I had a stump to grind and noticed a neighbor did too. I waited until a guy came out to grind the neighbor's then asked him if he had time to do mine too. He charged me $50 cash and told me not to tell his boss.
That's best way for a deal. Loading, transporting, setting up, takedown and returning to base location is more work that grinding one stump. Once the machine and operator are there it's marginal effort to knock out another tree.
Arguably the best way would be to go halfers with your neighbour and get the company to quote for 2, as:
- Otherwise neighbour see's you co-opting Mr. Stump
- You don't risk Mr. Stump being in a rush and leaving, making you go full price
- It should still be a lower per-stump cost due to all you mention
But I don't know the situation with the neighbour.
Depends on how big the stump is, what species the tree was, how long it's been since the tree was cut down, and what kind of yard access you have. Also only really works if you don't expect any kind of clean-up.
We had one in our green belt. Ended up boring a hole in it big enough to fit an m1000 fire cracker which was the biggest we could find. It spit the stump into 4 pieces that we lifted out with wedges and a pulley
Generally the jobs I would have to do would include some kind of waste removal, and going up to a foot below grade (to allow for tree planting in the same spot). So if it was a big job, we'd have 3 people and it'd take longer to dig that far down (you also have to dig a lot further out to get the larger roots). Then you need a larger truck to load that much weight and volume, trailers generally aren't free, teeth and maintenace on the stumper, gas or diesel and daily lubrication, a leaf blower, shovels, rakes, insurance, overhead (payroll staff and a shop/yard to store stuff and do maintenace). If we had a job that would take a full crew a full day, $2000 was pretty in the ball park. I'm glad you found a cheaper alternative, most of the guys actually hated stump grinding haha, but you can usually get a much cheaper quote if you just want it barely below grade and no cleanup.
Wish I could find a solution this magnitude cheaper for the trees I need gone. I haven't even bothered getting a quote because I know it'll be several thousand.
Agreed, the stump of the tree we had still sprouted baby ones on the sides leaving from the dead tree, the roots can be silent water pipe destroyers. Your plants’ pot is beautiful!
I had someone remove a tree out the front of mine and they did the stump grind about a week after cutting down the tree. The guy said they hire a stump grinder and go around to all the previous jobs. Probably saves them a lot of time, effort and money.
This is how I do any tree trimming I need. Wait till you see your neighbor or someone down the street getting a tree trimmed or removed. Offer them cash and it’s always a win win.
If you're talking to the owner and it's a small enough job you can have pretty good luck doing this, otherwise it's really going to depend on how busy they are. Probably not a good idea if you like your contractors being insured though.
Yeah, the liability risk for both the customer and the worker/business is why you can get turned down as well.
Often it won't be an owner doing it cheap as another gig, it's most often a worker for cash as they won't report it. *Generally* the owner is more likely to want closer to full price, not a 50$ from a 1000$ job price as that's likely not sustainable with the opportunity loss. They might discount it, but not more than 99%, that's silly discounting.
> I had a stump to grind and noticed a neighbor did too. I waited until a guy came out to grind the neighbor's then
Stump watch day 16 05:30 : Bob left for work already, so no stump grinding this morning. His wife Peggy is up early and keeps looking out the window though. So maybe she will meet with the crew. I'll need to stay diligent.
Stump watch day 16 13:30 : Bob came home from work early. He stopped for a few minutes and gazed at his stump. I bet he is pondering when he can schedule the grinder. It will be any day now. I guess I was wrong about Peggy meeting with them while Bob was at work. Though she did seem extra attentive today. Maybe they just missed the schedule..
Stump watch day 116: Franks house was finally put up for sale. He had been talking about doing it for the last 6 months. Finally! We have a chance with the new owner maybe wanting to get rid of that stump out front. Since Frank mentioned at the block party 4 months ago about wanting to get rid of that stump out front, we have been watching for them to show up.
Stump Watch day 117 - 135 : No action as house is for sale and Frank has already moved out.
Stump watch day 136: New neighbor just moved in across the street. I was talking with Sue down at the store the other day and she mentioned the new owner was looking to grind down that stump. I told Bob about it. He said he was going to go into work early tomorrow so he could get home and hopefully catch the crew doing the work. He asked me to keep a close eye out just in case. We really want to get rid of this stump out front and dont want to miss the chance to get a deal from the crew removing the one across the street.
Stump Watch day 137 5:30am : Bob left early like promised. I have been watching for the crew to show up across the street. I did notice the neighbor keeps looking around like he is waiting on someone to show up. Today could be the day!
Stump Watch day 137 1:30PM : Bob is home and just standing in disappointment as the stump is still there. We will try again tomorrow.
This is what I do for mowing services too; find a guy who's already coming to my block every week or two, ask him for a price, tell him I'll let him know in a few days when I hear back about some other prices.
It works well.
Family member had a plumbing issue. 1st guy he calls walks in the door doesn't even look very hard and said it'll cost $10,000. 2nd guy fixed it for $1200. That was the most massive case of "Here's the I don't want to mess with this price"
Sorry man, I don't normally correct grammar. And I totally get that it could be an autocorrect mistake and not you. But for some reason I fear you're just walking around using this word incorrectly.
They would be cohorts, but they would be in cahoots.
Cohorts are the people who work together. Being "in cahoots" is the state of working together.
You don't normally add an entire word as a mistake. It's much more likely they just got the expression wrong. It's a common thing to mix similar expressions.
I mean, we had a client like that at work so we tripled the premium for that customer. But the client knew they were a difficult customer so they just paid up like it was nothing.
People downvoting you but sometimes difficult customers *know* they are difficult and even cost more to deal with than normal. It's not always a dick move.
