The chipper jam in Des Moines that made me switch my whole setup

Last fall I was running a rental chipper on a job in Des Moines and hit a wet cottonwood branch that wrapped the feed wheel something fierce. Took me 45 minutes with a pry bar and a chainsaw to clear it, while the homeowner watched from the porch without saying a word. Turns out the chipper had a flat tension spring that was supposed to auto-reverse, but I never checked it before we started. Now I spend five minutes testing the tension and greasing the drum on any machine I rent, and I ask the homeowner for a bucket of water to wet down dry wood before feeding. Has anyone else had a hidden equipment issue cost them a half day, or do I just get unlucky with rentals?

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claire_wells8714d ago

Used to roll my eyes at guys who treated rentals like they were made of glass. Then last spring I grabbed a stump grinder that looked fine but had a loose belt, ate a whole afternoon messing with it while the customer texted me every hour asking for updates. That one changed my tune real quick. Now I do the same thing you do, five minutes checking belts, hydraulics, anything that moves before I even pull up to the gate. Also learned the hard way to ask about wet wood ahead of time instead of finding out when the machine starts screaming at me. You ain't unlucky, rentals just don't get the love they need between jobs.