Side by Side Comparison of: Snow Joe vs Flowtron

I gave this 5 stars keeping price in mind. This product is consumer grade for sure, it would not hold up to commercial use but I'm sure I will get years of use out of it. It works VERY well, even consumes relatively small sticks and branches. It did arrive with an issue with one of the legs. It caused a bit of extra work using it but I was able to get through the job. I checked with Amazon and all I could do was return or replace. Way overkill given it only needs a replacement leg. I called Snow Joe and explained the issue and my problem with Amazon solutions. They cheerfully sent me a new leg. Snow Joe is the type of people I want to deal with.

Did not get to use it for weeks because of the rain we were having but when we used it today----WOW! We have never been able to mulch oak leaves because they take so long to breakdown. Today they are are covering our newly planted flower garden, Even the wet leaves were chopped.This is the first time we have loved a leaf mulched.Bought one years ago that didn't work for 30 min and jammed up and we took it bak.SunJoe Shredder is as advertised and we could not be more pleased!!!

I contacted the company and they were amazing. I was contacted the next morning and they found my order and I only had about 3 days left on the warranty....no problem. They sent me a new machine and it works great. Evidently I just got a lemon and I know that happens. I received it late Friday evening and we put it together this afternoon (Sunday) and I've been shredding leaves for my front flower beds. The medium setting is perfect for mulching. So I've changed my review from a two star to a five star mainly because of the company. For the price I think this is a great little machine....I can move it around where needed.I purchased this last year and after one bag of dry leaves, it quit. Fortunately, my neighbor was shredding leaves and let me use his machine. This product went back in the box in the garage and we forgot about it. I got it out a couple of days ago and it continually quits after a few handful of leaves....wet or dry. It really is the most unreliable piece of gardening equipment I have ever owned.

It worked right out of the box. For men 60 year old this is like a second set of hands all I gotta do is gather them up and you know throw them in the device. You know the rest you're done.Well I've had at six months now. Its not the great for branches device because today was the fall day in Michigan. Leaves every where the is not device is not durable enough. I'm shock that it stop working the shaft doesn't propelled the nylon string. I'm going to open it and check it out. I purchase this and didn't get the warranty. Wanted see how it would work under pressure it didnt last continually. I'm going update the post so stay tune. Ok here you go. I've a working musician I don't have a lot of time. It's a year and a half later. I just called Sun Joe and they told it had two warranty on purchase you can call them to confirm this. I sent them the barcode of the device. Nicole was very cool awesome sauce kind of person. Told me they'll send me a new one. I have to drop off the old to UPS. "Who Ya Gonna Call" Sun Joe Support Nicole is awesome.

This shredder has done all I have asked of it. It really wasn't that bad to put together and was reasonably well packaged. I have ran it for four hours almost non-stop (except to change bags) on two separate days without any sign of a problem. I have been feeding it oak and other hardwood leaves and so far the strings hold up for about two hours at a time. I use leaf scoops to push the leaves side to side in the hopper and that seems to increase the feed rate. Sometimes a tossing motion also helps. Be sure to use a dustmask and earplugs while using it. The hopper/guard does a really good job of preventing debris from flying back out but it still happened once or twice to me. Safety glasses would also be a good idea for that reason.One minor problem is that there is a lot of dust escape from the slot that the shred size selector sits in making it harder to stand upwind from the dust. I will probably try taping that over since I will only be doing fine shred in the future. Also, It doesn't tell you how to attach bags in the directions. There is a piece of bungee that loops around the unit. I've found that pulling the bag through the three sections that loop up/over the plastic only works best. If you pull far enough it snugs the bag up against the in between sections.I used the shredder on my leaf blower last year which made twice as many bags as this year so 16:1 reduction is fairly accurate.

After some online research looking at Flowtron and WORX, I concluded that Flowtron burns out motors too fast, and WORX does not have an adjustment for how finely or coarsely it shreds the leaves, and the gauge of the trimmer line it uses is too small. Since the first problem with the WORX was not that big a problem for me, and there was a simple modification described to retrofit the WORX to use a heaver line, and I have a WORX blower/vac combination that has worked well for several years, I decided to order the WORX. As I was in the process of placing the order, an add for the Snow Joe shredder popped up. I was not previously aware of it's existence, but I bought a Snow Joe electric chain saw last year and was very impressed with both the quality of the saw and the service from the company. Looking into the Snow Joe, I found that it used the heavier gauge shredding line, and had an adjustment for fine/coarse shredding. I changed my order to the Snow Joe. With Amazon Prime it came in two days. It was well packaged, assembled easily (10 minutes), and ran for about 6 hours over 2 days producing about 10 large trash bags of finely mulched oak leaves. It handled twigs in the leaves up to about a quarter of an inch in diameter with no problem. Adding bigger twigs forces you to change out the shredding lines more frequently. I replaced the mulching lines 3 times during the entire shredding process. Line replacement is simple (5 minutes) and does not require any tools. Overall the shredder worked very well. It shredded levees about as fast as I could bend down and pick them up out of a pile and load them in the shredder. My experience is with dry oak leaves, and for those, the shredder worked great. When I was done, I found that the shredder disassembles easily and packs into a very small volume for storage.

I love this thing! Paired with the ReLeaf Leaf Scoops (or any big hand leaf scoop thingies), I was able to shred about 160 cubic feet of giant leaves from 2 massive sycamore trees in an hour. I raked the leaves into a giant pile, used the leaf scoops to drop leaves into the mulcher. Because the mitts are large, you can use them to mix stuff up in the bin if things appear stuck, without risking your hands. I used the finest grinding setting and the shredded leaves filled about half of a 32 gallon bag. AMAZING! So much easier and faster than putting them into brown bags. And the shredded leaves work as a great mulch. People have complained about the strings breaking, but I did all my fall shredding (was careful to take out any sticks) without any damage to them, or having to change the strings. I love the little drawer that stores extra strings on board. I'm very happy with this purchase.