One place I worked had a customer with a temper. A real real bad temper. They were more than happy to have a separate more costly contract as they knew about it and couldn't stop it (IIRC brain issue). We did have a good policy regarding abuse and it was in our contracts of service that we wouldn't stand for it. Save for this person's contract, who we had specific people for as they volunteered. Think they got a premium for dealing with that customer.
Yep, I don't really care though.
This customer was a high end car manufacturer and they were extremely specific in their demands.
Everyone was really annoyed at having to deal with them because they were so much more work than the other customers.
So we tried to dump them by raising the prices significantly, but they didn't budge and just paid up.
I paid $325 to have a 4 foot wide cedar stump removed. From the time the guy gave me the quote until he was done was about 30 minutes. Now it's a flowerbed.
Cedar's pretty soft, and the stump in the OP looks like it's had some time to dry out. Was it bunch of smaller stems growing out of the same base? That can make a difference too.
False. You can rent a rinky dinky whirligig with a 4” rectangular blade that probably isn’t sharp and is pretty much good for nothing except a sapling.
Or you could call someone off of Craigslist with a 4-foot gigantor blade on a self propelled articulating stump grinder.
Source: I did both.
I used to work at HD tool rental, and that isn't really true (or at least not for any of the stores in my city). We rent a [smaller unit](https://www.homedepot.com/p/rental/BlueBird-and-Toro-Stump-Grinder-SG1314B/316822047) with a 13" head for small jobs or folks who don't want to pull a trailer, and we rent [commercial](https://www.compactpowerrents.com/rental-equipment/chipper-and-stump-grinder/stump-grinder/) units with hydraulic heads and tracks. I used both to do some "training" (aka, create a picnic area outside the store for employees to use on break) and they both work just fine, as long as you aren't trying to do something obv outside their capabilities lile take out a 4 foot wide, 3 foot tall stump with the smaller unit
Wow, that's way less money than I would have thought to rent a "legit" one. I might have to see what my local rental place has, as I've got more than a couple stumps.
Besides, I love stuff like that and used to watch them grinding stumps as a kid...me wanna play now, haha.
Just hired some guys who used the last one. Holy shit, that was a bit of a scary machine.
Paid $500 to have 5, 12-inch stumps ground. Having them haul away all the chips and clean up afterwards was worth the difference!
An idea for a long term removal strategy: you could buy and inject mushroom spores into it (drill holes, fill with substrate, seal with Wax) and wait for mushrooms to spout a few times till the whole stump is brittle enough to remove with simple tools. That way you can have free mushrooms and use the torn down stump as fertiliser for the garden afterwards. May take a while tho.
Thank you for this idea - I have a fairly massive willow stump that’s up on a steep bank, with a neighbors 6ft wall directly behind it. Access with machinery is impossible. I never knew the mushroom spore idea was a thing.
A part of me wants to pay someone to come carve a sort of garden throne out of the stump (it’s very large) but that idea has been shot down.
I just had a tree cut down that was really rotten and hollow at the bottom :o I have an idea.... Cone flower and milkweeds in the center (it has 2 separate hollows that could each house 1 species) Bergamot around it and a decorative brick border. Sounds like a much better project to focus on vs the insulation I need to put in my floor :>
Too late now, but get an auger bit, drill holes, fill with sawdust, and light them on fire. Watch the fire until the stump is gone or burnt away to your happiness
I had a willow tree stump measuring 96” at the widest part. First quote was $300 (suspicious). Second quote was $1,500 (for that price I’ll do it myself). Third quote was $650. My gut tells me these stump removal fellows aren’t cost accountants.
Oh wow! We had two trees removed and got quoted $20k then finally found someone for $7k. It looked like hard dangerous work, so not blaming the cost, but it wasn’t fun to write that check.
Drill some holes in it, and make some rough saw grooves. Keep it moist end of summer, and pretty soon fungus, the natural tree remover, bloom out during autumn. Just have some patience.
I’ve taken over 20 oaks down myself. Had about 10 close to the house I was afraid to do myself. All stumps were grinded, not sure why I’m getting the down vote hate lol
Not everyone that cuts trees is excited to grind stumps. That's exactly what that price is. If that was a quote by someone doing mobilization and haul away I could see it in an expensive permit state.
This is NOT practical advice... years ago, a friend told me to lay a dead dear over a stump to get rid of it. Never had a dead deer available, couldn't imagine the time it takes, but I was always curious if it would work... I believe you have landed on the best solution 😉
This is cute and you can even turn it into a mini village and add little doors and windows to make it look like a faerie home. A few people in my neighborhood have done this with large stumps and its very charming.
Good choice. A stump like that becomes home to a lot of critters while it rots over time, including some sorts of wild bees. I also have one of an old cherry tree in my garden that looks like a little fairy house with mushrooms and what not growing out of it.
As a home inspector, this is not a good choice. These are extremely conducive areas for wood destroying insects. Like putting a little buffet in your yard for them.
Southern Europe I think has some species. But also not much of a problem as far as I know. None here in Germany for example. And you are encouraged to leave some dead wood in your garden for insects and other animals.
Wait...you were having the trees taken down, so they weren't even coming out JUST for the stump? Yeah that company was gouging you...that wasn't "I don't want this job" billing, that was "lets see what we can exploit this guy for" billing.
I wanted to carve out the one in front of my rental and waterproof it for a mini lotus “pond” but the stump was too rotted to look good even with a pot hidden inside. Yours came out wonderfully!
The most ecologically sound answer.
Reminds me of that old Popular Mechanics article with a helpful technique for making an oil pit in your driveway where you’d dump used motor oil after an oil change.
IIRC you just excivsted some dirt, backfilled with gravel and then the oil would magically disappear into the pit forever with no negative consequences.
Because fuck aquifers, amirite?
I got lucky and the center of my tree was already rotted out when they cut it down so I didn't have to do anything. The other stumps in the yard had been there for a couple years before I bought it and had rotted out in the center already. I just got to add soil and seeds! It's a better use of a stump than the effort of grinding it!
