Cedar chips

[Lakeside]

I have access to many cut down eastern red cedar trees. I am considering renting a chipper and using the chips to cover a large area of my property. I do not have experience making wood chips.

So my question to you all is this endeavor worth it ? I concern is the bark, will I have stringy mess or will it chip up OK?

I know a little off topic but I thought I would give it a shot.

 

[MarylandGuy]

It will all chip quite nicely, but from past experience, I would opt for a slightly larger chipper if you have the option. That is of course dependent on how much brush you have to chip. The larger chipper will do the job in about half the time, and not costing that much more.

A lot of rental centers carry the smaller model that you see for sale at Sears, but they usually carry a model about half the size of a professional chipper and pulls behind a small truck or SUV pretty easily.

 

[Bushfire]

If you have quite a bit, it may actually be cheaper (or at least close to the same and easier) to simply hire a contractor to chip it for you and leave it on site. The cost of renting a chipper is likely to be a couple of hundred for the day, if not more, and you'll have to transport it back and forth and, obviously, do the work. I just had a crew chip a pretty good amount of brush for $400 (took them a couple of hours), and I was left with a nice pile of wood chips to use around the yard.

 

[Oldman47]

You might want to contact a local landscaping wholesaler and price wood chip mulch by the truck load or the cubic yard. Compared to the work and costs involved in renting and using a large wood chipper you may find you would be ahead just buying bulk wood chip mulch.
This assumes you don't need to rid yourself of that cedar.

 

[iron]

we took down a pile of laurel hedge (the bush, not the tree) last year. the branches stacked up about 15ft deep over a 30x30 footprint.

rented a chipper from home depot - their big one - and used it for about 8 hours. it ran out of gas on the very last piece requiring chipping. i was thoroughly impressed. i think it rented for <$100.

the mulch didn't have the nice mulch shape that you would normally see; instead, the pieces were generally long and narrow instead of wafer-like. still, we just needed to reduce the size of the stuff so we could stuff it into our yard waste bins (over the next 10 weeks using about ten 96 gallon bins each time........)

 

[Lakeside]

Thanks for the tips fellow firewood burners. Yes it is time to calculate " return on investment " One thing I have observed with my firewood obsession is I am more awear of working efficiently. There is something about picking up a piece of wood 20 times that inspires one.

 

[xman23]

I've been mulching the yard for years. I just did it again last summer, 48 yards of bark mulch. The cost of the material from the log mill is $5 a yard. Delivery extra. It's real rough stuff. But holds up well. I put it down about 6 inches deep.

 

[woodhog73]

Chippers come in all sizes. Most tree companies use something between 12 inch up to 18 inch with 100hp Diesel engine.

This is a very heavy chipper. You would need a 3/4 ton pickup at minimum to safely tow it, preferably a 1 ton pickup or bigger. And your talking about fitting up to 18 inch logs at most. Cedars are much bigger than that.

Are you talking about chipping the tops ? Or the entire tree ? There are chippers that can eat a pretty big tree.

I'm really not sure what size tree your chipping but I'm going to guess most retail rentable and towable chippers are in the 8 to 10 inch range and towable with a typical 1/2 ton truck. There is no way your going to chip up a large ceder with that. Only the tops.

 

[Wildo]

Why don't you. C/S/S it and have enough kindling to last you years...?

 

[Lakeside]

Why don't you. C/S/S it and have enough kindling to last you years...?

My home is on a small lake and the back yard is a shallow slope, I have used mulch in the past, because I prefer not to have grass. Ceder mulch would smell nice and allow me more time to hike with my vizsla Ben.

 

[Wildo]

My home is on a small lake and the back yard is a shallow slope, I have used mulch in the past, because I prefer not to have grass. Ceder mulch would smell nice and allow me more time to hike with my vizsla Ben.

Gotcha, Maybe save a few nice clean blocks for kindling, and/or to cut up and put in a drawer, chest, or closet etc. for aromatic qualities.

 

[Chuck the Canuck]

My home is on a small lake and the back yard is a shallow slope, I have used mulch in the past, because I prefer not to have grass. Ceder mulch would smell nice and allow me more time to hike with my vizsla Ben.

That is a beautiful dog! Absolutely gorgeous. What's all the rigging on her/him for?

 

[Lakeside]

Gotcha

I do make a large black trash can of kindling every year and let it bake in the sun.

What's all the rigging on her/him for

That's just his car harness, I do take it off him otherwise. Thanks for the compliments.

 

[Wildo]

I do make a large black trash can of kindling every year and let it bake in the sun.

Man, that is great idea. Light and easy to move, contained mess. Just put the lid on when it rains.

I may have to poach that idea...

 

[Lakeside]

Man, that is great idea.

I used a hole saw to cut 2 inch holes in the sides too. I should have a picture somewhere. Man this firewood thing really is an intense vocation.

 

[Wildo]

I used a hole saw to cut 2 inch holes in the sides too. I should have a picture somewhere. Man this firewood thing really is an intense vocation.

Ayuh.

 

[StihlKicking]

Sounds like a great idea to me, it should chip nicely. I have lots of eastern red cedar on my place. I use it for kindling and fence posts mostly. I recently built a chicken coop run out of poles that were mostly heart wood.