Used mine today for the first time. It takes a minute getting used to it, but if you don't overload it, you shouldn't have any issues. Due to large and sustained rainfall the last few weeks and more rain predicted, today was the day and still the leaves were a bit wet. Despite that challenge, an enormous amount of leaves were shredded in almost 3 hours of continuous usage without problems. Set on the "coarse" setting, I have plenty of great mulch! It can be assembled out of the box by one person, but 2 people make the task easier. This was a good purchase.

Just got my Flowtron Mulcher today. Had it set up within 30 minutes and was mulching that afternoon. I needed a mulcher that could handle dried sea grass as well as small twigs and dead mangrove leaves that had washed onto my bayside lawn during a recent storm in Florida. I had read that seaweed mulch is good for weed prevention and allows recycling of this waste material. I dried out the seaweed grass and put it through the mulcher set on fine . The unit did a great job of reducing the seaweed to a fine mulch consistency in no time with no requirement to install any new cutting nylon strips after mulching 3 barrels full of seaweed . I chose this unit over others available because of the ability to adjust the cut size of the mulch. Another feature I liked was that I could place the unit directly on top of a 33 gallon barrel and mulch into the barrel without removing the legs. The unit performed this task perfectly .

Really cool tool. Basically a weed eater lying on its back. I have about thirty trees on my property and every fall they all give up at once. Historically, it was a multi week job to rake them into piles, bag them and schlep them up to the street. Now I just make mini piles, run each pile through the mulcher and then re-spread them as mulch across my flower beds and bushes. the plants love it, my back loves it and the trash men love it.

Actually, this is the second unit I have bought. The first one lasted over ten years and then the motor lay down and died.

I bought this shredder, after I spent a lot of time reading reviews from others on this and the other Leaf shredders in the sub $150 price range. None of the reviews sound all positive each machine as negative comments, but this shredder did better than other products, and I really couldn't spend anymore than the $150 I set aside.

When the shredder arrived, it took a bit of work to put together, I made the mistake of only reading the 1 page instruction sheet, which was awful to follow. After assembly I opened the user manual and found more comprehensive assembly instructions (doh!).

Before I went crazy shredding all my leaves I remembered the comments I had read about the machines limitations, so I decided I wouldn't go mad, I would take my time and let the machine work at its own pace. Especially as I had several big piles of leaves and I knew the ones at the bottom were very wet.

I got started and the shredder was awesome, it worked very well. I started with small handfuls which it cleared very quickly, so I started to up the pace. It handled everything very well. I still wasn't working a blistering rate, but it was a lot faster than I expected. When I got to the very wet stuff, it handled that well too. I had to stop several times to clear the bucket of mud like residue, but this was not a problem to me, and gave the electric motor time to rest.

I did the whole front garden in a few hours, which included more raking and shredding everything twice, and what would have filled 20-30 bags only half filled my compost barrel. So I am very happy with the machine, but not so happy about the cutting strings, as I had to change them twice on my first day of use, but I will look at getting thicker, stronger strings to use.

To summarize, and I am coping what others have said, the shredder is very good as long as you remember its limitations. It is not a $500+ gas powered shredding machine. It is a bargain, budget shredding machine capable of doing a lot, just at its own pace.

This performs the intended job but there are two additional purchases I would recommend to make the work substantially easier. Since this does not use a blade whose spinning suction would pull the leaves into it, once a bunch of leaves are placed into it hopper they will not be drawn down. I found my self constantly using some form of "plunger implement to the force the leaves down. If pushed too far into the hopper the spinning tines hit it and snap off. If the leaves are wet this issue is compounded. The solution I found is to purchase "Amazing Rake RK31010 17" Green 3-in-1 Ergonomic Pickup Rake with Telescopic Handle" sold by Amazon. It both is used to pick-up the leaves and when turned on its side to deposit the leaves in the hopper it end makes a perfect "leaf plunger" . Its end length is just short enough so as not to hit the spinning tines. Others have noted that wet leaves are a problem. Using this rake in its "plunger" mode allows wet or dry leaves to be shredded at almost the same rate. Second, as I understand, most people are placing a garbage can under the shredder. The problem is the space between the can and the shredder base allows a lot of the shredded leaves to blow back out of the can making a cloud of leaf dust. This gets into your lungs and requires one to use a mask to do the shredding. Additionally leaf dust builds up all around the shredder. My solution was to purchase "Large Laundry Bag with Adjustable Shoulder Strap, Commercial Grade 100% Nylon (30 X 40 Inches)", also supplied by Amazon. It fits around the bottom of the shredder and thus almost totally stops leaf dust from escaping. When the shredding is complete the bag is removed and has a shoulder strap to aid in carrying the leaf shreds to your mulch pile. The two items makes the leaf shredding significantly easier.

Really love how great it is for mulching leaves and the small storage footprint. But, the legs just don't stay extended. I was only able to get two of the three inserted with a 'click' and all three (even after being tightened with pliers) stay extended during use. That's my only complaint. Otherwise, I've gone from 12 paper lawn bags of leaves to none. I use the leaves to add to my compost and mulch my flowerbeds. Because of the smaller size, the bed leaves started breaking down in less than a week. Great unit.

Here's my take on the shredder. I'm reviewing it versus a gas-powered chipper/shredder I was using. It did exactly what I wanted. I am inundated with leaves and get overwhelmed by the time they all fall. I wanted to be able to rake the grass part of the yard every week or so and get rid of those leaves. I always had to have my husband around with the chipper/shredder to crank it first and help move it around or restart it if it quits (you know carburetors). I could handle this one by myself. I did wet leaves as it had rained and it did great! I followed directions and threw in a handful at a time. My husband had done some dry ones a week or so ago and said he had to have a "pusher" stick to get the leaves in. The wet ones went in fine. They did not create as much dust either. The shredder does NOT do twigs or acorns (which I also have a lot of). I picked out the biggest twigs and tossed them in a separate bucket. You definitely SHOULD WEAR EYE PROTECTION as the hopper is not closed and any twigs/acorns that do get in can be thrown back out at high speeds. It was much easier working with this than my old chipper/shredder.

