Almost any yard and garden store that has an ample supply of mowers, tillers, etc. I have seen shredders at Tractor Supply, Home Depot, Lowes, Sears, but have been able to order them through the locally owned yard and garden shop that I frequent the most.

Lowe's has one for $70. But some on gardenweb have said that they catch rocks and sticks easily and then they don't work as well, if at all.

Another suggestion is to put your leaves in a trash can and use a weed wacker on them.

I haven't tried either method yet.
Kiki

The leaf vac/shredder combinations work great...in theory, that is. I go through a new one almost every year, but I keep buying another one. I've only used the electric ones, so you have to struggle with the cord all the time. The gas ones are bigger and more expensive, (they are the ones landscapers use) plus work better, but are louder and worse on the environment. I have a ton of leaves each fall to compost, and have found that the easiest is to pick them up with the lawn mower and dump into the compost pile. The leaf shredders clog so frequently that they become a major pain, unless you are picking up ONLY dry leaves. If any wood chips, twigs, or wet leaves enter the picture, it becomes hard work to keep it going. Expect to pay about 100.00 at least for a decent one.

I have a chipper/shredder that I use. Cost about 4 or 5 hundred, but I've had it for about 10 years and it is still like new. Chips up to 3" branches, and shreds just about anything I can fit in it. Most everything comes out less than a half inch square, but this is adjustable. I use a pitchfork to put stuff in the shredder, and If a few small stones get in it's not a big deal. So you can buy an electric shredder for around $100 every year or buy a decent chipper for around $400 to $500 once. If you wait till late in fall, they usually have them on clearance. I have a sears model with a 6.5 horse motor. Starts on the first or second pull everytime. You can move it anywhere, has wheels and no cord. Have no experience with other models so there could be some better, worse, or the same for different prices.

Lee

I have a B&D Leaf Hog which I like. I'm careful not to pick-up rocks and big twigs with it - just fluff the leaves a bit so the heavier stuff goes to the bottom. Nice little contraption - works for me.

I use a chipper/shredder that I got from Lowes last summer for about $600. Its 6.5HP, it takes in leaves at the top and branches 2-3 inches in diameter on the side. Like Lee I am very satisfied with its performance. The material comes out beautifully shredded, leaves come out nearly as powder.

My mom told me it took her years to get worms to come to her yard and after putting two 5x7 trailer loads (collected from local church) of leaves through the shredder and spreading them on my yard I have worms everywhere. The rose bushes between mine and my neighbor's yard haven't bloomed in years and this year they each had over fifty blooms.

I digress, about the chipper, it handles the leaves like a pro, I threw in soggy half decomposed chunks of leaves and it chewed them up fine. The few stones that managed to get into it were either ground up themselves or tossed back out the top (safety goggles are a must).

I can't wait until the fall to get more!

I think the moral of the story is be prepared to spend hundreds of dollars for a quality machine to do the job or else pay less than 100 dollars and be prepared to replace it often.

If you think about it this is a pretty simple matter.

If you go look at the sub 100 leaf blowers/vacs/shredders at Wally world they are made of plastic. I don't care if they are gas or electric, the gears are plastic.

Put stress on them like sucking up a twig or stone instead of just leaves and they wear quickly.

I had a gas shredder/blower where it worked fine except the motor would overheat after some sticks got in it. I had an electric unit that simply broke and wouldn't chop bread anymore.

Now I use my lawn mower.

A weed whacker could work, but there again you get what you pay for. If the motor isn't powerful enough to spin with a foot of leaves covering it, the motor burns out.

The $400 plus chipper shredders or a $200+ mulch mower with bag attachment are the best buys out there as far as I am concerned. Spend less and you end up replacing every year or so.

The only way to get a better value than buying quality is if you hate walmart. If you hate walmart then what you do is go buy a vac shredder from them for whatever price in the fall. Use it for all the leaves you have. It will end up breaking. Return it for a refund. Repeat in subsequent years.

This is a very inexpensive way to shred leaves and 'stick it to da man' at the same time.

