An Archaeologist With Time: Wood Chipper

I truly, truly wanted this device to work out. I have a wooded lot with a huge amount of branches to take care of. What's more... I need a lot of mulch for my planned path through my woods.

***Mulch, for our routine archaeology/history lesson, the earliest use of mulch was in 18th century France (1). There, straw was found to help reduce weeds and reduce "slugs, snails and insect pests." (1). The use of 'mulch' spread from there though the material mulch is generally made of now is wood products and even synthetic materials. For me, weed control is the key, making a wood chipper a needed tool. Did I mention I got a lot of sticks?

So, to make mulch and deal with the endless branches that fall from my trees, I purchased an electric/corded wood chipper. I looked into options, and I found through my research that Sun Joe appeared to have the best ratings. All the other wood chippers were rated at around 3.5 stars (Sun Joe averaged at 4 stars from what I saw via reviews). The Sun Joe was more expensive than the others, for the most part, but not by an extreme amount. Then the DEAL popped up at Amazon. I love Amazon! A sale on the Landworks wood chipper was amazing - $109, which was $40 off their already reduced price. Well, since I buy almost everything a review (no set sponsors), such deals are hard to pass up. What's more, I like to try out the lesser known brands to see how they stand up to the well-known companies. Anyway, I purchased the Landworks chipper, which arrived rapidly from Amazon. Buffalo had just been hit with a snowstorm, so there was over 4 feet of snow burying all the branches. I wanted to test the device though so I hunted and found a few sticks that were not buried and even dried out. The photo here is of that test. My initial impression was good; the device created good mulch for my needs. Relatively easy to use, though the assembly was a little tough due to the holes for the base were rather tight. Moving on.

After I cleared the driveway of snow, I started a pile of dead and dried out branches, which grew quickly. Then, I tested the chipper with a good amount of branched. For between 10-15 minutes, the device worked great. Then, it quit working. I followed protocols in the manual. I tried to reset it using the circuit breaker the device included, and I even let the chipper rest/cool off as instructed in the manual. Nothing. Many reviewers seem to have had similar experiences. One reviewer was impressed with customer service so I reached out to the company. After an initial response to my email in 24 hours, I was hopeful. Maybe my chipper had a production flaw. It happens. I sent the information the company requested; it seemed like they would be sending a replacement. Then crickets. I didn't hear back as immediately as before. When I did hear back, the company indicated they didn't know what was wrong and advised me to return it to the seller I purchased it from. HELLO? You built the thing! Warranty? Standing behind your product? What puzzles me most here is that the device included a card urging customers to contact the company to deal with issues INSTEAD OF returning the items. Fortunately, I had already contacted Amazon, who arranged for UPS to mail the device back to them (and I will receive a full refund). Let's hear it for Amazon!

I still need a chipper, so I ordered a Sun Joe chipper. I will review that after testing it out. While I probably should have gone with Sun Joe to begin with, at least my experimenting with other brands (and their customer service) can hopefully provide insight for others. I am holding out hope that it was a minor glitch and that the device can be reset/refurbished. In the meantime, I need a new chipper to test out. Let's face it... I'm an archaeologist... a scientist. I love testing out tools. Cheers.

Landworks Chipper Rating: 2 out of 5 Trowels (the majority of people who purchased this item rated it higher and had a better experience with this brand).