So far so good. I use dry leaves and watch that no big twigs/sticks get in. The legs do come loose. We attach a plastic garage bag with the bungee cord provided and this works well. Wear ear and eye protectors. It is loud. I'm happy with the fineness of the mulch. This is important to me. I go fairly slow and don't push the motor.Update on 11/03/16. Well, we just got it out for this Fall's leaves and it worked for only a few minutes then stopped. We cleaned the filters and blew out dust etc. Looked at the motor--all the wires looked okay. Can not get it to run. So, will see what the company says. I'm disappointed because we treated it very carefully; never using it for long minutes at a time. Using only dry leaves, etc.

I have put about 6 hours on this unit, 2 hours a day whenever I could catch a "Non Windy Day!" here in Kansas!! Hard to shred when the wind is blowing 30 mph. As for the unit I have had no problems mechanically with it, in fact, I have shredded several full bags of leaves, yes I have a ton of leaves, and still have not replaced lines. I'm careful to remove or try and remove anything that will chew the lines up. It is a little slow, just because of the feed factor. You dump a load in the hopper then you have to tap them in with the rake or your hand. Other than that it gets with the program. It's light, which is another reason I don't even try to chip on a windy day, light as I can pick it up with one hand very easily, which makes it tippey. I would have given 5 stars but the legs have a tendency to slide back down, I solved this with Gorilla Tape, no sliding now!! Between me and my brother and a neighbor I should have enough mulch next year to rule the world, at least the garden. I think it's worth the money, assembly is a snap, you are up and running in about 15 minutes. Can't give a ruling on changing line, because I haven't had to.

This is our first leaf shredder product, bought based on its apparent simplicity and low price. We have generally not been disappointed. We have about 7 mature trees - maples, hemlocks, ash and pecan, plus several fruit trees, and it handles all of them, reducing their leaves surprisingly quickly to about 25 to 30 (not finished yet) 39 gal. bags, which are going on our garden. It handles pecan leaves with their tough stems with no problem, and very small twigs also. Yes, it is noisy but not outrageously so. The cutting lines are pretty easy to replace. The original lines go pretty quickly and seem to be only available from Snowjoe. .105 inch lines from MaxiEdge are my choice for substitutes - they have the advantage of price, improved cutting, and longer life.The hardware is, of course, cheap. The switch has already failed, after a couple of weeks of intermittent use. After hearing that they would send me a replacement switch "if the part is in stock" I thought "not likely" so I bypassed it and now use an external switch. This is probably not a good product for someone who is unable to take care of issues like this. if you buy it, save the box for shipping it back for warranty repairs!

This item arrived ahead of the planned date, was assembled ready for the test of claim. It didn't seem like the plastic would hold up as it was pretty thin for the expected work they advertised but to my amazement it did very well. It uses weed-eater twine of which they supply 30 complete changes (takes less than 2 minutes to change), and you have a lot of options for replacements after that. I had about 300 pounds of small leaves to make mulch out of so it was really going to make or break their advertising. Since the leaves were damp to wet it took me two days to do them to allow for some additional drying. Had to change the twine three times for maximum efficiency but this critter ate them up and made mush out of them to the point they could be used in a planter out of the hopper. I used a metal wash tub to catch the output and allow for max cooling of the motor. It made mud out of the damp leaves so had to clean the hopper often. Only four stars as it does make a lot of dust and throws some out the top. Perhaps a larger lip around the top of the hopper would help as it does catch most of the swirling mulch but a lot also escapes. Wear eye protection and a dust respirator for sure.

This Flowtron works as advertised. Uses typical weed whacker string and mulches even wet leaves. I place it on top of a 33gallon trashcan lined with a 40gallon yard bag. Mulches into very small pieces, makes getting rid of leaves a breeze. Only negative is the way the bucket connects to the metal arms. Kind of flimsy and can come apart unless you handle it like a baby when picking up. Other than that, the mulching works great. I use the heavy duty trimmer string which lasts a long time before needing to change out.

I have a mature magnolia tree and a 6000 square foot lot. The leaves come down steadily and it finally occurred to me that by dumping them in the green bin to be hauled away, I was sending away nutrients and then importing compost by the truckload to replace those nutrients (probably mostly nitrogen). After watching a TED talk on making compost solely from leaves, I decided I had to shred my constant supply of magnolia leaves to make compost in a timely fashion. I wanted a hand powered shredder, but they don't seem to exist, so I found the Ultimate Mulcher and it's been wonderful in accomplishing my goal of making piles of shredded leaves to compost. It is dusty and noisy and you go through a lot of weed-whacker line, but it gets the job done. Suit up with safety gear and make if project. I have decided that once every 4-6 weeks I will need to do a two hour session to keep my leaves processed. the other reviews are right, you need to let the leaves flow throw the barrel uncompressed or the machine bogs up. I am gathering my leaves in a big garbage can for my monthly session. I toss the seed pods out (you can grind them, but you go through too much weed whacker line). Yard looks great and its a good carbon usage over all...I am using electric power to grind, but not trucking things around each week.

I deducted one star for the poorly designed funnel that didn't snap down properly. The instruction manual's description of where the reset button is located is terrible. The corrected illustration was not much better. They should have said that its on the underside of the unit. Bolting the two leg pieces together required lifting the hole pieces out of the way so the bolt could go through the leg.

