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.

Last weekend we ripped out a boxwood hedge that was 6 feet by 4 feed by 5 feet tall. My wife wanted me to rent a chipper shredder to get rid of it. We moved recently and with all of the deciduous trees on our new lot and all of the deadfall wood we get, I decided we needed to invest in a chipper shredder. I researched and decided to order the Patriot. I unboxed and assembled my Patriot chipper/shredder yesterday. It's very easy to do if your read all of the directions. I fired it up today and got rid of every bit of that boxwood in about an hour and a half (half the time it took us to rip that sucker out). Virtually all of it had to go through the cone, though. It is very easy to use for large and small branches. I have yet to use the leaf shredder. you have to be careful feeding branches of 1/2" diameter or more. The other reviewers are correct that you must feed branches through the cone at a slower speed than the chipper wants. It will try to pull them from your hands so wear good gloves and safety glasses. If you feed the machine at a controlled rate and everything is dry, the patriot should not clog or jam. I am a mechanical designer by trade, and the Patriot is built the way I would build one. The hopper and feed cone are heavy plastic but everything in the chip/shred area is made of thick steel and it runs on steel ball bearings rather than plastic bushings. This thing is well built and with a minimum of maintenance it will last a very long time. I've had it two days and I already know I will get my money's worth out of this purchase. Great product.

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.

Not my first rodeo with chippers - I've been taking care of 1+ acre with tons of trees in a residential setting for a while now. I truly regret getting this chipper -- by far the most overpriced, underperforming equipment I've ever owned. My last chipper was earthquake and it was light years above this one. It was a costly mistake as the returns are paid by the buyer so get ready to lose few hundred more after you realize how bad this thing is. This chipper is very underpowered with a dinky 1.5 hp motor. While it will take care of straight, dry branches, it's completely inadequate as a mulcher due to very poor reduction ration. The media generated by the hopper/mulcher is equivalent in size to the chips generated by the chipper so you will not get further reduction of your chips when you decide to run it via the hopper. And if you do run it via the hopper, you'll be standing for 10-15 minutes slowly dumping the bag to avoid overwhelming the motor. Should you be unfortunate to stall the motor -- good luck as it's a nightmare to unclog. Because it uses a electric motor you'll end up overheating it tripping the heat circuit breaker having to wait while the motor cools down. What's worse, if you get any moist media, you can call it day cause it will take you hours to unclog it. The Q&A suggestions say to run water through it -- yeah, ok, do that on an electric chipper not only risk electrocution but you'll be rusting and dulling your blades in no time. Literally, out of 6 hours of work time, I spent 4 hours unclogging the unit from a stall due to moist leaves (and they were not very wet either). After wasting better part of the day trying to make this electric chipper work, I finally threw in the towel and asked for a refund. I could not accomplish the task in 6 hours when the same job would take me 2 hours with a gas powered chipping. The unit has a very primitive bagging system - you'll be working with a lot of chips flying out of the bag and much dust flying around. Very very dirty chipper compared to the Earthquake machines. Other than that, the wheels are great, the idea of removable blade is good. Too bad the rest is absolutely useless. As much as I loved the idea of buying USA made equipment, I was severely let down by the value and the lack of efficiency and and power. Do not buy unless you're looking to chip dry, straight limbs only - this is really a very expensive dry wood chipper only. Be aware that the return shipping will be paid by YOU (the buyer) and I can't wait to spend few hundred dollars shipping it back hoping it makes it in one piece. What a waste of money and time. In the end I am sending this one back and I went with a replacement earthquake chipper which is cheaper, more powerful, has a better warranty and it has phenomenal reduction ratio. It's a shame that this is even being offered as a product -- it just doesn't cut it (put intended).

I purchased the Patriot Products CSV-2515 Electric Wood Chipper Leaf Shredder and received great customer support from Patriot Products when FedEx messed up the delivery and refused to rectify the problem. This shredder is delivered in two boxes. One was delivered to my home and the other was delivered elsewhere. A few days after contacting FedEx, I received an email from them saying "After researching your case, we found the shipment was delivered correctly" even though the FedEx tracking information shows photos of two different houses, one of which is not mine. Fortunately, when I contacted Patriot Products Inc, their service rep, Keith, took care of it. They said they would deal with FedEx and shipped me a second box. Keith also followed up when FedEx tracking showed it had been delivered to verify that I had received it. The shredder's assembly, user, and maintenance instructions are very well documented and quite detailed, making the installation easy. I was able to assemble it myself. I just had to turn the large box on its side to get the shredder out since it is quite heavy. So far, I have only used it once and it worked great. It feels very solid and well made.

