Patriot Products CSV-2515 Electric Wood Chipper Leaf Shredder

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.

Thinking about buying this piece of garbage? It looks like a really powerful unit....but once you get it home, it is just a paperweight.This is one of the biggest swindles I have seen on the Internet. It is a product that was not well-engineered for its task of chipping and shredding. A small handful of leaves can jam it. It jams and trips your circuit breaker. Double bonus! For $1,000 plus you would expect a lot more functional chipping and shredding. I got through a handful of twigs and an armload of leaves before it jammed. Oh and the manufacturer will suggest you read the manual, which you get after you buy the product. Duh doi! You can only put a little itty bitty amount of leaves and a tiny fragile twig at a time into it or YOU are the cause of the jam. Typical snakeoil salesman tactic of blaming the customer for your piece of crap product.This machine is a wimp masquerading as a chipper/shredder. Don't waste your hard earned money on it. IF you them to make good on the return policy good luck. You'll have to send it back in mint condition and in the original box or no return.

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 circuit3) 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 built3/31/2020 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.