I am contemplating buying a bucket truck.My business constists mainly of residential tree work.I can't decide on one with a chip box or without.My partner says if we get one with a box, we'll be puting more miles on it driving to the dump.And without a box we'll be able to get into tighter spots with the shorter wheel base.I can't see not having a box. For smaller jobs you would have to drive the bucket truck and a chip truck to the site, doubling fuel costs.What do you find more helpful one with or without?

Reply to post by Dominick Trimaldi, on February 13, 1999 at 19:50:53:

Dominick, you said your business is mainly residential work,do you do more trimming or removals?My business is mostly residential and some line clearance.Most of or residential work consists of removals.The first bucket I bought was an overcenter chip box unit.On over center units your max.working height is straight up,so to get the most height we had to stick the nose of the truck as close to the tree as possible. The radiator was constantly getting plugged with sawdust,the truck cab took up valuable work space and the chipper on the back was facing the wrong way.This required ground workers to drag brush quite an extra distance.The next bucket I bought was a rear mounted Hi-Ranger,non-overcenter unit.The max. working height is close to 15' away from the back of the truck.These are great take down units.Another item to consider is that on the chip box unit when the box is full the bucket has to leave the job site to go dump.For residential removals the chip box unit was very inefficient for us.

Reply to post by Dominick Trimaldi, on February 13, 1999 at 19:50:53:

Hi Dominick,
We have an Altec 55' single
man bucket truck with a box on it. I can't
count the number of times that I have dumped
chips right in the customers driveway and
saved the trip to the dump.

Sometimes you have to block off a
portion of the road way with the chipper when you
set up in the customers driveway, and you do lose
a bit of tool box room that is taken up by the
chip box.

I like the truck personally,
you can do quite a lot of work with two men on
a crew, because sometimes three men just become
a crowd. As long as you are not sacrificing
safety for productivity it works very well.

Depending on your expertise you
might try speed-lining brush out to the chipper
if the conditions are right. This can be done
safely with two men and it keeps your adrenaline
flowing pretty good too.

You are right that two trucks
will utilize twice the gas. (I did the math). So
try the tower/chipper box combo. You can always
use the second truck for a second crew.

Good luck,
J.B.