I assume you read my post a couple of weeks ago about my adventures with my new Chipper Shredder. It is a Cub Cadet CS3310. The thing that should have been obvious from its construction, but surprised me is it starts like an old flywheel engine. Pull the rope, it fires one or twice, then 3 or 4 times and finally into a running firing order.

I had a pile of brush that I had collected over 5 years from the trees on our semi wooded lot. I have used it six or seven days and have the brush pile nearly gone. It handles the large stuff quite will, and it is going to be satisfactorily do the job for which it was purchased.

Point being it is a well built reliable machine.

The basic design of this type of machine has its positives and negatives. The positives are that it is easily stored and take up minimum floor space, about 25" X 36", and, on the Cub Cadet, the tow bar makes it easy to take any where in the yard with your lawn tractor. It weight about 200lb, so can be manually moved easily depending on where you are taking it.

The negative is the basic design of this arrangement of hopper and shredder. The shredder blade spins in the vertical axis, so the hopper feed into the blade from the side. What this means is that you must feed it slowly, otherwise you will get a build up in the hopper. The lighter the material going into the hopper the more prevalent the problem becomes. I have patently shred leaves, but you don't just put them in, and out they come, you have to work them into the shredder blade. Roses and other vines can also be a problem as they stick to themselves and have to be worked into the shredder. I have found that the hopper works best when you put them in short section.

Since the leaves I have shredded are those that were associated with the brush pile, I do not know what types of through put you could obtain if you fed a half acre of leaves through it continuously until they were gone.

wow. I hadn't even considered that the blade would be mounted vertically in a unit that has the hopper on the top. The shredder I have now has the hopper and blade horizontal. Like you said you have to feed it at times, though dry leaves are easily sucked in. I don't care so much about branches getting shredded. I am mainly after shredding leaves into a small consistent size. Also would be nice if it handled wet leaves. I find that electric machines usually don't have the power that gas models do, so unless someone says an electric shredder handles wet leaves well, I'm not considering those.

hi thomas, i like and use the mower technique. i have a few large oak trees in my back yard and every year the same thing, a ton of leaves. years back my neighbor brought home a rather impressive looking shredder, 8hp "mighty mac"? he said we could use it to clean up the fall mess. it was not what i expected, it didn't voluntarily take the leaves, used a 2x4 to force feed it, kinda spooky. took awhile to shred each pile. i keep a old honda hr194 in the shed as my go 2 shredder. blow them into a pile w/o bag run them over, install bag pick them up, done.

hi anin, That's my technique for when I want to add them to the compost. When I want to shredd the leaves under the oaks, it's a different beast. I have stalled the mower on the the highest height setting due to the depth of leaves that I have. I could always mulch and bag but that's more time than I have. I was hoping these top hopper units work better than the horizontal ones and I could place the shredder where I want the leaves and shred away. Maybe I'm back to trying to build one.

As to using the rotary mower to chop up leaves, I have done it many times. I tried my riding mower but it would hang up in the leaves and was useless.

The results are that I have used my push mower many times to chop up leaves. May be it is not the safest way of doing it but I rake the leaves into a pile, push down on the handle lift the front wheels of the mower I high as I can get them and slowly work through the pile. Once I make the first pass with the front wheels up, I finish the job with the mower in its normal position.

where you spying on me!?

@krnuttle yep that's how I do it as well. And safety is another concern. I ahd a couple bags that had chunks of concrete in with the leaves and the mower turned them into flying shards of destruction. Glad the shards didn't hit anyone.

I USUALLY watch where i rake the pile of leaves ;-)

I have the same exact unit. The hose works ok if you suck up the leaves slowly. I've had that unit for about 5 years maybe. Had to replace the hose twice. I like this unit for raking up leaves from the yard. I actually will run over the leaves with the lawn mower in compost mode and then suck up the bits and have the vacuum shred them further. However, what I need the leaf shredder for is neighbor leaves. I get anywhere between 100-200 yard waste bags of leaves throughout the year. I'd get more if I had a truck but as it is I have to haul them in the wheel barrow. or garden cart. :( I'd love to find a unit that has a top hopper so I can slowly feed the bagged leaves through the hopper and get a nice shredded product out the bottom. Put it on wheels and then move the unit every 4-5 bags to get 3" coverage all over the mulch area. I know. I'm asking a lot. :)