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Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Mine is 11 HP and will take a full 3" branch.There are a few problems to beware of. First, the 3" branch has to be perfectly straight to go into the chute, or you will have to cut it into shorter hunks. Even smaller 2" branches with bends won't go all the way down.
The blades do last a season or two, depending on the use but a new set is about $75 though I found some on E-bay for $45. It is not really fun to change them but not too hard, takes 1/2 hour or so.
Very loud, use protective earplugs and take a day off so you can use it when the neighbors are at work unless you are secluded.
The shredder part jams up a lot, I use a 1" stick to keep poking in but sometimes you have to shut it down and pull stuff back out. Generally 1' or smaller does fine but Y shaped even smaller will cause problems, so you have to cut things up ahead of time so as to not waste time and gas with it running while you prepare branches to go in. In the same time you could just as easily haul it to the dumps, but in my case I love to use the chips and shreds as mulch so I don't mind.
Try to do them as much as possible when first cut while green, dry is a lot harder on the blades, especially hardwoods like fruit.
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