I use a large 19" diameter basket that is 13" high to collect the shredded leaves. A 20" wide X 17H basket is about the largest size that will fit under the shredder. It's easier to slide the basket out than lifting the unit off of a trash can each time you have to empty the basket. Its also easier to see when the basket is full, than a trash can where you have to look from the top of the shredder to check if the trash can is full.

I had considered the Worx Trivac, but decided that vacuuming the leaves would take too long - I live on a wooded lot. If you watch the Worx video of them vacuuming the leaves out of the back of the pickup truck, you'll notice they speed up the video after a couple of seconds. I have used the vacuum function of a leaf blower before and the Flowtron is by far much faster. You can't help picking up small branches, but they only frayed the line a little after about 30 minutes of use.

I use leaf scoops to collect the leaves. These collect too many leaves for the funnel, so after you drop your leaves in the hopper, you have to scoop up and drop the leaves in the funnel to allow them to flow properly. If loaded properly, the Flowtron will shred the leaves in a heart beat.

After 1/2 hour use of this shredder, I wish I had bought it sooner. I have already hauled 9 commercial sized canvas bags to my subdivisions mulch area. Each bag probably weighed 35-40 lbs. Shredding will be much easier on my back.

I live in a rural area where it's required to clear "fuel" 100 feet around our home for fire safety. Our lot has both Black Oaks and Jeffrey Pines and we get a thick carpet of leaves and pine needles. Previously we had a local area where we could dump them, but it's become too full and is no longer available. And we can't burn. So our options were to either haul multiple truck loads to a dump site 40 miles away or mulch.

There have been a wide range of ratings of this product and I expected some problems. First the negatives:
1. Assembling the black plastic cone at the top - there are two halves that must be assembled together and then the cone is pressed into place on top of the red section. The two halves are NOT made to easily fit together. There are tabs that must overlap and whoever designed it must have been having a really bad day! Expect to need an extra hand to hold the halves in place and to have an very imperfect fit once you're done.
2. Assembling the stand - the black metal stand comes in two sections which join together at the middle of the curved area. Two half round plates are screwed together to clamp the sections together. The holes were not the proper size and needed to be drilled out. The screws were extremely cheap and vise grips had to be used to turn them to tighten.
3. Attaching a plastic lawn/leaf bag - the bungee cord supplied is very weak and even if it were stronger, attaching the bag doesn't work too well. Unless using small bags the bag will sag on the ground and need to be constantly adjusted - if it doesn't completely come off the shredder.
4. As expected it's noisy and can be very dusty - eye and ear protection and a dust mask should be used.

Function:
There are several settings depending on what you intend to mulch. I've found that I only use the finest setting. I can dump large handfuls of leaves and needles into it and if I do so while being careful to not overload it and not let it bog down, it works fine. If too much is fed into it at once, it tends to clear out a hole around the cutting line so that the rest of the material needs to be stirred up so it will feed. Don't use your hands - a short stick will do fine.

Instead of using a lawn/leaf bag I found it can work well on top of a plastic trash can - if you need to haul the mulch somewhere. Otherwise I just rake up a large pile, feed it into the mulcher and let it pile up on the ground.

As others have suggested, buy a reel of plastic line and cut your own lengths instead of paying significantly more for pre-cut line. You'll go through a lot, which is a pain, but I think there could be a big safety difference if you modified it to use steel rods instead of the plastic line.

Overall - once assembled, it does what I need done.

UPDATE:
Four 1/4 Years later - it's still running strong. Each year we need to clear alot of oak leaves and pine needles from the yard. I've found that the best way to do this is to put a large trash bag (I use 40 gallon + sized bags) in a trash can and then place the mulcher on top of the can. It swivels enough, as you can see in the product image, that you can adjust it to balance well. The lower portion of the mulcher extends down into the trash can. I cut my own lengths of .080 trimmer line using the original lengths of line that came with it as a template. Because the pile of leaves and pine needles often have twigs in the line may need to be changed before a trash can is full. While the old line can be pulled out by hand, I've found it easier to carry a small pair of needle nose pliers with me to grab it if the ends get too short. Finally I keep a 2-3 foot long stick with me to stir the leaves and needles if they get stuck when I dump too many in. And be sure to wear eye and ear protection when using it as well as nose and mouth protection from the dust. Overall - it was a good purchase and continues to do the job.

Fairly easy to unpack and assemble. Telescoping legs must be tighted down hard, else they start to lose height. Could be taller so standard landscape recycling bags would fit underneath without crumpling up. Had to cut them down to size (argh!). The elastic band around the bottom which is supposed to seal the bag tight doesn't work well at all. Lots of leaf dust blowing out any open area that's not sealed up. Putting leaves into the hopper requires some pushing into the funnel area, especially if the leaves are large like mine. So it chops up the leaves into a pretty finely ground up mass, but blow back up thru the funnel is substantial. I was covered with fine dust during just a minute or two of use. Sealing the bottom bag is critical to reduce this. Make absolutely sure to wear safety glasses when using this thing.

It was very easy to put together out of the box.I like the concept and I think overall it works good but the string wears down pretty quickly. I've only used it one day for an hour or two so and I think the string that shreds the leaves (it uses thick nylon string like a weed whacker) needs changing already. I did have a lot of twigs mixed in with the leaves though. And the legs need to be adjusted and re-tightened as the vibration jars them loose. But over all I was able to shred a very large area of leaves down to one giant plastic bag.

it does a fair job of reducing leaves to mulch, needs consent force to feed into ridiculous small funnel opening leaves do not just fall in like they should. any input of dry leaves with wet leaves just clogs the cutting beyond belief. needs to be shut off and cleared by hand more then it's worth trying to mix any damp leaves into it.. beware if you do the whole 40 / 50 gallon bag and fill them, they will be heavier and your trash collector may not take them

Overall, an okay leaf mulcher. The motor is very strong and the included trimmer string is thick enough to easily chop up small sticks. There is a sliding knob on the side to adjust the mulch consistency for dry leaves, wet leaves, ect. but the vibrations of the motor running will move it on its own. I taped it down, not really a big issue. The legs are adjustable but, even tightened down hard, still slip occasionally when relocating the unit. Also, the bag is held in place with a bungee style cord around the bottom and it can be annoying to get the bag on all the way around. My neighbor has the Wox mulcher and I feel it is an easier to use system.

