Customer Reviews

Eco-Shredder ES1600 14 amp Electric Chipper / Shredder / Mulcher

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(59)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(39)

 

 

I have had my electric Eco-shredder/chipper/mulcher for about one year. I use it for my vegetable garden waste, Fall leaves, and small branches from my trees and shrubs. The key to this product running well is to keep the items small (1"), feed the machine very slowly, and take care not to put wet debis into the hopper. This machine will clog easily, so it requires patients to let the debis clear before adding more.

Finally, the blades must be sharpend at the end of each days use. It takes some time to disassemble, sharpen, and reassemble. The Eco-shredder is a little electrically run machine that will do what it is advertized to do...don't expect more.

I carefully researched a shredder for our small, brush-inundated yard. We had not one, not two, but three GIANT brush piles and we knew we had to make an investment. This was the best rated shredder I could find under $1000 dollars. Thing is, this thing is WAY under a 1000 dollars.
It doesn't have the power of a gas model, sure. But that means it doesn't shake itself apart like some of the popular gas models.

The Eco-shredder has been great so far. I bought it here and it was delivered quickly. It is very easy to put together-- it is pretty much assembled in the box-- you just put on the top chute, the wheels, and the handle.

It has a good amount of power. It only jams when fed 1 inch or larger branches with knots, and those are really easy to clear with the included tool that makes the motor turn manually. It is very quiet for a shredder. It appears to be very safe, also. It comes with a replacement set of blades for when the time comes, and all the tools to replace those blades.

You have to pre-process large branches, but it's SO worth it. Already one brush pile is gone! And it makes lovely mulch!

I've had it for three months and so far, there have been no problems. I'll review it again if anything changes.

One thing that I do need to mention is that the box says there is a tamper included but there is not. And the instruction manual is very light, but I've had no problems.

EDIT:
The Ecoshredder died on me (but it's now alive-- see EDIT 3). Shortly after reviewing, the metal piece that was feeding the larger branches into the housing actually cracked off the welding and went flying into the working blades, ruining the blades and the shoot for the branches. So we carried on, using the upper bin for quite a time without issues. Yesterday, it seemed as if it was not getting enough power, would slow down, and then return to normal, and then just quit. We're trying to figure out what the problem was.

I'm not complaining too harshly, as it did process three big brush piles and two trees. But the instructions should have mentioned some maintenance details. For instance, do we need to clean out the housing every so often? Because we found fine saw dust accumulating in and around the motor. Is it okay to shred wet material? How often should the blades be sharpened? Etc.

It would also have been nice to include some basic troubleshooting LEDs or something of the sort, because we can't be sure that the problem isn't in the six inches of cord leading to the motor.

EDIT 3: THE ECOSHREDDER was actually protecting me by switching itself off, because the housing had become quite lose. Therefore, it had shook the safety knob loose, and this is why it died! But after tightening the knobs, it was ALIVE once more. :D If it dies on you after extensive use (or after a rough shipping procedure, I bet) make sure the orange knobs attaching the motor to the housing are tightly secured. These are the safety knobs to which the note on the housing are referring.

LONG STORY SHORT: It's a god send. It's obviously a newer product with a few design flaws, made with Chinese steel. 'Tis okay, because after taking the time to work with it and learn a few things on your own (gasp!), you'll find that it more than pays for itself in what it can process.

One thing I did forget to say was that the box says there is a tamper included-- there is not. Unless they mean the random piece of veneer.

My husband and I do a lot of yard work and we have used Electric Chipper/Shredders before and even bought a competitive model that claims to have 15 amps. But it just didn't have the power of the Eco- Shredder ES 1600. It is remarkably quiet and we have already used it many hours without a hitch. We use it often to mulch leaves and to shred smaller branches. We have a good size yard and this product has handled the work load well. My husband likes the fact it comes with an extra set of blades. We had a McCulloch and had a great deal of trouble finding replacement blades and it seemed to vibrate too much when used. I would recommend this unit to anyone looking for an electric model.

I've only given the unit a quick test, but it worked great. Installing the handle, chute, and wheels onto the chipper was easy and straight forward, though the instructions are not as thorough as they could be. Assembly took about 15 minutes. The unit is physically smaller than I expected, which is good given how full my shed is. It is also surprisingly heavy. All the yellow painted areas of the unit are metal. The handle and legs are hollow metal tubing, but thicker than I have seen on any equipment of this type before. When tipped onto its wheels, the unit is well balanced and rolls easily, but side tipping might be an issue on rough terrain. I trimmed some shrubs a week ago and left the trimmings laying around while waiting for the chipper/shredder to arrive. After assembly I snipped off some smaller stalks (<1/4" dia) with green leaves from the pile and fed them through the clippings chute in the top. Getting them through the opening and safety flap required attention, but was not difficult. Getting the last bit to go down required a pusher stick of some kind, as the flap tended to grab the last few inches and keep them from falling in. The resulting "mulch" was bits of the stalks mixed with leaf shreds that were about 3/4" diameter and significantly torn up. Perfect for my compost pile. I then chipped some of the branches up to about 1" in diameter. This material was green wood. The chipper ran smoothly, reduced the branches to small chips probably 1/8" X 3/8". Slightly courser that saw dust, big enough that it will not blow around if you use it as mulch. I never had any stalling problems, but it occasionally tried to pull the branch in faster than was reasonable. I did not feel OK with pushing the last 6" of a branch into the hole and letting it go, so I found that it was helpful to leave a small diameter tip on the branch so you could feed the end bit into the shredder slot once the thick part of the branch was chipped. I did not try shredding leaves as I already have a leaf shredder which I may or may not choose to keep now.

