You know that pile. The one that starts as a few trimmed branches after a storm, then grows into a tangled mess of twigs, dead leaves, and the occasional branch you swear was thinner when you cut it. You keep saying you’ll deal with it. Then winter hits, spring comes, and suddenly you’re staring at a rotting heap that’s become a breeding ground for every mosquito in the county.
I’ve been there. I’ve also owned a gas chipper that weighed more than my refrigerator, needed a tune-up every other weekend, and scared the neighbors every time I pulled the cord. So when I saw this little Yeryork electric unit for $110, I was skeptical. Electric chippers under $150 usually mean plastic gears, weak motors, and a box of disappointment.
Turns out, I was wrong. Mostly.
First Impressions: It’s Smaller Than You Think
The box showed up and I honestly thought they’d sent me the wrong thing. This thing is compact. We’re talking about something that sits comfortably on a workbench. The whole unit, including the collection bag, takes up less floor space than my shop vac.
Assembly took about twelve minutes. There’s no trick to it. The hopper slides on, the bag hangs underneath, and the chute has a couple of bolts to tighten. The manual is written in the kind of broken English that usually makes me nervous, but the diagrams are clear enough that you won’t need it after the first five minutes.
The 15-amp motor is the heart of this thing, and it’s the same motor class you’d find in a decent electric lawn mower. That’s not a coincidence. These motors are proven, they’re cheap to replace if something goes wrong, and they’ve got enough torque to chew through the stuff this unit is actually designed to handle.
But let’s be real about what it’s not. It’s not a gas-powered monster. It’s not going to turn a 3-inch oak limb into mulch while you sip coffee. It’s a yard-tidy-up machine, and once you accept that, it starts making a whole lot of sense.
The 1.8-Inch Claim Is Mostly Honest See Today’s Deal on Amazon
The spec sheet says 1.8-inch cutting diameter. In practice, that means anything up to about an inch and a half goes through smoothly. At 1.8 inches, you need the branch to be dry-ish and you need to feed it straight. If the branch has any twist or a fork in it, you’ll be wrestling it a bit.
I threw a bunch of stuff at it over a couple of weekends:
- Fresh maple branches, about an inch thick. No problem. The motor bogged down for a second, then dug in.
- Dead oak twigs from last winter. Sounded like a wood chipper should, and the output was beautiful, dry mulch.
- Leafy branches with lots of green. This is where it shines. The shredder function chews leaves and small stems into a fine texture that’s perfect for compost.
- One stupidly thick piece of 2-inch hickory that I fed in sideways just to see what would happen. It jammed. I had to unplug the unit, dig the branch out, and stop being an idiot.
Here’s the thing: the motor has a thermal overload switch. When you push it too hard, it shuts off before it burns itself out. On the one hand, that’s annoying because you have to wait a few minutes for it to cool down. On the other hand, it’s a $110 machine that protects itself instead of dying on you, and I respect that.
The Cutting Mechanism: Two Blades and a Shredder Plate
The Yeryork uses two hardened steel blades mounted on a steel disc, backed by a shredding plate. The blades are reversible, which is a nice touch. When one side dulls, you flip them. That doubles the life before you have to buy replacements, and replacement sets are cheap.
The gap between the blades and the plate is adjustable. This is critical and most people never bother to check it. The manual says to check the gap periodically, and they’re not joking. After about three hours of run time, I noticed the output getting coarser. I pulled the housing, checked the gap, and sure enough, it had opened up a few thousandths. A quick adjustment, and it was back to making fine mulch.
If you’re not comfortable taking a machine apart with basic hand tools, this might feel intimidating. But it’s just a few bolts and a feeler gauge. If I can do it, you can do it.
The shredder plate handles the leafy stuff. It’s basically a steel plate with teeth that pulls material in and tears it apart as it spins. This is what makes the machine so good for fall cleanup. You can feed it a whole mess of leaves, and it’ll spit out a fluffy, broken-down material that’s ready for the compost bin. The reduction is huge. A full 50-liter bag of leaves compresses down to about a third of that after running through.
The Collection Bag: Surprisingly Not Terrible
Most bags on cheap chippers are flimsy canvas that collapse and clog. This one is a 50-liter bag with a wire frame at the top to keep it open. It attaches to the discharge chute with a clamp that actually holds.
The bag fills up fast. That’s a good thing, because it means the machine is working. But it also means you’ll be emptying it constantly if you’re processing a serious pile. Plan for that. I found a rhythm: fill the bag, dump it into the compost pile, repeat.
One gripe: the bag is open at the top, so fine dust escapes while you’re working. If you’re doing a big job, you’ll want a dust mask. Not a deal breaker, but worth knowing.
The Safety Stuff: Annoying, But It Should Be See Today’s Deal on Amazon
There’s a safety switch on the hopper that stops the motor if you remove the feed chute. There’s also a push stick included, and you should use it. The hopper opening is wide enough that you might think, “I can just push this branch in with my hand.” Don’t. I’ve seen the videos. The stick is there for a reason.