I was apprehensive about buying this because I read reviews that said the shredder worked fine for a short while and then just quit. I bought it anyway, and sure enough, it quit working on the third day I was using it. I was intent of finishing the job and I happen to be an electrician, so I did a little troubleshooting. Provided the motor was functional, I assumed I could fix or replace a bad switch or circuit breaker; those are the only components. All three are exposed by removing the bottom cover. I was a little concerned to see how much dust and debris had collected inside in just a few days use; a lot had collected around the motor brushes. I cleaned it out with compressed air and quickly determined that the problem was the double pole on/off switch. However, only one side of the switch was bad, so for a quick fix I rewired it as a single pole switch. I used the shredder several more times without issues. Now that I'm done for the season, I removed the cover cleaned out the motor compartment - it was full of debris and dust - and removed the switch so I can get a replacement. I suspect the switch is the issue with other buyers who say the machine stops working. I might just a heavy duty toggle switch. Even if you don't have trouble with the switch, I recommend removing the bottom cover for cleaning. Another problem is the adjustment on the leg extensions. The locks don't hold very well. I used electrical tape to hold them in place.

Overall the thing works.I didn't have problems assembling the thing (unlike others). But I can confirm the extendable legs' fixtures may not hold well in place. You need to apply extra (not excessive, though) force to tighten them up.It can shred leaves (both dry and wet ones) pretty effectively. The 16:1 reduction rate is an overstatement, though. I could barely see about 3:1 (at most). I guess, this ratio represents the number of shredded bags of leaves I will get out of the original volume. No, nowhere close to that.12 gal/min shredding speed seems to be a little exaggerated, too. It took us about an hour to get through two 50 gal bags (and there were 2 of us working).Also, not sure about the shredding speed. You can get a 'continuous' shredding only if you put a handful of leaves in (literally), any more and you gotta wait until they're done.The whole body is plastic and the security cover is held in place by plastic pieces. It's not easy to get the cover off without braking those small plastic pieces. I already (after 3 uses) have one broke off.The overall process gets really messy. The dust will cover you head to toe, so make sure you wear your work clothes (I really mean that).And, of course safety glasses and gloves are a must. Sometimes small pieces fly back out, so safety first! Oh, and it makes perfect sense to get those dust masks (not to breath that dust which flies around).As it was mentioned, the protective cover of the on/off buttons is not too soft, so turning the thing on/off with your gloves on is a bit hard.The shredded is pretty noisy. Make sure you don't work too late.Now, the plastic line used to shredding is okay against plain leaves. If you start getting twigs, the line breaks pretty quickly. It gets shorter and shorter and you start getting leaves accumulating under the cover. Yes, it can handle thin twigs, but at a cost. And you have to replace the line more often.Basically, it's not a bad thing. But given the ratios above (and extra time to shred, and the cost of electricity) you better do you math if you need those savings or just want to have your leaves collected w/o shredding. By the way, you can't have a full 50 gal bag of shredded leaves, it's too heavy and most likely won't be picked up by your refuse service.I guess, if you only need to shred some leaves for your compost heap or to add to mulch it may make sense to get something cheaper.And if you're looking to save on leaf bags... not sure if this will deliver huge savings.

Does a good job of mulching leaves, but nothing stronger. Twigs chew up the string-trimmer nylons in no time and replacing them is somewhat awkward. It also is a rather large item to store if you don't have an outside shed.

The mechanism works as expected, quite well actually for it's size. But two things hinder this mulcher: size and build quality. It really needs to be 30 to 50 percent wider in diameter to tackle a job of any real size. Also, the design is all plastic except for the stand. The heavy reliance on plastic for the barrel, mounting supports, and especially the flimsy intake hopper really do this machine a disservice.

It will probably do your job, but I'd pay more for a sturdier machine that will be more durable.

Having more mulberry trees than any sane man would allow, I needed a leaf shredder. And this one does a pretty good job. It is basically a small electric weed eater in a plastic funnel. And I will be willing to bet that it works for years.

There were, however a few cautionary points. First, the price for this varies wildly. On the Sears online site, it was listed multiple times anywhere from $225 to $360. Amazon, by far, had the best price. It cost $135 and since I use Amazon Prime, it was shipped for free. I'm impressed.

The manufacturer did not stay up nights and spend long weekends designing this. The plastic is relative cheap, and the end product uses for too much space in storage. Even in the $135 range, it could have been designed and made better.

In operation, it mulched pine needles and leaves. But it does nothing to small twigs--I'll repeat myself--it's a small electric weed eater. I've found that it works best with a collapsible leaf barrel under it. And it does indeed turn several (7-10?) bags of leaves into a single bag of mulch. I'm toying around with the idea of designing better legs with 3/4" PVC.

It does reduce volume of leaves but assembly is very difficult. The manufacturer apparently does not have quality control or final inspection based on my experience. The semi-circular tubular stand has punched holes which are supposed accommodate screws. The screws would not go into the holes because the metal was simply folded back instead of being removed. I ruined one screw trying to make it fit, cut my hands and had to re-manufacture the holes before I could get this product together. It does not save much time since you must rake leaves and feed them into the hopper. I wish someone would design a product similar to a shop vac with a built-in leaf shredder and a long hose so you can vacuum your yard thus eliminating raking and handling of leaves. The only product I could find was a very expensive lawn vacuum ($617) designed like a power lawn mower.