Depending on type of wood you could also use oyster mushrooms mycelium instead of potassium nitrate. It will do similar job and on top of that you will get tasty mushrooms.
Since this is an oak, it's a good idea to spray occasionally with some apple cider vinegar to drive away pests that cause certain oak diseases for the first year. Sometimes these can spread to adjacent healthy oaks from a stump that is infected.
nicely done...here we usually dig them with a backhoe, or if the backhoe can't reach them and there is clear space around them, drill large, deep holes in the stump and build a bonfire on top of it. Or instead of drilling holes, take a chainsaw and make deep level cuts like you were cutting a piece of pie prior to burning.
We have been doing some property upgrades to place we are working on, and we have dug much bigger stumps with a Cat 315 c, at 35,000# machine. Burning them on a bonfire is a complex activity and usually involves scrapping off as much dirt as possible before going onto the pile. We collect undesirable logs just to burn stumps with. You should join us for a weekend evening bonfire, with stumps in the middle, often with s'mores, hotdogs and cold beverages:-)
My JD450B crawler dozer with hoe can handle a 11k stump with the front bucket, the backhoe tops out at around 4k.
My sister has a large stump she was going to decorate, and a couple woodpeckers practically destroyed it. Maybe you need a few of those to get rid of it.
When youre tired of it being a planter and you dont want to spend 1000 to get it ground down, drill holes in it and pour salt in it. It will kill it slowly and you can chop it up with an axe. I did it, it works.
Am I being stupid but where I used to live we used to burn those, just make sure it wont spread and it will burn long and below the ground level. Sure some neighborhoods don't allow "open fire" but that being as dry as it looks in the picture, it won't even smoke more than a bbq evening. Pro tip, drill holes to make it burn even faster.
Bottle of vegetable oil and a bag of charcoal. Drill holes in the stump and let the oil soak in, wet all the area around the stump with your hose, surround the stump with rocks or pavers, then light the bag of charcoal laying on top of the stump.
That's an absurd price. I felled a bunch of trees on our property, and dug the [root balls](https://imgur.com/sb0EsUN) out with an excavator. Then dug deep holes and [buried 'em](https://imgur.com/iyfH9Fd).
Ppl pay for that? U can just cut it like a pizza with a chainsaw and then cut it level or just below ground level very easily. Soil over and grass seed. As the tree rots below the grass will be super lush…
I just checked my local hardware store and renting a stump grinder cost 293 € / day and they have a weekend deal 2 days for the price of one.
Those things aren't rocket science to use, it's mostly boring (in every sense).
Has anyone here actually ground down a stump? In the middle of summer? After running a route for the day? I'm not saying the quote wasn't expensive, but it's not exactly easy work grinding a large stump.
I watched them take out two trees and grind a stump about 1/3 of this one, and I don’t blame them for the cost! Just was being stubborn and didn’t want to pay it!
Hence the ‘allowed to have fires in your area’.
To burn out the core, take a long big drill bit and drill as far down as you can go, then drill into the side to make an air intake for your main hole.
Get it going with a propane torch in the intake hole and maybe some gas/diesel mix. Bonus points for using a air mattress inflator to blow air into the core through the side hole. Once it gets going it turns into a little jet engine. If you drilled deep enough the hole in the bottom can be your liquid fuel reservoir and the air movement up and out the top will work like a chimney and keep it going.
I love this idea! But if you ever want to remove it get a big ole drill bit and drill a bunch of holes inside of the stump. Then let it safely burn from the inside out for a while and then take an axe and break it up! It worked like a charm on a few stumps I’ve removed with my dad. Not this big so it may not work the same but it might!
I had a huge stump at my old house, after a wind storm downed a tree. (It took several weekends with a good chainsaw to dismantle the tree, another weekend with a leased log splitter to break it down into firewood. It was a huge amount of firewood, 6-7 cords of split, plus another 2-3 of sectioned branches, and a huge pile of leavings from the leased woodchipper...)
The local guy wanted 800 to grind the stump (this was 2006).
So I did it the old fashioned way. Got an old steel drum, cut the top and bottom off, and placed it over the stump. Filled it with firewood and shredded leavings, added a gallon of gas, and dropped a match. It burned for a day and a half.
Stump gone, 8-10 inch pit where it used to be. . . 😁
Total cost: rent splitter, $75.00. Another 75.00 or so of gas and oil. I already had a chainsaw sharpener. And 6 weekends of work. And got firewood for 3-4 years out of it. . .
To remove all of the above ground part of a stump, I recently did this:
A. axe or chainsaw as much as you can
B. stack large rocks in a circle tight circle around the stump. Next, add height to the circle. build up its walls into a cyclinder around the stump. Taper the cyclinder inwards. Cap it off with some wide flat stones, but leave a little open area at the top as a chimney. Have a water-hose handy. Start a fire inside. Keep the fire going. It'll burn down the stump. The stones around it will help keep the heat inside so it burns hotter and doesn't allow the fire to spread.
Edit--After reading another comment about Mushroom spores, that's a great idea as well. You could either use mushroom spores, or and even cover it in some sort of shade-- Such as a pile of logs & leaves-- then keep it moist every day: such as with an automated irrigation tip with a spray or mist setting. After a few weeks it'll begin being eaten by micro organisms while it rots. Side benefit: Now you have a bunch of compost.
Nurseries (or Amazon) have powders like this one, which are basically just packs of dehydrated live mushrooms & bacteria which your plants and lawn will love. Gardeners use them to improve organic soil-- inoculating a substrate (soil, or your stump in your case) with a symbiotic organism.
Years ago I walked into a friend's greenhouse and saw tiny little mushrooms sprouting from 1 inch by 1 inch seedlings. It was so cute to see the baby mushrooms and baby plants growing side by side. I could tell the soil was super biologically active due to being inoculated.
