Modern summer residents are accustomed to using all sorts of chemical fertilizers, but why spend money and harm their health, if instead you can independently harvest such humus for plants. It is obtained from the "garbage" collected on its site. Dried flowers, leaves and branches, as well as cutting the vine and grapes after meeting with a garden shredder for grass and branches become an excellent fertilizer, you just need to allow it to be ground in a compost pit. Let's see what this "miracle machine" is and what positive features it has.
Advantages of using garden shredders
As the name suggests, garden shredder is designed for shredding any garden and garden debris: as small weeds, and quite thick branches. We can say that this is its main advantage, as it helps gardeners get rid of unnecessary vegetation.
Did you know? Garden shredder is often called a chipper or shredder.
Today, there are several advantages of this type of special equipment: a relatively small weight and compactness, ease of transportation, ease of use and control, the presence of hardened knives.
Using garden shredders for branches and grass, you can easily reduce the amount of garbage on your site, as well as minimize the complexity of the process of cleaning the area. A significant saving of free time is another reason to get such an indispensable assistant. After a meeting with a chipper, old branches, leaves and dried grass become dust, and after a certain time they can be an excellent fertilizer for the soil. Thanks to the operational process of decay, it becomes possible to create an additional organic layer that is able to maximally protect the earth during the period of severe frosts.
Types of garden shredders
There are many types of garden shredders on the modern market, and in order to decide which one is better to choose, it is necessary to understand exactly what you want from it. In most cases, buyers pay attention to two main points: the type of shredder blade system and the type of motor - electric or gasoline.
Disk knife system
The knife system of disk type is presented in the form of a disk, supplemented with steel knives (there may be two or more). The disk stroke is set by the device shaft, after which the sharp knives begin to process branches, bark and other parts of plants.
Important! The quality of processing and the speed of this process depend on the characteristics of the material being processed.
Most of the crusher with disc knife system is suitable for processing grass, stalks and thin branches of trees. You can also use this type of shredder for dry branches, only in this case you will have to sharpen more often or immediately replace knives.
Milling knife system
The milling cutter system of the garden shredder is somewhat different from the previous species, and its feature is the solid cast form in the form of a gear. In terms of reliability and practicality, it is an order of magnitude higher than the disk system, so it is excellent for processing thick branches with a diameter of up to 40-45 mm.
One more indisputable advantage of a milling garden shredder is an independent mechanism for drawing in branches, which will save you from the need to constantly promote branches in a funnel. Simply load them into the garden shredder for grass and branches, and you can spend some time doing other things, giving the system the opportunity to recycle the garbage.
You can pick up a device with reverse and adjustment of the processing fraction, but do not forget that the grass and leaves are much more convenient to process in shredders with a disk knife system.
How to choose a type of engine for a garden shredder
Different garden equipment has its own design features, the main component of which are power plants of gasoline or electric types. The shredder for processing branches and other vegetation is no different in this regard, so it will be logical to pay attention to both types of powertrains, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages. Let's look at them in more detail.
Electrical engine
Grinders of branches and other garden garbage on which the electric motor is installed are considered the most simple in operation. When working with such a device, you can not worry about the presence of fuel in the tank and not be distracted by the increased noise level that the crusher publishes. Another advantage is the ease of construction, thanks to which even women can move the device around the dacha. The electric motor will save your plants from toxic products of combustion.
Important! Electric garden shredders do not require time-consuming maintenance, and their work is activated by pressing a single button.The disadvantages of using a shredder with an electric motor include the dependence on the power supply (to move around the territory you will need a multimeter extension), less power than gasoline models, limited in terms of recyclable materials (electric chippers cannot cope with branches more than 4 cm thick). If you lose power, you will not be able to use the crusher at all, and significant voltage drops can disable it.
Gasoline engine
In most cases, gasoline branch choppers are equipped with two-stroke power plants (four-stroke ones are much less common, although they have a significant advantage - ease of maintenance and relatively low noise level).
The main advantages of the petrol design include a large motor power (able to cope with branches up to 7 cm thick) and the absence of the need for power supply, thanks to which the device can be operated anywhere in the suburban area.
As for the minuses of gasoline shredders, it is impossible not to recall their high level of noise, which often annoys their neighbors, the great weight of the structure (compared to electric models) and the presence of harmful emissions into the atmosphere. Besides, gasoline shredders are more expensive because they require material costs for fuel and engine oil.
What should be the power of the garden shredder
If you do not know how to choose a garden shredder, then first of all we recommend to pay attention to the power of the device. Based on this indicator, all choppers can be divided into three groups: amateur models, middle-class models and professional devices.
"Amateur" is called the garden shredders of small capacity (up to 1.6 kW), which operate from the electrical network and have a knife-type disk system. Before you decide to buy goods from this class, be sure to check with the seller what material the knives are made of (best of all, if it turns out to be hardened steel). Such devices weigh up to 20 kg and are suitable for grinding branches with a thickness of not more than 3 cm.
Devices of average power are an intermediate variant between amateur and professional grinders. Such models can work both from the power supply network, and on gasoline, and their maximum power reaches 2.5 kW. Garden shredders of medium power are excellent for summer and private plots, with a small and middle-aged garden. All units are equipped with milling knives, so they easily cope with branches with a diameter of more than 4 cm.
As for professional devices, they are represented by large devices with a sufficiently large weight and power up to 4 kW. Can be equipped with both gasoline and electric engines that allow them to work for a long time. Such designs are designed to cope with the branches, the thickness of which corresponds to 6-7 cm. Moreover, the resulting crushed material is pressed, with the result that you get excellent mulch.
Professional units are complemented by convenient funnels, a powerful milling type cutting mechanism, and are able to pull in branches without pushing. Given their high level of performance, such devices are perfect for farms, large area gardens, etc.
Tips for choosing what else you should pay attention
In addition to the power of the garden shredder, there are some other nuances that you should definitely take into account in the situation of choice. For example, knives should be made of hardened steel or have a double-sided sharpening (when one side is blunt, you can solve the problem simply by turning the knife over). It is more convenient to use a chopper, in which the funnel for receiving the processed residues is cone-shaped and rather wide (the inclined options will be even more convenient).
Attention should be paid to whether a pusher for garbage is supplied with the grinder, especially if the device is not equipped with a retractor. Switching of operating modes will also become a function, which will help to improve performance and reduce gasoline / energy consumption, and thanks to the anti-start function, you can prevent the device from suddenly turning on after power surges in the network (meaning electric models).
Garden shredders equipped with pre-cutting knives will last longer, and the available reverse will roll the knives in the opposite direction if any branch is wound on them. Also, the benefit of the products will be attached to her goggles, which you still have to buy.
Choosing a suitable device for shredding garden garbage, you will surely notice that the combined models are more expensive, but it is impossible not to take into account that they have several holes that allow you to simultaneously grind large and small garbage. As a result, in a shorter period of time, you will process more branches and grass, and for this it is worth paying extra.
Well, the last thing that you should also pay attention to is the level of noise that the device emits during operation. If the equipment is supposed to be used at the dacha where there are exactly neighbors, then the boundary noise threshold is 84 dB.
Did you know? The intensity of the noise at 120-130 dB - is the maximum value that human hearing can perceive (although even it may be accompanied by pain). At 200 dB death occurs.