This is a great product. I live in a wooded area and use it to mulch all my leaves and pine needles which I use for ground cover. It is good for the enviroment and saves on the labor of bagging leaves. It does have one drawback. It is designed for dry leaves and very small twigs only. It is next to impossible to sort the raked debris to eliminate larger twigs. When overloaded with large twigs, wet leaves or too big a load a protective circuit breaker shuts the unit off. This becomes an annoyance because you have to wait for the unit to cool down before you can reset the circuit breaker. Eventually the circuit breaker does not do the trick and the unit will fail. My original unit, identical but sold under a different name failed under warranty and was replaced. This purchase replaces a failure out of warranty. My neighbor had a similar experience but we both repurchased replacement units because it is still a great product.

I received it and assembled it. The first thing that I noticed was one of the support legs was missing a rubber cap on one end designed to keep soil out of the leg. Unlike the other two legs it also was jammed and I had to play with it for several minutes in order to free it. (Where's the QC department?) I started using the shredder and it worked fine - for about 45 minutes. Unfortunately it stopped working when I turned it on again (I suspect the switch). when it was working it did a very nice job on shredding dry leaves. Too bad it died because I probably would have given it 4 stars otherwise. I got it today and am returning it tomorrow.

The shredder did a good job of taking care of leaves but it stopped working after the second time it was used. Amazon sent a replacement. I'll wait to see how the new one pans out.

Easy to set up and use but only lased one . It made easy work of last autumn's dry leaves. 2 days of on off use then into garage until this past weekend. One load of slightly wet, slightly fibrous leaves this week and mid load it bound up, and stopped running. It didn't trip the GFI outlet it was plugged into and there doesn't appear to be any fuse or circuit breaker on the shredder. It looks like its shot and of course, despite only 2 days of use, its no longer on brand or Amazon warranty

At this writing I'd rather have the money it cost.I used it once for over an hour and it worked fine; but be prepared for leaf dust "everywhere". The 2nd time I set it up it seemed to work but I forgot my goggles so hit the very loose "Off" switch and could not get it started again even after waiting a while then hitting the "Reset" button, etc.I had a mechanic friend try it a few days later, and after dismantling it and using a "energy indicator" device decided it was toast, and I should return it. Unfortunately, the "Return Window" had just closed and I'm stuck with it. I would not recommend.A wiser purchase would be to buy something this costly from a "real" store so you can return the damn thing.

I have used this through the fall season and here are the results. First it does work but there are issues with this product. When you put the leaves in you usually have a pile in your hands and it doesn't just go in you have to push the leaves through and that means you need a stick or something. I had to be very very careful using this it can be very dangerous. The second issue is mounting this on a plastic garbage can to collect the mulched leaves. It was very hard to keep the two together without one falling over. I never got something that really worked. You can also hang an industrial strength plastic trash bag (Home Depot) under it but it just kept blowing off from the force of the shredder. It also talks about using it to shred sticks, they mean very small sticks. This product is not a rip off but it is very limited in what you can do with it.

It's loud, makes a mess and does what it's advertised to do....for a little while.I have 5 acres and this tool came in handy.Though this chore has to be the worst one here, it really reduces the leaves down to mulch.Make sure you wear eye, hearing, hand and respiratory protection.So far I've used it 3 times for a total of 4.5 hours and changed the cutting strings twice. Only because I accidentally dropped a pinecone in it and tried mulching pine needles. It does have a hard time with pine needles. Just stick a large garbage bag under it using the bungie straps and feed it.A complain about is the adjustable stands have to be really tight or it will start to slip down under its own weight. As far as the 16:1 ratio, I don't know. But what I do know is that HUGE pile of leaves is now gone.Edit: it only lasted 3 times. I went to use it this season. Kept it in the original box in the garage.Got all my gear on. Plugged it in and nothing.I'm handy so I took the motor cover off and saw the cheap Chinese motor.Both rotor and stator wires weren't crimped on the wires.Blew the dust off and it worked again for about 5 minutes before burning itself up.Took the cover off again to see one of the motor brushes completely destroyed in pieces.Really disappointed because it should have lasted longer and for over 100 bucks.

Does not shred grass enough that it could be put back on the grass as fertilizer. We purchased so that we could mulch our grass clippings and put them back on the lawn. Could not get it to shred fine enough to do that. Wound up with a big pile of fermenting stinking grass.

Shredder is probably fine just not for what we wanted to do with it. We returned it.

I purchased this to help mulch the large amount of pine needles I get in my yard each year. It did a great job mulching. And I loved using the pine needle mulch in my flower beds. It got used only 2-3 times in the summer, but for extended time periods (takes about a half day to clear up all the pine needles). I think I was pretty reasonable about not overloading, and pine needles are very light, but the motor burned out after only a year and half (after warranty had expired). That really is not a good return for what the product cost.

I bought my mulcher three years ago. The first year it worked fine. The second year, I did not use it, but this year which is the third, I had just began using it, and the top bearing in the motor came apart releasing its ball bearings, making a racket and eventually jamming the motor and tripping the circuit breaker. I thought it was materials in the motor but once to took it apart I saw the problem. I have only been used it on leaves; so, I must conclude that it is poorly designed. Otherwise, it worked fine when it worked.

Pros:
*Can go where the leaves are (ie, in a flower bed where you can mulch and spread right in place)
*Makes a fine textured mulch which looks nice in beds and quickly decomposes in compost piles.

BIG CON:
*Not for a yard with lots of leaves (we have 12 large hardwoods and smaller trees like dogwoods, too). Though we mulch and bag most of the leaves on the grass with a bagger/mower, this unit did not last well even w/ just the leaves in the flower beds. It just stopped running, period.

For lots of leaves, either get a heavy, large, and expensive unit, or just keep raking, mowing, bagging, and moving the leaves as you mulch them....and get good exercise, too!