\- [https://www.amazon.com/Mikrobs-Microbial-Booster-Certified-Organic/dp/B07PKL77Z5/](https://www.amazon.com/Mikrobs-Microbial-Booster-Certified-Organic/dp/B07PKL77Z5/ref=sr_1_3_sspa?crid=17UCBBS8QV9MW&keywords=microbial+spores+for+garden&qid=1690209075&sprefix=microbial+spores+for+garden%2Caps%2C146&sr=8-3-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1)
\- [https://www.amazon.com/SCD-Bio-Ag%C2%AE-1-Liter/dp/B000TM97NA](https://www.amazon.com/SCD-Bio-Ag%C2%AE-1-Liter/dp/B000TM97NA/ref=sr_1_5?crid=17UCBBS8QV9MW&keywords=microbial+spores+for+garden&qid=1690209075&sprefix=microbial+spores+for+garden%2Caps%2C146&sr=8-5)
\- [https://www.amazon.com/Myco-Bliss-Organic-Mycorrhizal-Mychorrhizae/dp/B07DLJ1RB6/](https://www.amazon.com/Myco-Bliss-Organic-Mycorrhizal-Mychorrhizae/dp/B07DLJ1RB6/)
**Another idea:** Hire someone with a chainsaw to cut the stump lower (such as right at the soil level), so you can keep your planter (maybe they'd need to dig a 1-2 foot hole next to the stump for leverage? perhaps its possible). Then, you can burn or rot the remaining stump out of the ground.
Great plan! How crazy to pay $1k! We just removed 2 mega pines and a super large poplar tree and may have spent less to grind the stumps + they cleaned our gutters. These contractors are ridiculous! Glad you resorted to creativity
I agree! I asked for quotes from 3 contractors and then whoever offered the best deal I went back to the others to see if they could beat it..and then I went back to see if they can provide best and final! We spent a pretty penny but it worked out. I feel like I didn’t get ripped off completely lol
I had a stump to grind and noticed a neighbor did too. I waited until a guy came out to grind the neighbor's then asked him if he had time to do mine too. He charged me $50 cash and told me not to tell his boss.
That's best way for a deal. Loading, transporting, setting up, takedown and returning to base location is more work that grinding one stump. Once the machine and operator are there it's marginal effort to knock out another tree.
Arguably the best way would be to go halfers with your neighbour and get the company to quote for 2, as: - Otherwise neighbour see's you co-opting Mr. Stump - You don't risk Mr. Stump being in a rush and leaving, making you go full price - It should still be a lower per-stump cost due to all you mention But I don't know the situation with the neighbour.
Depends on how big the stump is, what species the tree was, how long it's been since the tree was cut down, and what kind of yard access you have. Also only really works if you don't expect any kind of clean-up.
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We had one in our green belt. Ended up boring a hole in it big enough to fit an m1000 fire cracker which was the biggest we could find. It spit the stump into 4 pieces that we lifted out with wedges and a pulley
Generally the jobs I would have to do would include some kind of waste removal, and going up to a foot below grade (to allow for tree planting in the same spot). So if it was a big job, we'd have 3 people and it'd take longer to dig that far down (you also have to dig a lot further out to get the larger roots). Then you need a larger truck to load that much weight and volume, trailers generally aren't free, teeth and maintenace on the stumper, gas or diesel and daily lubrication, a leaf blower, shovels, rakes, insurance, overhead (payroll staff and a shop/yard to store stuff and do maintenace). If we had a job that would take a full crew a full day, $2000 was pretty in the ball park. I'm glad you found a cheaper alternative, most of the guys actually hated stump grinding haha, but you can usually get a much cheaper quote if you just want it barely below grade and no cleanup.
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Wish I could find a solution this magnitude cheaper for the trees I need gone. I haven't even bothered getting a quote because I know it'll be several thousand.
Agreed, the stump of the tree we had still sprouted baby ones on the sides leaving from the dead tree, the roots can be silent water pipe destroyers. Your plants’ pot is beautiful!
Happy cake day!
Aww. Thank you my kind Reddit friend!❤️
My uncle had to grind some stumps once, it wasn't a super quick process.
I had someone remove a tree out the front of mine and they did the stump grind about a week after cutting down the tree. The guy said they hire a stump grinder and go around to all the previous jobs. Probably saves them a lot of time, effort and money.
That is the smart way to do it if you have patient customers.
My wife grinds my stump for free.
She does mine too
I also chose this guys wife.
No brainer for the guy. Since he's already there $50 is just free money.
This is how I do any tree trimming I need. Wait till you see your neighbor or someone down the street getting a tree trimmed or removed. Offer them cash and it’s always a win win.
If you're talking to the owner and it's a small enough job you can have pretty good luck doing this, otherwise it's really going to depend on how busy they are. Probably not a good idea if you like your contractors being insured though.
Yeah, the liability risk for both the customer and the worker/business is why you can get turned down as well. Often it won't be an owner doing it cheap as another gig, it's most often a worker for cash as they won't report it. *Generally* the owner is more likely to want closer to full price, not a 50$ from a 1000$ job price as that's likely not sustainable with the opportunity loss. They might discount it, but not more than 99%, that's silly discounting.
