Patriot Products CSV-2515 1.5 HP Corded Electric Wood Chipper Leaf Shredder

This electric wood chipper was a terrific purchase. I just finished cutting down a 27-year old, 140-foot long, 20-foot wide, 12' high, Double File Viburnum hedge (see photo of first 40 feet removed). This chipper efficiently dispatched all branches 2" in diameter or less, and I ended up with approximately 7 yards of chips to be used as garden mulch. Here are some thoughts: 1) Follow the user manual! 2) Use 20-amp circuit 3) If you feed large limbs too quickly, it will blow your fuse. 4) I live in a residential area, and my neighbors love the machine, because it is quiet. 5) The bagger that comes with the machine works great. 6) Its extremely convenient to use and exceptionally well built 3/31/2020 update: this is my fifth year and it still is going strong! I have no complaints. So why does it work so well with only an 1 HP electric motor. The answer is it has a very heavy flywheel (approx 50 lbs.) and it has only one cutter blade attached to its circumference; the design is pure genius. When handling heavier limbs 1 to 2 inches in diameter, don’t feed it in fast. Go “feed one second —pause one second, feed one second, pause one second,... until it is through. Believe me, I have at lease 40 hours on this machine (and perhaps more)—if you don’t rush feeding larger limbs, it will not struggle and the work will get done quicker than you would think. Another thing: I bag my chips to use these as mulch around the garden. Don’t wait until the bag gets too full! If you allow the bag to become completely full, the chips will back up discharge shoot and clogo the machine, and believe me, you don’t want that. You’ll have to clear out the blockage. After clogging the machine several times when first using it, I learned my lesson, and have not clogged up the machine in several years. 7/9/2023 update. This is my 8th year using the machine, and it is still running flawlessly. Are use it several times a year, because I have a large yard and do a lot of pruning. Last week, I had to cut down a 12 foot cherry tree, and most of the limbs, 2 inches in diameter or less easily fed through the machine in less than one hour. I ended up with four large bags of wood chips. In the fall I use the top hopper to shred leaves to spread as mulch on my flower garden. The only thing that I’ve had to do to the machine is sharpen the cutter blade and put grease into its bearing. I do this every two or three years, which is very easy to do. 6/11/2024 update. This year I really used it heavily, producing about 80 cubic feet of wood chips. I’ve used this product now for the ninth season and love it. Just remember not to be in a rush to chip; take your time, and you will get good results. Keep in mind that you need a 20 amp circuit with an extension cord properly rated for that current.

I'm glad I bought this wood chipper. It was important to me to get one with an electric motor because I thought I'd use it infrequently and thought the electric motor would be easier to maintain. So far, the only maintenance I've done has been to sharpen the blade. I used my Dremel to do the sharpening. One nice touch from Patriot is that they provide the Allen wrench necessary to remove the blade. One improvement I suggest to Patriot is that they make it easier to clean out clogs. This is the only reason I'm rating at 4 stars instead of 5. It takes me over 15 minutes to unclog. I think all the clogs have been my fault. Most frequently clogs occurred because I didn't empty the collection bag early enough. Also, I've clogged the chipper if I put too many green leaves in the leaf hopper. I also clogged the chipper once by putting in cactus. Wood chips from the chipper are about the size of a dime. I like to use these on the paths of my garden. Dried leaves in the hopper come out pulverized and are great for compost. Very small sticks of about ¼ inch or less come out broken but don't pulverize like the leaves or chip. I was worried about having problems with my circuit breaker but am very happy with how things are going. If the wood chipper is clogged, the circuit breaker will pop. If I push in a large branch I can make the breaker pop. But if I put in a large branch I can hear the flywheel start to slow down and pull out the branch a bit, let it speed up and everything works great. I've been using an outlet on a 20 amp circuit breaker. The directions said to use a 12 gauge extension cord but I bought a beefier one. This wood chipper is small and you need to feed in items to be shredded slowly. For example, you would not be able to dump in a large bag of leaves. You would need to feed them in a handful or 2 at a time. I don't have the vacuum kit and don't know how that works. The manual says you can chip sticks of up to 2.5" in diameter and I guess you can but I think that is pushing the limits. Assembly was really easy and the packaging was very good. The User's Manual and documentation is also really good. Thanks Patriot.

Excellent machine ! It is a pleasure to use. And the manual is to be mentioned , very clear and written in English and not translated, easy to understand (just the opposite of an Ikea "manual"). Very happy !

What a great solid product! Just follow the instructions and it will work perfectly with both branches and dry leaves. One of the bolts came undone though, you may want to use locking nuts!

What a waste of money. Don’t buy this expecting even half hearted results... I am SO DISAPPOINTED. The picture shows what I was trying to chip or shred. Less than 10 minutes of use and it’s clogged. Poorly designed. I was really looking forward to using this as I live on the edge of a forest. I had high expectations and really am let down in so many ways.