The whole thing is lightweight plastic of fair to poor construction. Another reviewer complained about the assembly time, I found it fairly quick and easy to assemble. It is flimsy overall none the less and the two piece metal stand is "coupled" with a plastic clamp that can, will, and does over time allow the metal tube halves to pull out. The clamps on either side of the unit which the metal tube stand fits in also tend to come loose very often and you will need to tighten these regularly. On a positive note at least these are meant to be tightened by hand while the "plastic coupler" is held together with screws requiring a trip into the shed to get a screwdriver when it comes apart. The motor in the one I have, which is the "BIG" motor, trips the overload on the motor every few minutes while in use unless there are virtually no leaves in it. That is right there are two sizes of motors are available, at least get the big one if you think you need this shredder. Anyway, through a lot of trial and error if you feed it very slow it will shred leaves. When it works they do take up much less space saving you bags. Not worth the $ though. I have not used up all the spare plastic blades (very heavy gauge weed eater type string cut into pieces about 12" long) yet but I am dreading trying to find an acceptable replacement at my local hardware store.

This is seriously a piece of garbage. After 15 minutes of use , I determined it was a complete waste of money . It's a weed wacker , inverted .it can't handle small twigs . I read all the reviews and now I'm sure the reviews were bought and paid for. ( yes I have been contacted several time through email for favorable reviews on Amazon) . It was a cheaply made and the performance is worse . Do not buy this, when you do, feel free to reply to my review and say I should have listened to you!

Fast shipping but assembly was a nightmare, was only able to setup one leg. So decided to just rest over the pail. When I tried to attach the funnel it was too large and did not fit. Had to return and go back to the old method. I was holding off on mulching the leaves waiting for this to arrive. The snow arrived before this did, when the snow melted and I tried to put it together it was a no go.

If you have more than one tree in your yard, don't bother. In fact, if you have one tree, you're better off investing in a blower/vac with a metal impeller. This is basically a weed whacker on legs. You feed the leaves through the shoot and they fall through the spinning nylon line and get shredded. That sounds good, but the nylon line only lasts for a few minutes and then you have to turn it off, remove the feed shoot and replace the line. It's not an automatic feed like a whacker. The little plastic guard over the power switch immediately fell off and was lost and so the leaf dust gets into the switch housing and makes it difficult to switch on and off. I had to break out the screw driver and canned air to open it out and blow out the dust just to be able to turn it on again. And the legs don't stay in position. Tighten them all you want, they will still fall down at different rates. I used this one afternoon and will never use it again. What a waste of money.

*My individual model was not defective. I received a replacement model and it was just as bad and within a few hours of use the engine just died completely. Yes, died.Where to start, where to start. Let me get the very worst out of the way first. There's not much good to say at all but varying degrees of horror dealing with this disaster of a product. After 2 days of use, which was ultimately maybe 10 minutes of the product actually working as near expected and hours of cleaning, repositioning, rechecking the manual, adjusting settings, dealing with the horrible locking feature on the legs, replacing the weed whacker plastic strips after about every 4 handfuls of leaves, the thing died. Completely died.1. Leg locking features is awful. For a product this expensive they could've had the push button and adjust to height locking system you see on a variety of products unfortunately there is a twist locking system which continued to come unlocked during use and nearly caused the system to collapse with the motor running. I checked the locks many times before use, nothing was moving, they were locked in place following exact steps of manual. Unloosening the locks and adjusting to the desired height is a tiresome ongoing process as after you adjust to a certain height you then just see small measurements painted on to go off. Good luck wasting time if you want to even adjust the leg slightly.2. Not sure who this product is for. I have a significant amount of leaves in my yard. I'm seeding in the spring and rather than buy straw I'd prefer to have the shredded leaves over the seed to keep it wet while adding a layer of protection against birds. If you have a small amount of leaves then don't even consider this. Its not worth the time or money. Like everyone else my leaves fall from the branches of trees. Sometimes branches or pieces of branches fall onto the ground as well and unless you are going to handpick every tiny branch out of massive leaf piles you've bought yourself a disastrous product. This thing becomes jammed so easily its mindboggling how this product got approved for wide release manufacture and distribution. I did small handfuls of leaves as the manual states and even this resulted in constant clogging. After about every 5 handfuls I had to make sure it was turned off and reach in and clean out. Don't bother taking the plastic top off because it is not shaped exactly as needed to align easily and when removing as well as attempting to put this back on the experience was 10 times more difficult because the legs kept unlocking.3. You are given a bag of the weed whacker type ties that are used to shred. In the manual it states you should only buy their specially manufactured ties for this product. How nice of them, you think when you realize you've been given 20 extra replacement lines included in your purchase. HA! Small twigs and wet leaves destroy these things easily. Had to replace the ties about every 10 small handfuls. Once again don't bother taking off the plastic tub. Unplug the product and have a screwdriver or small knife handy to remove the ties and replace them. Get used to this process which will waste about 5 mins each time (if you're lucky and the legs don't unlock and adjust while you are attempting to do so.4. The manual says the product requires minimal maintenance. There are several settings, one especially for wet leaves. Only put in 1 handful of wet leaves at a time vs the two handfuls at a time for dry leaves. Even following these instructions it constantly clogged. Unplug the machine, reach your gloved hand in and remove all the dirt, mud and other residue that has built up and once again rendered your machine worthless in a matter of minutes. This debris builds up quickly because for reasons unbeknownst to logic the bottom of this machine doesn't have large openings for material to fall through into the bag. There are four small openings within the plastic piece which cause residue to build up quickly, more easily breaks the plastic ties and takes far longer for the machine to clear and have the leaves placed in the bag. After about 4 attempts of the bag filling up slightly, rubbing the plastic legs and causing them to unlock and add about 10 more minutes off maintenance I said no more bags thinking things would work far better. After not having a bag there you will also realize rather quickly that it doesn't shred the leaves very finely. This would've required me doing about 3 runs of processing on each handful of leaves. More wasted time.5. How valuable is your time??? As said before you probably only need this if you have a lot of leaves. I had cleared about 20 contractor bags of leaves out of the yard before I said, no more trips to the landfill and theres still probably 15-20 contractor bags worth left over. The irony here is if you have minimal leaves you don't need this and if you have a lot of leaves, well this machine is not well built enough, reliable or powerful enough to get the job done. If you have a small amount then just rake them into a bag lined trash can, tie it up and call it a day or mow them and shred in a matter of minutes. You'd even be better off buying a large tub or bucket, dropping the leaves by hand in there and then placing a weed whacker in it . Then repeat that process. That would save you a tremendous amount of time and effort. Oh yeah put in headphones or earplugs because this piece of work is incredibly loud, which was hilarious given how ineffective it was at doing its job and the lack of power it seemed to have. Loud bark and no bite and your neighbors will despise you quickly. The vacuum feature to suck the leaves downward to shred is not as strong as you would think given how loud this baby is and so when you feed leaves be prepared to put your gloved hand or the end of a rake, shovel etc to move the leaves to feed it. This wastes even more time of an already bad process. So the process is this. You'd already need to have leaves raked into piles or maybe in a garbage can. You really cant dump the can into the machine because it will clog. So after you've got your pile ready now you need to grab a handful or two at a time. Wait to see that each handful clears the machine completely and then drop your next handful or two into the plastic tub portion. Make sure that as you wait to drop the next handful you pick out any and all small twigs, debris, roots, etc otherwise its going to get jammed in a matter of minutes. Also, unless your yard is completely flat this is not a real mobile machine. It's light and easy to move but you'll need to go through the cumbersome process of adjusting and readjusting which means bring all your leaves to one large pile or separate into multiple piles throughout but prepare to deal with the adjustment process so the machine will avoid falling over while running.From a value perspective, assuming things worked near as expected this thing is overpriced $120-$150? Should be about $75 tops which you'll realize once you see and feel the material especially with the legs which are of bad material and undersized which makes this a top heavy machine. Expect to spend time and money replacing the shredder lines, prepare to be disappointed about its effectiveness, the waste of your time for a product that was supposed to save you time and be fully aware of your refund deadline.*I decided to let Amazon send a replacement shredder in and effort to determine if mine was defective. I have not used it yet since I received it in the evening however as I am putting it together I am noticing significant scuffs on the funnel/feeder cover portion as well as various yellow discolorations showing on the green plastic. This replacement has clearly been used and then sold and shipped as "New". I will update the review regarding its performance after I test it tomorrow but to have a shoddy product replaced by a refurbished/used model is such a low blow.