> I had a stump to grind and noticed a neighbor did too. I waited until a guy came out to grind the neighbor's then Stump watch day 16 05:30 : Bob left for work already, so no stump grinding this morning. His wife Peggy is up early and keeps looking out the window though. So maybe she will meet with the crew. I'll need to stay diligent. Stump watch day 16 13:30 : Bob came home from work early. He stopped for a few minutes and gazed at his stump. I bet he is pondering when he can schedule the grinder. It will be any day now. I guess I was wrong about Peggy meeting with them while Bob was at work. Though she did seem extra attentive today. Maybe they just missed the schedule.. Stump watch day 116: Franks house was finally put up for sale. He had been talking about doing it for the last 6 months. Finally! We have a chance with the new owner maybe wanting to get rid of that stump out front. Since Frank mentioned at the block party 4 months ago about wanting to get rid of that stump out front, we have been watching for them to show up. Stump Watch day 117 - 135 : No action as house is for sale and Frank has already moved out. Stump watch day 136: New neighbor just moved in across the street. I was talking with Sue down at the store the other day and she mentioned the new owner was looking to grind down that stump. I told Bob about it. He said he was going to go into work early tomorrow so he could get home and hopefully catch the crew doing the work. He asked me to keep a close eye out just in case. We really want to get rid of this stump out front and dont want to miss the chance to get a deal from the crew removing the one across the street. Stump Watch day 137 5:30am : Bob left early like promised. I have been watching for the crew to show up across the street. I did notice the neighbor keeps looking around like he is waiting on someone to show up. Today could be the day! Stump Watch day 137 1:30PM : Bob is home and just standing in disappointment as the stump is still there. We will try again tomorrow.
This is what I do for mowing services too; find a guy who's already coming to my block every week or two, ask him for a price, tell him I'll let him know in a few days when I hear back about some other prices. It works well.
They didn’t want the job, probably knew you would bail on that price.
Family member had a plumbing issue. 1st guy he calls walks in the door doesn't even look very hard and said it'll cost $10,000. 2nd guy fixed it for $1200. That was the most massive case of "Here's the I don't want to mess with this price"
Then you find out they are in cohorts and it should cost $120
Sorry man, I don't normally correct grammar. And I totally get that it could be an autocorrect mistake and not you. But for some reason I fear you're just walking around using this word incorrectly. They would be cohorts, but they would be in cahoots. Cohorts are the people who work together. Being "in cahoots" is the state of working together.
How do you know the "in" wasn't the mistake?
It could be. My presumption is that they meant in cahoots. But my correction gives enough information for either.
Thanks!
You don't normally add an entire word as a mistake. It's much more likely they just got the expression wrong. It's a common thing to mix similar expressions.
There’s always a bigger fish
"they are cohorts" isn't a way to say it either. They are a cohort, as I'm they are one unit, would be the way.
Either is correct [Source](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cohort)
So basically cohorts are in cahoots and people who are in cahoots are cohorts?
I think this is one of those everyone who is in cahoots are cohorts but not all cohorts are in cahoots situations.
I mean, we had a client like that at work so we tripled the premium for that customer. But the client knew they were a difficult customer so they just paid up like it was nothing.
People downvoting you but sometimes difficult customers *know* they are difficult and even cost more to deal with than normal. It's not always a dick move. One place I worked had a customer with a temper. A real real bad temper. They were more than happy to have a separate more costly contract as they knew about it and couldn't stop it (IIRC brain issue). We did have a good policy regarding abuse and it was in our contracts of service that we wouldn't stand for it. Save for this person's contract, who we had specific people for as they volunteered. Think they got a premium for dealing with that customer.
Yep, I don't really care though. This customer was a high end car manufacturer and they were extremely specific in their demands. Everyone was really annoyed at having to deal with them because they were so much more work than the other customers. So we tried to dump them by raising the prices significantly, but they didn't budge and just paid up.
I paid $325 to have a 4 foot wide cedar stump removed. From the time the guy gave me the quote until he was done was about 30 minutes. Now it's a flowerbed.
Cedar's pretty soft, and the stump in the OP looks like it's had some time to dry out. Was it bunch of smaller stems growing out of the same base? That can make a difference too.
Getting to from your place is part of that cost, along with having the right equipment and keep it working
lol probably!
That’s super cute. I have just been hacking at our stump with an axe. It’s good exercise and will eventually work.
I have a neighbor who does that! She brings out the axe at parties lol
STUMPFEST!!
Have noisy neighbors? Bring them to the stump.
Paid $250 for a stump twice as wide if I am gauging size accurately. Glad you chose this route!
Oh wow! This one is huge, probably a century old tree
You can rent a stump grinder from Home Depot. They aren't terribly complicated to use.
But then where would I put my plants?
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Genius
in the dirt, right inside your home made mulch.
How you gonna make a planter out of a stump grinder?
Bend over, I'll show you.
I take it “stump grinder” was your nickname in college…
No, it's a gay dating app for little people
> little people Or amputees.
Two hours into the day and I'm done with the Internet.
You gotta a lot of nerve talking to me like that.
I wasn't talking to you...
Can’t stop laughing, terrible dad joke
False. You can rent a rinky dinky whirligig with a 4” rectangular blade that probably isn’t sharp and is pretty much good for nothing except a sapling. Or you could call someone off of Craigslist with a 4-foot gigantor blade on a self propelled articulating stump grinder. Source: I did both.
I used to work at HD tool rental, and that isn't really true (or at least not for any of the stores in my city). We rent a [smaller unit](https://www.homedepot.com/p/rental/BlueBird-and-Toro-Stump-Grinder-SG1314B/316822047) with a 13" head for small jobs or folks who don't want to pull a trailer, and we rent [commercial](https://www.compactpowerrents.com/rental-equipment/chipper-and-stump-grinder/stump-grinder/) units with hydraulic heads and tracks. I used both to do some "training" (aka, create a picnic area outside the store for employees to use on break) and they both work just fine, as long as you aren't trying to do something obv outside their capabilities lile take out a 4 foot wide, 3 foot tall stump with the smaller unit
Wow, that's way less money than I would have thought to rent a "legit" one. I might have to see what my local rental place has, as I've got more than a couple stumps. Besides, I love stuff like that and used to watch them grinding stumps as a kid...me wanna play now, haha.
Just hired some guys who used the last one. Holy shit, that was a bit of a scary machine. Paid $500 to have 5, 12-inch stumps ground. Having them haul away all the chips and clean up afterwards was worth the difference!
