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Has anyone tried Chipdrop?

 
Cat Knight
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There is a new site called chipdrop  that supposedly lets you get woodchips from  arborists (and logs) for free or possibly $20. There are some drawbacks: you have to take the whole load and you can't make any specifications on them, there might be a couple things you don't want mixed in like weeds or candy wrappers, the usual free woodchips stuff I guess...

Anyway, before I ask for a load of mixed logs/chips to put all over my Tacoma front lawn because yeah, I'm that lady, have any of the other permies tried this service and what was your experience?

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Nikki Roche
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I've had a good experience with the two deliveries that I've had from ChipDrop. Some evergreen boughs, a few sticks and a couple of pieces of trash, but otherwise nice loads of wood chips.

Here are a few other threads that you might find helpful.

https://permies.com/t/189915/chip-drop-happy-happy-happy

https://permies.com/t/40/39157/ChipDrop-site-sign-delivery-free

https://permies.com/t/149983/ChipDrop-mulch-logs

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Chris Vee
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3 loads and they have all been a huge variety of woods, the piles got exceptionally hot throughout because of the huge array of woods & they decomposed near the middle of the piles very fast because of this. AND, they had a bonus gas can at the bottom of one of the piles; “may include prizes”!

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greg mosser
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i’ve been renewing my request with them for 2+ years, no delivery yet.
 
Chris Vee
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greg mosser wrote:i’ve been renewing my request with them for 2+ years, no delivery yet.



If you're still in need of mulch and have not done so yet, this is the way I get extra loads to the property...

Call the local electric company and ask if they are the one's who prep/install new power-lines; often times it is a contractor who does the work to prep the run, if so, ask for their contact information. Keep linking calls until you eventually reach the supervisor for the crew that actually does the clearing for the new power runs. Don't stop making calls until you get ahold of the supervisor who specifically tells you that you're on "the list". After that it can just be a matter of patience but be sure to call every 3-6 months to make sure your name/info didn't get lost... eventually wood chips show up, it's often dependent of the workload in your area, but often times once a large project starts nearby you'll get truckload after truckload.

Apologies if this doesn't help or if this isn't new information, I hope you get your chips.
 
Matt McSpadden
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Hi Cat,
If you check out the first link that Nikki listed, you will see that ChipDrop has been hit or miss depending on your area. I tried it and got nothing. Other people tried it and got several loads within a month. I think it depends on the area. If you have an area where the arborists are in with ChipDrop (probably suburban/urban areas) then you will probably get some easily. If you are more rural, it may be more difficult, but as has been mentioned, you can still do it manually. I tend to stop if I see a work crew within a certain amount of miles of my house. I give them my name and number and address. I never actually got any like that, but it works for some people. What actually worked for me was seeing a lot being cleared and I payed a little to have two dumptruck loads delivered.

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Deedee Dezso
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I intend to try out this service in WV.  I'm wondering how those chips will work in a hugel bed?

"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."
Located in Western West Virginia

 
Cat Knight
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Nikki Roche wrote:

Here are a few other threads that you might find helpful.

https://permies.com/t/189915/chip-drop-happy-happy-happy

https://permies.com/t/40/39157/ChipDrop-site-sign-delivery-free

https://permies.com/t/149983/ChipDrop-mulch-logs



Thank you, Thank you for finding these! I tried using the search feature but didn't have luck finding appropriate threads.

There is madness to my method.
"Life finds a way"- Ian Malcolm
"We're all mad here" - The Cheshire Cat

 
Cat Knight
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Chris Vee wrote:AND, they had a bonus gas can at the bottom of one of the piles; “may include prizes”!



That's a pretty cool prize!

There is madness to my method.
"Life finds a way"- Ian Malcolm
"We're all mad here" - The Cheshire Cat

 
Cat Knight
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Deedee Dezso wrote:I intend to try out this service in WV.  I'm wondering how those chips will work in a hugel bed?



I want to use the chips for smothering the evil grass monoculture, personally. I was gonna take the log option for a hugelbed. Yep. On my front lawn. they neighbors were super happy to see raised boxes, so I'm ready to go a step further and do a small hugelbed, and possibly a keyhole garden this spring.

There is madness to my method.
"Life finds a way"- Ian Malcolm
"We're all mad here" - The Cheshire Cat

 
Ben Zumeta
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Deedee Dezso wrote:I intend to try out this service in WV.  I'm wondering how those chips will work in a hugel bed?



I bury wood in huglels in as close to its natural form as possible to avoid Nitrogen deficits. I would not bury woodchips in a hugel, as this misapplication is where the misconception that they are nitrogen poor for the first couple years. Chips are great as mulch where they have access to abundant air (~80% nitrogen), so they do not cause a significant N deficit. The N deficit caused by buried wood is directly correlated with surface area, as it occurs in a very thin (<1cm) bubble around each wood chunk. On the other hand, wood from twigs and branches (under 3-4” thick) has much less carbon relative to nitrogen (C:N 30:1 to 50:1) than trunk wood (up to 500:1 or more). So buried twigs etc have plenty of N, and big logs have very little surface area (and therefore little N deficit in soil) relative to their volume and  benefits. The N deficit occurs when high C:N wood is then chipped up to have a high surface area to volume ratio as well, and is then buried where it can only access N for decomposition from the surrounding soil. This can be then a problem for a few years. I don’t like to tell anyone what to do, just giving my insight after building many tens of thousands of cubic feet of hugels and reading up on them quite a bit.

This is all just my opinion based on a flawed memory

 
Michelle Heath
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Deedee Dezso wrote:I intend to try out this service in WV.  I'm wondering how those chips will work in a hugel bed?



Good luck on getting chips.  I've been signed up for several years and have received nada.  We make as much of our own as we can with our small chipper/shredder and take advantage of grabbing them from the side of the road whenever we can find them.

Forever creating a permaculture paradise!

 
Timothy Norton
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I just signed up for a delivery on ChipDrop, I will come back here with an update if anything comes to fruition.

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Timothy Norton
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3/27/2024

I got a phone call at work. It was a gentleman with a tree outfit confirming that I can accept a load of chips. I gave him the go ahead and gave him the place to drop it. I came home and found a wonderful pile of chips dropped off.

I did have to refresh my Chipdrop availability three times because your requests expire. Chipdrop shoots out an email asking if you want to keep showing up as a dropsite so you won't miss it. I have no complaints!
Chipdrop.jpg
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David Madaras
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I only had to wait a couple of weeks for my delivery. It arrived this morning and was left exactly where I wanted it with no issues.  I'll be busy for the next couple of week distributing it around my trees and plants. 😆
Keep up the great work!!!
 
cc duke
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I signed up about a year ago. I got a delivery after about three months, and a second about three months later. The first one was really good chips. I let them sit until this spring, then spread them nice and thick in the garden. The weeding chore has been easy this summer. When I renewed my request, I checked the "I'll take some logs with my chips" box. When I got my second delivery, I got a big load of HUGE logs with about two tablespoons of chips. Most of the logs were not good enough to use for firewood, and that load was really just a job for me to saw them up and put on the burn pile - I suspect that the crew that dropped that second load just wanted to not have to deal with those gigantic logs.
I've renewed again without the 'logs' option, and it's been months without another drop. My son has had his chipdrop request in for at least two years, and has not gotten a drop.
 
Ac Baker
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This sounds like a great scheme.  We're lucky that our local allotments committee usually manage to arrange a few drops per year, next one due this month.

How often do you need to renew your ChipDrop request for it to stay 'live'?

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