Purchased due to the amount of leaves on my property and thought it would save me time. I spent more time trying to get the tripod legs to stop collapsing. The feed of leaves is slow at best. It mulched a total of 8 bags of leaves when the motor seized up, started smelling and just quit working. Very, Very disappointed in this product. Would not recommend to anyone.

Purchased October 31, 2014, received and used it for one-half an hour on November 3, 2014. Easy set-up, seemed to be of decent quality and it worked extremely well for one-half hour of Silver Maple Leaf leaf shredding (taking care not to overload the motor as our tree drops a ton of leaves when it decides it's time). After taking a break for about ten minutes went to restart it and nothing happened. Pushed in the breaker button several times, and still nada. Checked my extension cord and that had power to it. Banged the bottom of the motor with my hand and it sputtered a little and then again nothing. Decided to let it "rest" overnight, and today, ready to start again, I had to grab my rake which was not an epic fail like this..thing is. Returning it of course, and as such I might suggest looking another product if you are in the market Too bad, I had high hopes for this (as did my neighbors who love our tree in the summer but not so much in the fall when it sheds its foliage).

The unit broke on the first day of use. No need to elaborate. I am currently trying to find a replacement part or have the seller send a replacement.

hood broke almost immediately. Doesn't chop leaves and small twigs as reviews state.

I ordered this LE-900. IT came in on time but the product has engineering flaws. The holes in the legs are not drilled out properly to
allow the machine screws to fit without drilling. I happen to be very good with my hands. Im a carpenter and I know how to put stuff together! I drilled the holes out myself to fit the screws but the last straw for me was when I went to screw on the wing nuts that hold the leg assembly together the threads in the machine screw would not align with the treads in the wing nut. I was careful not to cross thread them to !When I called up customer support they were quite willing to send replacement parts. I don't like having my time wasted by manufacturers who find the cheapest guy in China to make their stuff and don't over see the quality control of the product.
Unless you like screwing around all day trying to put together things and having to go to Home depot to get parts that will work so you can put your $120.00 brand new mulcher together, I'd buy another one.

It made it into the second year motor started sounding funny I changed the trimmer line noticed the motor shaft was very hot turned it on without the cutting line on the shaft was wobbling back and forth like the top bearing was shot 136.00 for a season and a half you decide if that is a good deal.

Assembly was easy and instructions were easy to follow. Following the instructions in the book I coarse shredded the leaves and then fine shredded them. Worked great for about 20 minutes and then stopped running. There was a lot of leaf dust everywhere so I got out the compressor and cleaned the dust out of the filter, motor, and anywhere else I found it. It starts but will only run for 5 to 10 seconds before tripping the reset. I've had much better luck with equipment I buy from a discount chain (can I say HF's name here?)--I pay half as much and they are more durable. If you are willing to spend this much save your pennies a little longer and buy a real leaf/lawn vacuum. Besides chopping up the leaves it will save you from most of the raking.

To be fair, the manufacturer repaired the shredder and it has worked better since the repair. I would raise the rating to three stars at this point.