JCB GS1800

We first moved into our house in November 1999, just in time for the new millenium. The house needed a lot doing to it and, to be perfectly honest, could do with some attention now. My daughter's asthma makes decorating inside the house difficult, so we tend to do our diy when she is away and often things get rushed. When she is around and my husband gets these rare impulses to improve our home, I tend to point him to the garden.

As the house was crying out for attention that came first and we did what we could, mainly decorating and a few more major tasks, and then turned our attention to the garden.

When we moved in the garden was in fact in a better condition than the house. It was pretty and mainly had shrubs but it wasn't quite a family garden. It was alright though for a few years and then when we felt able to spend some money and time on the garden and hubby felt it now needed a major overhaul.

We decided to shape the borders, which mainly held shrubs, and add some more well chosen specimens. I do like plants and flowers but am not really a gardene so tend to choose shrubs that will look good without too much attention being given.

We didn't spend too much, but planned what we wanted, carefully. We drew out the intended garden, keeping most of what we had but, enlarging upon it and laying a patio. However, although it looked very pretty and I felt guilty removing it, we did have an apple tree in the middle of the lawn. As the garden isn't very big this didn't give our family much room to play so reluctantly that had to go. This meant a lot of wood to dispose of. Also, at the end of the garden, on either side, our neighbours have trees that grow over our garden and drop leaves, and also cast too much shade. This was a nuisance, especially with an inflatable pool. Hubby didn't fancy doing much about the trees because of the problem of removing all the waste. I kept on remarking though, that these trees were taking over our garden, which they were, so we decided it might be prudent to purchase a garden shredder.

Now this was a new idea to us and we knew very little about these machines. We set our price at about £100 to £150. Initially, we looked at Black & Decker and Bosch, but hubby thinks Black and Decker are 'Jack of all trades, master of none' I don't know if this is true but, as the shredder would have lots to cope with, I bowed to his knowledge, or opinion. As he had worked in the building industry for many years he favoured the make, JCB (Joseph Cyril Bamford) as he knew these to be a world class brand of industrial equipment. I liked the colour!

Now this purchase was made a while ago and so I am not sure of the exact price but think it was around £130 from Argos, I believe. I think now it will be more likely that you would purchase this item online. We took this away with us and got to work.

It came in a box and the stand needed fitting. This was very simple. The stand has wheels so it's no problem to move around the garden. It feels like moving a sack barrow. Very easy.

Full instructions were supplied but really there isn't much to know, as long as you follow basic safety instructions.

As this was like a new toy when we first used it I did have a go. I found it extremely easy to use. In fact, we wondered why we'd never thought of this before. Now we have a weekly summer council service that collects garden waste from the front of our house but, when we bought this, no such service existed so, it was much easier and cleaner to shred garden items and pack into refuse bags which could then be transferred by car to our local waste recycling plant. Before buying this it was difficult to break items into small pieces which didn't rip the bag and cause cuts and scrapes to the gardener.

The cord for this electrical appliance is not that long. I would estimate about two metres. I asked my husband if this was a hindrance but he replied that he preferred to always use his heavy duty extension lead for anything requiring electricity in the garden.

After he had lopped the branches from the overhanging trees hubby set about feeding them into the shredder. A pusher is supplied but I'll be honest and say that he lost his and so, feeds branches through manually. Touch wood, his fingers are all still intact! Any length of branch can be put through but no more than 32mm in thickness. A branch of about 12 inches would take a couple of seconds to come out as chippings into the bag. The small bag fits over a plastic container that slides under the machine. The bag is easily removed in the same way as removing a bin bag from a bin and it's contents can be tipped into a larger refuse bag.

We find this shredder performs best when fed with branches of 16mm to about 25mm. It works best with the more solid type of branch or twig. More twine type items seem to jam it and brambles tend to become wrapped around the blade. When this happens the cut out comes into force and the blades have to be untangled. This is a bit of a nuisance, but doesn't take too much time or effort to fix.

The machine has an on/off switch and a safety cut out. It has an 1800 wattage motor. The noise isn't too bad. It's quiter than our lawn mower, in fact. It is designed to shred branches, etc of no more than 32mm in thickness.

If you have trees or large shrubs in your garden, then this is a very good piece of equipment to own. Probably it would mean that instead of having ten bags to dispose of you would then only have one.

Definitely an extremely useful piece of equipment for your garden.

This review can also be read on dooyoo by lak11