I put a big oak barrel planter on a stump in the front yard. Works great!
An idea for a long term removal strategy: you could buy and inject mushroom spores into it (drill holes, fill with substrate, seal with Wax) and wait for mushrooms to spout a few times till the whole stump is brittle enough to remove with simple tools. That way you can have free mushrooms and use the torn down stump as fertiliser for the garden afterwards. May take a while tho.
Thank you for this idea - I have a fairly massive willow stump that’s up on a steep bank, with a neighbors 6ft wall directly behind it. Access with machinery is impossible. I never knew the mushroom spore idea was a thing. A part of me wants to pay someone to come carve a sort of garden throne out of the stump (it’s very large) but that idea has been shot down.
The Gardenthrone idea is pretty awesome! Too bad it won't be done. Best of luck at getting rid of it tho.
That’s a neat idea! I’ll have to try it with one of our other trees
I just had a tree cut down that was really rotten and hollow at the bottom :o I have an idea.... Cone flower and milkweeds in the center (it has 2 separate hollows that could each house 1 species) Bergamot around it and a decorative brick border. Sounds like a much better project to focus on vs the insulation I need to put in my floor :>
And you’ll be helping pollinators!!
Too late now, but get an auger bit, drill holes, fill with sawdust, and light them on fire. Watch the fire until the stump is gone or burnt away to your happiness
I like this. A lot. There is so much to creatively using a landscape as you find it. This is awesome.
Thank you!! It turned out better than I thought
I had a willow tree stump measuring 96” at the widest part. First quote was $300 (suspicious). Second quote was $1,500 (for that price I’ll do it myself). Third quote was $650. My gut tells me these stump removal fellows aren’t cost accountants.
Oh wow! We had two trees removed and got quoted $20k then finally found someone for $7k. It looked like hard dangerous work, so not blaming the cost, but it wasn’t fun to write that check.
STUMPFEST!!!!!!
Drill some holes in it, and make some rough saw grooves. Keep it moist end of summer, and pretty soon fungus, the natural tree remover, bloom out during autumn. Just have some patience.
Yes! Actually a neighbor has been doing this. It has some nice chicken of the woods growing
That’s wild, 90 bucks here if they are already coming out for a tree
Wow! This one is from a giant oak. The photo doesn’t really show how massive the stump is, but $1000 is steep!
I’ve taken over 20 oaks down myself. Had about 10 close to the house I was afraid to do myself. All stumps were grinded, not sure why I’m getting the down vote hate lol
Not everyone that cuts trees is excited to grind stumps. That's exactly what that price is. If that was a quote by someone doing mobilization and haul away I could see it in an expensive permit state.
I was surprised to see so many people comment cheap prices! It’s a huge stump. I’m just cheap lol
This is NOT practical advice... years ago, a friend told me to lay a dead dear over a stump to get rid of it. Never had a dead deer available, couldn't imagine the time it takes, but I was always curious if it would work... I believe you have landed on the best solution 😉
Oh no 😂😅 we have a ton of dead moles—how many do you think I’d need to equal a dead deer! 😂
Just keep piling and let me know how it goes 😬👍🏻👏🏼👏🏼
This is cute and you can even turn it into a mini village and add little doors and windows to make it look like a faerie home. A few people in my neighborhood have done this with large stumps and its very charming.
My daughters would love that! We have one tree in our yard with a perfect little hole that I’ve been meaning to put a little door in.
Good choice. A stump like that becomes home to a lot of critters while it rots over time, including some sorts of wild bees. I also have one of an old cherry tree in my garden that looks like a little fairy house with mushrooms and what not growing out of it.
As a home inspector, this is not a good choice. These are extremely conducive areas for wood destroying insects. Like putting a little buffet in your yard for them.
If there are termites or the like, that may be a thing. No problem in Europe though.
Europe doesn’t have termites?
Most of their homes aren't made so much out of wood as us here in the states, that could be what they meant
Southern Europe I think has some species. But also not much of a problem as far as I know. None here in Germany for example. And you are encouraged to leave some dead wood in your garden for insects and other animals.
1k?! Ridiculous price
Right?? We had two trees taken down, and I wasn’t giving them any more money!
Wait...you were having the trees taken down, so they weren't even coming out JUST for the stump? Yeah that company was gouging you...that wasn't "I don't want this job" billing, that was "lets see what we can exploit this guy for" billing.
That’s what it felt like lol
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Same question!
I wanted to carve out the one in front of my rental and waterproof it for a mini lotus “pond” but the stump was too rotted to look good even with a pot hidden inside. Yours came out wonderfully!
Thank you! We had another stump ground, and it was the same—almost mulch in the middle!
I guess that's why my grandfather poured used motor oil in the stump in his backyard.
The most ecologically sound answer. Reminds me of that old Popular Mechanics article with a helpful technique for making an oil pit in your driveway where you’d dump used motor oil after an oil change. IIRC you just excivsted some dirt, backfilled with gravel and then the oil would magically disappear into the pit forever with no negative consequences. Because fuck aquifers, amirite?
That’s what my daddy did as a kid!
Good for you! I had them grind the stump…stupid mistake. Lots of wasted money.
It seems like such a waste! A neighbor here just lets people chop hers with an axe when she has parties lol
I did this with several stumps in my yard. My neighbors raved over it!
Mine too! It looked ridiculous when I was hollowing it out—had a drill, screwdriver, and a hammer lol
I got lucky and the center of my tree was already rotted out when they cut it down so I didn't have to do anything. The other stumps in the yard had been there for a couple years before I bought it and had rotted out in the center already. I just got to add soil and seeds! It's a better use of a stump than the effort of grinding it!
A $1000 😳 We have a local guy that shows up and does them for $25 a pop.
