As winter comes to an end and the weather heats up, you may find decease trees or loose limbs around your property. When this happens, we urge you to use it to your advantage by turning them into wood chips. Wood chips are a great product to use for landscaping as they limit the need for watering by reducing water evaporation. 

Wood chippers are large but portable machines that help reduce those large chunks of wood into wood chips, and they provide an excellent solution to many problems, especially in many homes. This equipment is good for clearing large piles of tree branches, twigs, logs, and leaves to provide a cleaner and safer working environment.

How to Use a Wood Chipper Properly? 

As good as a wood chipper is, if you don’t know how to use it properly, it might end up not being as efficient as you need it to be. Before you can fill the surface of your property with wood chips, you must know how to use a wood chipper to get the job done. 

The steps below will even make it easier for you to use your wood chipper safely, even if you’re new to the practice.

• You wouldn’t want your machine to move or fall over while it’s running as this can be very dangerous, so placing it on a flat level surface is very important.
• Most wood chippers have a deflector and adjustable chutes. Make sure they are adjusted to control the direction and speed at which the chips are released. You don’t want them flying all over the yard and you also don’t want them landing too close to the machine and creating a hazardous mess.
• If your chipper is attached to another piece of equipment like a tractor, set the parking brake to make sure that equipment doesn’t move either. Make sure that the gas-powered engine has enough fuel to complete the job, and for electric models, check the cord and make sure it’s not damaged or unplugged before the operation. 
• When feeding the wood chipper, start with the blunt end first as the material will feed through the machine easier and more consistently this way. 
• Rather than separating them, feed a mixture of dry and green leaves into the wood chipper. The green leaves will serve as lubrication so that the dryness of the dead ones don’t make the job very difficult for the chipper. 
• You should always stand to the side of the chipper rather than in front, where the materials are fed in. This will help prevent serious injury in case some debris fly upward or the equipment becomes stuck and launches the material forward. 

It’s important to remember to always wear proper eye and ear protection, tight-fitting clothing, and work gloves when operating a wood chipper. Be sure to also read the complete user manual before operating wood chippers or other types of equipment.