Through all this the unit ran smooth and quiet. Never seemed to be loaded down. I wore ear protection, but it probably was not really necessary as the chipper is very quiet. Quiet enough not to disturb neighbors, even in a dense city neighborhood. Only time will tell how well it holds up, but so far I am very happy.

The ES1600 Eco Chipper/Shredder/Mulcher has really helped in the maintenace of my yard. I was skeptical at first that this Electric Shredder would give me the power I needed as I have used gas powered models in the past. But it has a 14 amp motor that really seems to put out all the power I need for reducing my yard waste quick and easy. It shreds brush and leaves quite easily and is much quieter and cleaner than the gas powered units I have had in the past. I noticed it also comes with an extra set of blades which will save me time looking for in the future. It seems to shred, mulch and do all of the tasks I have given it to do.Eco-Shredder ES1600 14-Amp Electric Chipper / Shredder / Mulcher

Overall A big thumbs up from me...it is nice to get a product that saves time and work.

I am very pleased with the product. It does great for the small shredding jobs around my house. It was also very good that they sent an extra blade with the shredder. The only complaint that I have is that I cannot find a way to purchase extra blades. The e-mail address included with the product does not work and I cannot find any web site on the Internet where replacement blades may be purchased.

Assembly was quite easy and straight forward. Only a few components need to be added to the main assembly.
Operation is easy but the design leaves me with buyers remorse.
Pros. Machine chips everything as promised, to a very fine residue that is suitable for composting.
Cons. Virtually everything needs to be groomed before being fed into the machine. It will not pull anything but straight, well trimmed branches into the machine. If there are any forks in your branches, they need to either be trimmed off or you will have to push it into the machine with a pusher stick when it hangs up. This slows the process since you have to attend to the current branch instead of readying the next one. With luck you can use the next branch to push the remnants of the last branch but I really wish it would just pull the entire branch in. Even the most young and tender shoots need to be pushed into the machine. The high schooler that works with me and I agree that this takes a lot more time and we question if this machine is saving us time with this extra trimming. The discharge chute is pointed slightly backwards, towards that area between the legs. I haven't found a subitable collection bin that will fit into this area. I don't care for bags since my collected residue goes into the city's recycling bin.
If you are okay with feeding one sheet at a time into your household shredder, then this machine would be okay for you. If you're looking for efficient operation so you can power thru a pile of branches, this probably wouldn't be for you.

Chips really well BUT the parts are worthless. On my third session the V-cutter disintegrated; since the cutters are not warranted I contacted MAXTool (Amazon obtained it from MAXTool) and ordered a new cutter. After installation, on my forth session, the square bushing, part # 6156-200001, disintegrated and this time MAXTool told me that this was a known problem part; however none were in stock and they had no information on when, or if, the part would be available. Works great when it works; but sadly it doesn't work reliably and parts are not available. Do not buy this chipper!

KUDO's to Amazon, when I emailed them about this problem, even though I was out of the 30 day return window, I immediately got an email authorizing free UPS return and a refund. Lousy product but great Amazon customer service; especially in light of useless MAXTool customer service.

Eco-Shredder ES1600 14-Amp Electric Chipper / Shredder / MulcherThe shredder arrived without the tamper rod. The hopper opening was 25% smaller than claimed. The hopper dimensions were claimed to be 15.3 inches by 10.4 inches. This is the outside dimensions which are not much help. Actual, useful inside dimensions are 13.25 inches by 9 inches. The limb chipper was fine except the limbs aren't pulled completely into the blade chamber. Another stick must be used to push the limb being cut completely into the blade chamber. The exit slot is very narrow and clogs. The border around the exit slot must be removed to unclog, especially if the leaves are slightly wet. It requires a lot of extra work but I guess I enjoy the challenge.
Leaf Man

We bought this because we didn't need a large, heavy-duty shredder/chipper, but we did need something for rose trimmings, dead pampas grass, small branches which drop off the willow tree, etc. It was easy to put together and although we did jam it a couple of times at first (some of the pampas grass leaves were not dry and wrapped around the blades), that was part of the deal of learning it, really. Because it is electric, it is much quieter than the big guys and you don't need ear plugs. What you do need to remember is that it accepts material more slowly than the bigger machines and you simply have to be a littlel more patient with the 'feeding.'

That being said, we love it. It does exactly what we bought it to do and it just keeps on going. It is not hard to clear a jam. We did learn that taking the handle off while we were using it was simple and an easy way to allow the top of the machine to be removed to clear a jam. But the more we use it the better we know it and the less likely we are to cause a jam. In about 36 hours of use so far, after the two jams of the first hour or so, there have only been two other jams and both were easily cleared.

The fact that the shredded material exits under the machine and not to the side makes it much safer than many. There is nothing flying away from the machine which might be a danger to anyone. It is necessary to keep an eye on the pile of material building up under the machine and occasionally clear it (we kicked it away a bit was all) so that you don't actually cause shredded material to pile up into the shredder. Do not feed it wet stuff. Green branches, if they are woody, are fine (and it does a great job with up to about 3/4" diameter), but this is designed to chip and shred, not to digest wet stuff.

It does exactly what we bought it for, it was not difficult to assemble, it is extremely safe to use, it is quiet, it is easy to un-jam, easy to move around, small enough to store in a small corner, and it just keeps on going. We are glad we bought it. Definitely worth the money.

Several months later now: we have not changed our opinion. This is a great little machine and handles an enormous variety of material.