiting for DH to build a bonfire LOL

We've since moved and have never had that volume of sticks to deal with again, but I wouldn't be without the shredder as it means even twiggy prunings can go in the compost or used as a mulch.

Mrs Soup

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #9 on: April 02, 2009, 21:33:51 »
I'm on my second one, having completely worn out the first. Both have been the quiet shredders talked about above.

The fredshed site is a very good source of impartial advice.

I have tree trimmings and brambles and this shredder is pretty good for all these.

One thing to be aware of, you still need to store the shreddings for at least 4 months before you can use them as mulch on your beds, otherwise they strip the nitrogen out in order to rot down.  Of course you could mix them with the grass clippings so they use the clippings' nitrogen and both rot quicker.

Toadspawn

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #10 on: April 02, 2009, 22:10:27 »
I am on my second shredder and it is the best piece of gardening equipment I have bought. Admittedly it cost £180 but I can shred everything and the shredded material has signifcantly less volume and begins to rot quickly so becomes usable sooner. 

Pesky Wabbit

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #11 on: April 02, 2009, 23:02:43 »
Have you got both a lawn mower and a shredder ?

Take two pieces of machinery to the compost heap?

Why not just mow-and-go.  :)

Not really wanting yet more machinery to store in overflowing garage, I purchased a 5.5 horse power petrol mower - ie far more power than is required just to cut the grass.

I collect my twigs, leafy stuff even quite thick stems and just run the mower over them several times - instant composter material.

Anthing left over (ie woody stems over 1/2" thick) go on the bonfire or out to the council.

OK,  the mower blades need sharpening every couple of months, but thats just a matter of flipping the mower over and getting a file out, takes 5 mins. I've only renewed the blade once in 8 years.

Also use it to shred all the leaves in the Autumn from the green bags that I 'harvest' up and down the road, before they go into the composter.

I think the mower cost me about £200.00,  8/9 years ago. But it means I cut the crass with ease and haven't needed to splash out more hard earned on more equipment for which I dont have storeage space.

genlistlass

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #12 on: April 03, 2009, 03:21:21 »
What great replies I've got for this question! Thanks so much, people.

I like the look of the Flymo, it looks so easy to use and compact for storage. Wheels are ESSENTIAL in my house for anything.........cos i'm only 5'2" and have a bus pass hehehe.

Cos  I now use my buspass to go into town, I can't really see me taking bags of grass clippings and large twigs with me to throw in the dump as we go past. the driver wouldnt let me on. I don't do compost heaps as I haven't the strength! I've had several versions in the past with no end product whatsoever, just mouse nests...... don't like composters.

Gen in NBL
No allotment but medium sized garden with greenhouse, small-ish raised veggie plot and little shed.....my little kingdom:-)

caroline7758

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #13 on: April 03, 2009, 17:11:09 »

chriscross1966

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #14 on: April 03, 2009, 17:20:52 »
Does anyone know if there is such a thing as a small petrol powered shredder?.... we don't have electric at our site..... ti woudl be great if Ryobi made an expand-it attachment for it though I'm not sure the 1hp motor would be up to it though it does a good job as a strimmer/brushcutter.....

chrisc

genlistlass

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #15 on: April 03, 2009, 17:37:49 »
Argos locally to me is out of stock  of the very reasonably priced one mentioned.

I saw some petrol ones on ebay today when I was checking proices and types.

Gen in COLD Northumberland
No allotment but medium sized garden with greenhouse, small-ish raised veggie plot and little shed.....my little kingdom:-)

chriscross1966

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #16 on: April 04, 2009, 08:49:23 »
Argos locally to me is out of stock  of the very reasonably priced one mentioned.

I saw some petrol ones on ebay today when I was checking proices and types.

Gen in COLD Northumberland

ALl the petrol ones I've found recently seem to be huge... some of them even had built in towing hitches..... Back when my folks bought the one that they have (a now ancient Alko) even at the lower power end of the market (2HP or so) you could get petrol ones as well as the then slightly cheaper electrics.... now it seems that petrol start at 6.5 HP and I just don't need that sort of thing as it's really there for trees, I would expect the thickest "hard" thing to go into mine would be a currant bush pruning, though I guess some brussel sprout stems can be a bit fiesty.... I only have a small shed and don't want to fill it with an expensive agricultural implement ....

chrisc

Robert_Brenchley

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Re: Are shredders any good?
« Reply #17 on: April 04, 2009, 11:24:39 »
You might be better getting a generator and an electric one.

 

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