I've been using my Patriot chipper/shredder for about 10 years (as of 2021) now and am very impressed with the quality. It's nice to see good old American Made products made with high-quality standards. This equipment is not intended to compete with the $150 stamped sheet metal Harbor Freight shredders. This is heavy cast steel body, thick plastic feeder and cone (of about the same thickness and durability as a 55 gallon plastic rain barrel), and a powerful electric motor protected by a high quality over-temperature shut-off switch. It's beefy. A petite woman may have some difficulty wheeling it up a hill, but generally, the large wheels make it easy to navigate despite its weight. I'm 150lb and can maneuver it without difficulty, even up moderately sloped hills. Let me address several of the concerns mentioned in other reviews: 1) WET LEAVES: The worst reviews are from people who tried to shred wet leaves. This will be a problem for just about any shredder, so if you need to shred wet leaves, do extensive research and you'll almost certainly have to eliminate any electric shredders. I live in Seattle (frequently have wet leaves in the fall), and I've learned how to wait until the leaves have had a couple days of "air time" to dry out before shredding. Don't rake them into a pile if you're not going to shred them immediately. Once the pile gets wet, your leaves will be very hard to shred since the middle of the pile stays wet and starts to get slimy as it decomposes. 2) GREEN STUFF: This shredder absolutely CAN shred certain green yard debris. Green branches are no problem. Green laurel leaves are no problem (I shredded trimmings from about 100' of 8-foot laurels). It could be that some green leaves turn "pulpy" and build up, which does occur on occasion. 3) CLOGGING: When buildup does occur, I have ALWAYS been able to clear the buildup with a bent wire (about the gauge of a coat hanger) without disassembling everything. First turn off the shredder and unplug it. Unscrew just the front cone (requires loosening one bolt and removing one other). Feed the wire into the output port where the bag attaches and pull out any clogs. Then, feed the wire into the front port where the cone attaches, along the bottom of the fly wheel and pull out any clogs built up along that bottom. Done. 4) FEEDING: I always have a 2 or 3 foot stick (1/2" to 3/4" thick) handy to help fluff the leaves in the top hopper and help them feed into the shredder. This is not a big hassle that some have described. Be careful not to push that stick too far down into the blades, though. 5) CHIPPING: This chipper AMAZED me when I got ambitious and chipped a 20' branch that I think was about 2.5" diameter at the thickest. Whatever diameter it was, it just barely fit through the bottom of the cone. It did require me to carefully control the feed rate and hold the branch tightly (with gloves). But after it got down below 1.5" thickness, I pretty much let gravity feed it and loosened my grip. It took me about 15-20 minutes to chip the entire branch, and I got a large bag of beautiful, fairly uniform wood-chip mulch for the flower beds from it. 6) SHUTOFF: There is a thermal shutoff that does a great job of protecting the motor. It has tripped a few times while I was feeding damp leaves and the motor bogged down. If you listen to the motor, you can adjust your feed rate to minimize the motor dragging. Overall, I highly recommend this chipper / shredder for fairly heavy home use.

I purchased this in the Spring of 2011. We replaced most of our front lawn and garden with prairie grass, which needs cutting back once a year in March. I collect it then over a month or two gradually work through shredding it and recycling it as compost. On most of the grasses it works well, though it has particular troubles with deschampsia. As others have noted it clogs relatively easily, so feeding it efficiently is a skill at which one gradually improves. Gas was out of the question for us, and I didn't find any alternative electric units as powerful as this, so have accepted that this is a slow task, and that the limitations come from using home electricity rather than gas or industrial strength electricity. From my experience the machine is solidly built and sensibly engineered, but not touched by a product designer skilled in user experience or user interface design. It therefore looks and feels like an appliance from the 1930s. Also, their service network is not extensive. I think I should be taking it in for maintenance, and don't know how I'll do it. Don't think it will fit into my Mini Cooper and the service centers are quite far from Chicago: a big enough city that you'd think you wouldn't need to go to Indiana or most of the way to Rockford for service.

As many have mentioned it is easy to be hesitant about an electric chipper/shredder because there are so many underpowered chippers out there that are inexpensive and pretend to have what you are looking for to cleanup your yard, however this is not one of those underpowered wastes of money! This chipper gets the job done, sure it draws a good amount of power but that is also because it has enough power to chew right through branches and make a nice spreadable chip for your landscaping needs. I have found that buying an extra bag or two makes it easy to run everything through the chipper side and then run it back through the shredder side to make a nice consistent chip size. I have also been using the chips produced by this product from my apple and cherry trees around my property for smoking and have made some fantastic smoked cheeses and meats (dry the chips out by laying them out flat on a metal pan until they are dry to the touch for smoking). Overall I would say that this is the electric gardening tool that everyone should have. It is substantially quieter than its gas powered counterparts and has more than enough power for even large jobs. Don't hesitate, buy this chipper to not deal with small gas engine maintenance and just know that when you plug it in, it will work and help you keep your yard in excellent shape!

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.