The machine also has a reset button on the motor housing. When the thermal switch trips, you press the red button and it’s good to go again. Simple, effective, and it beats the hell out of having to wait for a gas engine to cool down before you can even attempt a restart.
One thing that surprised me: it’s loud. Not gas-chipper loud, but louder than I expected from an electric unit. You’ll want ear protection if you’re running it for more than a few minutes. It’s not the high-pitched whine you get from some cheap electric tools. It’s more of a grinding, chewing sound that gets old fast.
Power and Extension Cords: The Hidden Requirements
This thing draws 15 amps at 120 volts. That means it needs a dedicated circuit or at least a circuit that isn’t running much else. I tripped a breaker once because I had a space heater on the same circuit. My fault, but worth mentioning.
Also, the included power cord is about six feet long. You’ll need a heavy-duty extension cord, and I mean 12-gauge, not the cheap 16-gauge stuff from the hardware store. A 14-gauge cord will work for short runs, but if you need 50 feet or more, go with 12-gauge. The motor will thank you, and you’ll avoid voltage drop issues that make the motor run hot.
The wheels are small and hard plastic. They work fine on pavement and short grass, but don’t expect to drag this thing through a muddy yard. It’s light enough, around 40 pounds, that you can just pick it up and move it where you need it. That’s actually a big advantage over the gas units.
Where It Fits in the Lineup
If you’ve got a serious woodlot or you’re processing firewood, you need something bigger. I wrote about the Yard Commander 3-Inch Wood Chipper Shredder a while back, and that’s the machine for that job. It’s a 212cc gas beast that’ll eat anything you throw at it. But it costs five times as much, weighs ten times as much, and needs regular maintenance.
This Yeryork is for the rest of us. It’s for the suburban homeowner with a few trees, the gardener who wants compost material, the person who’s tired of bagging leaves every fall.
And if you’re thinking about shredding material for compost specifically, check out what I said about the SuperHandy Electric Leaf Mulcher Shredder. That one’s even more specialized for leaves. But if you want something that handles both leaves and small branches, this Yeryork is the better all-rounder.
The Real-World Test: One Full Season
I’ve had this unit for about eight months now. It’s been through:
- Spring cleanup: tons of dead branches from winter storms, last season’s dried plant stalks, and a mountain of old leaves.
- Summer: regular trimming of my overgrown shrubs and the occasional volunteer tree that pops up in the fence line.
- Fall: the big one. Three mature maples in my yard. I’m not joking when I say I ran this thing for four hours straight one Saturday, feeding it leaves and small branches continuously.
It’s still running. The blades have been flipped once. I’ve adjusted the gap twice. The motor has tripped on thermal overload maybe four times total, each time after I was being an idiot and feeding it stuff that was too thick.
The housing is starting to show some scratches from abuse. The paint on the hopper is wearing off in spots where the branches rub. But functionally, it’s exactly as good as the day I unboxed it.
What I Wish Was Better
Okay, let’s be honest about the flaws.
The hopper is short. You’ll be feeding stuff at a low angle, which means lots of bending over. There’s no way to attach a longer feed chute, so if you have back problems, this might not be the machine for you.
The bag attachment could be better. The clamp works, but it’s plastic and I can see it eventually wearing out. I’ve got a zip tie on it as a backup, which is the kind of redneck engineering that gets you through.
The machine has no reverse. When something jams, you’re unplugging it and digging the branch out by hand. With a gas chipper, you can sometimes rock the flywheel back and forth to free a jam. Not here. Unplug, dig, curse, repeat.
The finish on the metal parts is thin. If you leave it outside in the rain, it’ll rust. It’s a $110 machine, so I’m not demanding powder coating, but a tarp over it when it’s not in use is a smart move.
And the noise. I mentioned it, but it deserves repeating. Wear ear protection. I ran it once without ear muffs and regretted it for hours.
Is It Worth $110?
Look, I’ve bought chippers that cost three times this much and delivered half the value. This thing is genuinely useful, genuinely durable, and genuinely easy to use. The 4.4-star rating on Amazon with over 200 reviews isn’t inflated. It’s accurate. See Today’s Deal on Amazon
The niche is specific: you have yard waste, you have a regular wall outlet, and you don’t want to deal with gas engines. If that’s you, this is the machine.
If you pick one up through the links here, I might get a small cut — doesn’t cost you extra and it helps keep the lights on.
One final tip: buy a pack of disposable earplugs and a good dust mask at the same time. You’ll need both. And don’t bother trying to feed it anything bigger than an inch and a half. It’ll try, and then it’ll stop, and then you’ll be digging around in the hopper looking for the reset button.
That reset button, by the way, is your best friend. It’s why this machine is still alive after eight months of abuse. Cheap machines die when they overheat. This one just takes a break and gets back to work. That’s exactly the kind of engineering I want from a $110 tool.