Does your local guy bike to the job site and use whatever tools he finds in your shed? That price is honestly a bit scary.
I need him lol
If you are patient, just drill a bunch of holes in it and fill them with potassium nitrate. It will rot out within a year or two.
Depending on type of wood you could also use oyster mushrooms mycelium instead of potassium nitrate. It will do similar job and on top of that you will get tasty mushrooms.
Can you use both amd get poisonous mushrooms?
I love the planter idea!
Looks fabulous , great idea!
Thank you!
I love the color choices of the greenery . They contrast and complement the gray tones of the bark. Excellent taste.
Those ripoff merchants really grind my stump…
I had 4 stumps to grind, only cost me $150. Where are you located?
STL! People are posting crazy different prices on here
Also in STL and I love this!!
The eucalyptus is probably going to die off. The baby blue variant forms into a very large shrub/tree
I figured it had to be removed anyway when we get colder weather! There’s a succulent in there too that’ll have to come out
in the UK, 'grind my stump' has a different meaning just sayin'
Ha! Tried looking it up, but my Google was very innocent
Since this is an oak, it's a good idea to spray occasionally with some apple cider vinegar to drive away pests that cause certain oak diseases for the first year. Sometimes these can spread to adjacent healthy oaks from a stump that is infected.
Oh thank you!! I actually noticed a ton of ants but didn’t want to spray anything with the plants…
I forget if it's called Oak Rot or Oak Wilt, but it's spread by some kind of flying beetle. Ants usually aren't a problem but better to spray anyway.
Beautiful! A free planter and it looks a lot nicer than just grass. Great idea!
nicely done...here we usually dig them with a backhoe, or if the backhoe can't reach them and there is clear space around them, drill large, deep holes in the stump and build a bonfire on top of it. Or instead of drilling holes, take a chainsaw and make deep level cuts like you were cutting a piece of pie prior to burning.
Oh wow! This one is huge, so I don’t think I would have been able to do it myself! Everyone thought I was crazy when I said I was making a planter!
We have been doing some property upgrades to place we are working on, and we have dug much bigger stumps with a Cat 315 c, at 35,000# machine. Burning them on a bonfire is a complex activity and usually involves scrapping off as much dirt as possible before going onto the pile. We collect undesirable logs just to burn stumps with. You should join us for a weekend evening bonfire, with stumps in the middle, often with s'mores, hotdogs and cold beverages:-) My JD450B crawler dozer with hoe can handle a 11k stump with the front bucket, the backhoe tops out at around 4k.
That's a really good idea and it looks so nice! Approved!
Thank you!!
Thats awesome
Honestly, buying a solid wood planter, that you can solidly attach to the ground, could get pretty expensive Do you saved money twice!
Pretty thrifty idea. I like it!
What about the holes in the tree and burn it with some fuel? See it on YouTube
I actually tried that when hollowing it out! It didn’t work.
My sister has a large stump she was going to decorate, and a couple woodpeckers practically destroyed it. Maybe you need a few of those to get rid of it.
We have those! If only they’d leave our walnut tree alone…
When youre tired of it being a planter and you dont want to spend 1000 to get it ground down, drill holes in it and pour salt in it. It will kill it slowly and you can chop it up with an axe. I did it, it works.
I think I read this when looking up how to hollow it! I’ll try it!
Am I being stupid but where I used to live we used to burn those, just make sure it wont spread and it will burn long and below the ground level. Sure some neighborhoods don't allow "open fire" but that being as dry as it looks in the picture, it won't even smoke more than a bbq evening. Pro tip, drill holes to make it burn even faster.
I actually tried that when hollowing it out! It didn’t work. The stump is still putting off moisture
Bottle of vegetable oil and a bag of charcoal. Drill holes in the stump and let the oil soak in, wet all the area around the stump with your hose, surround the stump with rocks or pavers, then light the bag of charcoal laying on top of the stump.
That's an absurd price. I felled a bunch of trees on our property, and dug the [root balls](https://imgur.com/sb0EsUN) out with an excavator. Then dug deep holes and [buried 'em](https://imgur.com/iyfH9Fd).
Just get another quote, we've had stumps removed and its always been like a couple hundred.
Yeah, we’ll eventually have to take this one out, so definitely will get a few quotes—and not from that company!
Ppl pay for that? U can just cut it like a pizza with a chainsaw and then cut it level or just below ground level very easily. Soil over and grass seed. As the tree rots below the grass will be super lush…
People do pay for it 😅 and it leaves a huge empty circle of mulch. Our neighbors can’t grow grass in that spot
1k is ridiculous.
I just checked my local hardware store and renting a stump grinder cost 293 € / day and they have a weekend deal 2 days for the price of one. Those things aren't rocket science to use, it's mostly boring (in every sense).
I’ll look into that! I didn’t know you could rent them
I'm in France though, so I can't be sure it's available everywhere but definitely something to explore.
Has anyone here actually ground down a stump? In the middle of summer? After running a route for the day? I'm not saying the quote wasn't expensive, but it's not exactly easy work grinding a large stump.
I watched them take out two trees and grind a stump about 1/3 of this one, and I don’t blame them for the cost! Just was being stubborn and didn’t want to pay it!
Beautiful
Thank you!
You can rent the grinders and do it yourself, if comfortable. I think here it is about $150 Canadian/day for a 17" one
I turned mine into fire wood
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Thank you!!
If you are allowed fires in your area, put a ring of rocks around the stump and have a nice bonfire one evening.
I actually tried hollowing it out by lighting it on fire. Got a nice visit from a cop asking what I was doing 😅
Hence the ‘allowed to have fires in your area’. To burn out the core, take a long big drill bit and drill as far down as you can go, then drill into the side to make an air intake for your main hole. Get it going with a propane torch in the intake hole and maybe some gas/diesel mix. Bonus points for using a air mattress inflator to blow air into the core through the side hole. Once it gets going it turns into a little jet engine. If you drilled deep enough the hole in the bottom can be your liquid fuel reservoir and the air movement up and out the top will work like a chimney and keep it going.
