A Chipper / Shredder can be an invaluable asset on a small homestead. Not only does it help you clear unwanted brush and yard waste, it lets you do so in a way that produces mulch and compost. Up to this point we’ve used ours mostly to create mulch for our paths, our firewood area, and a couple of recreational areas. But we’re looking forward to using the shredder to produce finely chopped carbon for our composting. Chipping won’t really produce the type of material you need. But the chipper breaks wood, bark, and leaves down to small enough pieces to get good surface contact with the greens in your compost piles. It’s a win / win / win.
After our Craftsman Chipper bit the dust ( due to the negligence of the previous owner), we went on a hunt for the best chipper / shredder for our use case. As with all things it became a balancing act between from our dream machine could do versus what our budget would allow. But after a lot of reading and searching, the Tazz line of chippers percolated to the top. In the end, we went with the TAZZ K33, 301 cc., 4-cycle chipper / shredder. So far we’re glad we did.
The video above will show you the unboxing, a list of the included parts and components, assembly of the unit, and what our first three days of using the machine were like. All in all, we’re pleased. The machine performed well. It started easily and ran without issues. It chewed up everything we fed, which basically means anything we could fit in the hopper or shove down the feed chute.
Things weren’t 100% sunshine all the time though. The firs issue we had was fit and finish. There was quite a bit of scoring on the washers. The nuts and bolts didn’t thread quite as easily as you would expect (though they certainly didn’t bind up or refuse to thread). There were a few little dings and minor dents, most notably on the top of the muffler housing. All of this was pretty minor. But there was one issue that wasn’t so minor; the mounting flange of the hopper was bent up pretty badly. I bent it back into shape well enough to get it mounted on the machine. But the bends and dents in the flange kept the damper from operating at all. I’ll be calling customer service to try to get a replacement hopper, and will update this post when I have an update.
Overall I’m pleased with this unit. Although the bent hopper was and is an issue, this chipper does the one thing a chipper needs to do well: it chips. Most units I’ve tried in the past struggle to keep up. The engines either bog down, or the blades fail to grab and the units basically have.to try to bash the material to pieces. The Tazz doesn’t do that, at least so far it doesn’t. If my experience changes, I’ll link a subsequent post to keep you in the loop.
I hope this helps. Please feel free to reach out to me via the “Contact Us” section if you have any specific questions. I’ll be happy to help any way I can.