I used to do this when younger and I was camping all the time. I would go buy a tent and camping supplies. I would use them. Inevitably it would rain and the tent would leak. I would return the tent because it leaked and return everything else because I didn't need it if I didn't have a tent.

FWIW, I have a nice li'l McCullough electric chipper/shredder I paid around $250 for several years ago - it chips branches up to 1 1/2" dia. & shreds leaves easily.Resulting mulch is quite fine.

It's 14 amp - so I had to buy a heavy-duty cord for it, which upped the cost by about $30.

I love it = )

Took a bit of getting used to - it will jam if you get too ambitious - but it's not too difficult to unjam.I love the no-maintenance aspect & really appreciate the easy start switch.It's on wheels & pretty easy to move around - unlike the behemoths @ local box stores.

I got it online from a site I found throught G'web.It looks like this....

{{gwi:146336}}

HTH

I recommend a used gas powered chipper. I went to craigslist.com and found one used 10 hours for $200 in the next city over. It came with a bag, and manual. One of the greatest investments I've made. It's a Craftsman 6.5hp chipper with a leaf chute that you lower to the ground. You sweep leaves towards the chute and it gets sucked in and shredded. No lifting of leaves involved. It also shreds up to 3" branches, dry seems to be better. It shreds 12:1, so the output is about the size of chainsaw chips in most cases with some wood chips that end up being several inches long. The bag is rather small but worth every penny. I find it much easier to keep dumping out the small bag, than to have it blow my leaf and wood chips anywhere from 4-25 ft away and have to try to collect it afterward. Also, pretty good on gas. I think my tank can hold 1/2 - 3/4 gallon and will run for about 3 hours on high speed per tank. Reading the manual told me "after you're done, take a garden hose and spray it into the openings of the wood chipper to clean out the insides." It feels awkward spraying a garden hose into a running chipper down the chutes but that's what the manual says!

I highly recommend a gas one. Many electric cheap leaf shredders are weed wackers turned upside down and you have to frequently play with twine and worry about clogs. At a minimum, get one with metal blades. The one thing I wish my unit had, was a plastic piece that fits perfectly into the wood chipping chute so I don't have to push branches down so close to the blades. I get them close, and then use a big log to try to push the rest down.

It cost me about $6.00 in gas to fill a 3x3x3 compost bin with wood chips and start composting them. That's pretty good I think. In fall, I'm going around the neighborhood and stealing people's leaves. I'm so glad I have a chipper now. I also put card board pieces down the leaf chute and it shreds them to the size and almost fluff of cotton balls and throw them into my compost. You have to give it small pieces of cardboard at a time because it really chokes on them and will stall if you give it too much to chew at once. Whether it's safe or a good idea to feed it cardboard I don't know but I do.

piedmont,
I think we have the same shredder. Mine works the same way with the leaf hopper lowering to the ground.

Lee

piedmont, sounds like our shredder. We bought it new at Sears for $389 or so in 1994. It is a wonderful, WONDERFUL tool! We lived in Waxahachie, TX for awhile with tall trees all around us (in West Texas there are not that many trees, esp since the drought). That thing chewed up LOTS of leaves when we lived there. Just in our neighborhood we picked up many bags of leaves from the curb before the trash truck got to our street ; ) and our 6 compost bins were always full!

We are back in West Texas so it is limbs from shrubs and trees that are diseased due to the drought. DH has neighbors trained to drop off limbs at the back gate. I would love to take a truck and trailer to Waxahachie and fill it full of bagged leaves!

Our shredder is out of commission for now. Few months back DH was shredding when something came loose; he has not had the time or money to take it for repairs. We miss it!

This is probably the best investment we ever made in lawn tools!

I guess I forgot to mention the electric I posted a pic of has 2 sets of heavy, metal blades - no strings anywhere.The yellow cover lifts off to get @ them.Branches are fed through a chute on the back - you can see it sticking out from the left in the pic.....

Greetings folks. I just picked up a (free!) Craftsman shredder from freecycle -- looks to be about 20 yrs old. It's an upright model, not the lawn mower-esque kind. 6.5 horsepower. Problem is, it won't start. It'll turn over and cough, but nothing more. I put in new gas and oil, and I'm leaving the air filter off (it's filthy) just until I can get it started. Plug seems to be fine, though I'm not 100% positive about the gap.