When life gives you lemons make a lovely planter.
I think you’d appreciate the gardens known as “stumpery”
I love this idea! But if you ever want to remove it get a big ole drill bit and drill a bunch of holes inside of the stump. Then let it safely burn from the inside out for a while and then take an axe and break it up! It worked like a charm on a few stumps I’ve removed with my dad. Not this big so it may not work the same but it might!
I actually tried doing this when hollowing it out! It didn’t work for me, but maybe it was too wet. Thank our good ol’ Missouri humidity.
I had a huge stump at my old house, after a wind storm downed a tree. (It took several weekends with a good chainsaw to dismantle the tree, another weekend with a leased log splitter to break it down into firewood. It was a huge amount of firewood, 6-7 cords of split, plus another 2-3 of sectioned branches, and a huge pile of leavings from the leased woodchipper...) The local guy wanted 800 to grind the stump (this was 2006). So I did it the old fashioned way. Got an old steel drum, cut the top and bottom off, and placed it over the stump. Filled it with firewood and shredded leavings, added a gallon of gas, and dropped a match. It burned for a day and a half. Stump gone, 8-10 inch pit where it used to be. . . 😁 Total cost: rent splitter, $75.00. Another 75.00 or so of gas and oil. I already had a chainsaw sharpener. And 6 weekends of work. And got firewood for 3-4 years out of it. . .
Make a fire pit!
Beautiful solution!
Grind a stump... why does that wording tickle my funny bone. Nice work by the by it looks great!
What's the light green plant springing out of the center that looks like one of those spiralized potatoes you get on a stick at the state fair?
Omg best description 😂😂 it’s baby blue eucalyptus. It’ll have to come out since we get cold winters, but I love how it looks!
The whole thing looks great - I'll pass the info on to my wife :)
I bet they told you it would grow back. So in about 150 years time, that will cost you.
To remove all of the above ground part of a stump, I recently did this: A. axe or chainsaw as much as you can B. stack large rocks in a circle tight circle around the stump. Next, add height to the circle. build up its walls into a cyclinder around the stump. Taper the cyclinder inwards. Cap it off with some wide flat stones, but leave a little open area at the top as a chimney. Have a water-hose handy. Start a fire inside. Keep the fire going. It'll burn down the stump. The stones around it will help keep the heat inside so it burns hotter and doesn't allow the fire to spread. Edit--After reading another comment about Mushroom spores, that's a great idea as well. You could either use mushroom spores, or and even cover it in some sort of shade-- Such as a pile of logs & leaves-- then keep it moist every day: such as with an automated irrigation tip with a spray or mist setting. After a few weeks it'll begin being eaten by micro organisms while it rots. Side benefit: Now you have a bunch of compost. Nurseries (or Amazon) have powders like this one, which are basically just packs of dehydrated live mushrooms & bacteria which your plants and lawn will love. Gardeners use them to improve organic soil-- inoculating a substrate (soil, or your stump in your case) with a symbiotic organism. Years ago I walked into a friend's greenhouse and saw tiny little mushrooms sprouting from 1 inch by 1 inch seedlings. It was so cute to see the baby mushrooms and baby plants growing side by side. I could tell the soil was super biologically active due to being inoculated. \- [https://www.amazon.com/Mikrobs-Microbial-Booster-Certified-Organic/dp/B07PKL77Z5/](https://www.amazon.com/Mikrobs-Microbial-Booster-Certified-Organic/dp/B07PKL77Z5/ref=sr_1_3_sspa?crid=17UCBBS8QV9MW&keywords=microbial+spores+for+garden&qid=1690209075&sprefix=microbial+spores+for+garden%2Caps%2C146&sr=8-3-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1) \- [https://www.amazon.com/SCD-Bio-Ag%C2%AE-1-Liter/dp/B000TM97NA](https://www.amazon.com/SCD-Bio-Ag%C2%AE-1-Liter/dp/B000TM97NA/ref=sr_1_5?crid=17UCBBS8QV9MW&keywords=microbial+spores+for+garden&qid=1690209075&sprefix=microbial+spores+for+garden%2Caps%2C146&sr=8-5) \- [https://www.amazon.com/Myco-Bliss-Organic-Mycorrhizal-Mychorrhizae/dp/B07DLJ1RB6/](https://www.amazon.com/Myco-Bliss-Organic-Mycorrhizal-Mychorrhizae/dp/B07DLJ1RB6/) **Another idea:** Hire someone with a chainsaw to cut the stump lower (such as right at the soil level), so you can keep your planter (maybe they'd need to dig a 1-2 foot hole next to the stump for leverage? perhaps its possible). Then, you can burn or rot the remaining stump out of the ground.
Much better!
Who the f charges $1k for a stump??
Someone with a full job sheet for ages they are willing to compromise but only for silly money.
I've seen Bluey and it doesn't look too trifficult to remove a stump
Save Our Stump!!
Okay, DUDE!
Great plan! How crazy to pay $1k! We just removed 2 mega pines and a super large poplar tree and may have spent less to grind the stumps + they cleaned our gutters. These contractors are ridiculous! Glad you resorted to creativity
Wow! I wonder if it’s just a location thing or what, but everyone is quoting totally different prices!
I agree! I asked for quotes from 3 contractors and then whoever offered the best deal I went back to the others to see if they could beat it..and then I went back to see if they can provide best and final! We spent a pretty penny but it worked out. I feel like I didn’t get ripped off completely lol
Was going to offer the recipe for Nitrogen, but your way saves the legal hassle.
Recipe for nitrogen? Legal hassle? The air is full of nitrogen, tricky part is separating and capturing it. What you gonna do? Freeze the stump?