If anyone's got a similar model and can give me some start-up help, I'd be much obliged. Or if someone can send me or point me to a manual, or at least an exploded diagram so I know what I'm working with, I'd be even more obliged.

Many thanks, and I'm glad I found this resource! I've got 3 compost bins working at the moment -- we had a huge hailstorm here in Boulder that knocked 50-60% of the leaves off all our trees and plants (ruining our hard work on the back garden for this year, but that's life), so I've got a ton of new green to get chopped...

Phil

I get bags of leaves alomg the street during the winter when they are bagged and put out for the city to pick up. I just spread them out on the lawn and run over them until the blades cut them so small I cant see them, then I put on the bagger and suck them up. They are so fine that put in a compost pile and kept wet and turned once a week and in 6 weeks they are like black dirt. I mix this with other things like sawdust, composted cow or chicken fert. Add a little extra minerals, mix well water then plant.

Phil, there is a Tool Shed forum here that will likely be of more help but even they would likely need more clues as to model, etc. 20y/o, 6.5hp, craftsman just won't cut it. You could try sears.com for the manual.

Sounds like you know enuff to know it needs 3 things to run -
spark
compression
fuel

My guess is the carb is gummed up, dirty, or has water in it esp. if it hasn't been run in awhile.

So assumming you have spark & compression you can spray fuel into the air cleaner or carb. Try ether, carb cleaner, or just some gas in an old spray bottle. If it starts then stalls out, there is a prob with fuel supply.

Good Luck,
Gumby_Ct

And, a 20 yr old shredder my guess will break a few times before it gets reliable. That just seems to be what happens to me for things stored for years.

I borrowed a tiller that hadn't been used in 20 years, it was kept in storage. It ran, but started running worse. Next time I pulled it out, wouldn't start. Bringing it to the repair shop rust in the gas tank had shaken loose and clogged the line. The repair guy was just able to get the rust out and still have an intact gas tank. I got it back, went to start it 4 months later and wouldn't start. This time, no spark. Repair guy tried to explain it to me, it was I think called a condenser of the electrical system that was the culprit. I'm picking it up tomorrow, and we'll see what's going to break next.

Same thing with a snow blower, I got a snow blower given to me that hadn't been used for 5-6 years. Once again, rust, blocked the fuel line. After getting it back I used it for about 15 minutes and then gas kept pouring out of it even with engine off. Sent it for repairs again, repair guy said it was a defective float I think. After getting it back again, used it about 3 times and the electric start on it fried. Only takes 3 pulls manually anyhow. Now something else. Runs good for the first 10 minutes then over the next half hour I have to keep opening back up the choke to keep the engine running good. After about 40 minutes of use my choke is open to full and the engine from then on progressively gets worse until it stalls and will not start. I have to wait a couple hours and then I can repeat.

So, if experience has showed me something, it's that things break, a lot while not in use.

Just a quick tip on storing gasoline powered tools. I add stabil to all my gas so at the end of the year everything already has it in. Never leave it sit without gas for any amount of time as this will lead to rust and gumming up of the carbs etc. Everything starts for me easily, even with 2 year old gas.

Lee

filipo: I'm not sure how you're coming along with rehabilitating your old shredder but you might want to check out the attached link...deals with carb cleaning. Pay special attention to the small hole in the bolt that holds the carbureator bowl on. I just revived a 10hp Tecumseh-powered shredder that had sat out in the rain/weather for seven years...running fine. :)

Ed

Here is a link that might be useful: carb cleaning info

Great link Ed....hats off to you.

Glad I could contribute something! :)

Ed

I have (I believe) the Flowtron Ultimate Mulcher...or at least it looks the same as the one pictured the 3rd from the bottom.

I've had it for years and love it. I've taken it to friend's houses and then come home with truckloads of brown gold. I believe it reduces about 13 or 15 to one.
It works best if leaves are dry, and free of sticks. I just throw the sticks/bigger twigs in a box or basket, when I come upon them when loading.

I've had it about 5 years or so, and it is going strong.

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: Shredders