feeling stumped--advice needed

[charles todd]

On mine, i dug a huge pit and placed all the stumps in there. Then i burned pit over a year, adding dead trees and brush. This burnt the roots down considerably. then i buried pit. That was maybe 10 years ago. Pit settled a bit, i added some dirt. Now i csnt recall where pit exactly was.

Can confirm. Bought a used mini ex. Burned piles. Then dug holes, burned stumps and roots in pits. Covered pits when done.

LOT OF WORK

CT

 

[Raul-02]

piles of pulled stumps?

Find a woodturning club and offer them for free.
Watch them dissapear.

 

[Mart5130]

Anyone ever use a fan to force feed a fire? I'm thinking trench with a large fan at one end

I use a little diesel and a leaf blower to get it going hot!

 

[dirttoys]

alright... 1st snow... November for sure, October maybe.... then it lasts into April sometimes May.

The year I pulled the insulation and furnace out of my house during a early warm May.... it snowed the long weekend (4 weeks in)


It does sound like everyone is saying "burn it" the tiny fire size I'm allowed seems like a recipe for frustration... but might be the only cost effective way

Can you get it all within "reach" build a small fire and add fuel as it burns? This probably would be a good way to get the stumps as reduced as possible, get em in early, and let them stay till the end.

The advice about having light snow on the ground is good. Get it set up, be patient, I don't think there is a real alternative to burning, unless you have money to "burn"

Best,

ed

 

[Captain Dirty]

When my father built his brush piles he would incorporate a proper "campfire" with kindling and logs into the periphery of the pile on the expected upwind side and cover the laid fire with a piece of sheet metal (approx 3'x 4' taken from the side of an old appliance or water heater) to protect the wood from the weather. On a suitably rainy or snowy burn day he would call the FD (more like notification than begging permission in those days), cram some dry newspaper under the kindling, attach a chain to the sheet metal, and light the fire. Once burning well, he would pull out the sheet metal. The "campfire" was always adequate to ignite the rest of the pile, no accelerant or tires required.

 

[DieselBound]

Long time ago I burned some substantial-sized piles of various crap that was left from a clearing job. It was a pain to keep the first fire going, but after a while it finally finished and left me with one big chunk of red-hot maple that I picked up and dropped on another big pile and that chunk of maple burned this pile like it was a nuclear meltdown- I didn't have to touch anything, just kept pushing from the edges to get it all burned. So, perhaps get one pile going and fish out an "igniter" piece to feed the next pile; and so on and so on.

Small stuff if scattered will break down fairly quickly, especially if you mow them with a bush hog. Obviously there's a limitation on size/dia and one's tolerance for a lot of racket.

I have places to toss debris. No problems digging on my property in which case I now just bury stumps: I rent an excavator for this kind of work.

Clearing is a lot more work than people realize.

 

[4570Man]

Given the option I find it works way better to build a fairly small fire and keep dumping the material on vs trying to make a big pile and then try to burn it. Brush burns up fast when it’s actually on fire. It takes fire a long time to spread through a pile and often times won’t spread at all. When you’re dumping on you can keep the whole pile on fire.

 

[Rockbadchild]

Given the option I find it works way better to build a fairly small fire and keep dumping the material on vs trying to make a big pile and then try to burn it. Brush burns up fast when it’s actually on fire. It takes fire a long time to spread through a pile and often times won’t spread at all. When you’re dumping on you can keep the whole pile on fire.

when i burn my piles I made a small fire in the big pile then I pushed the sides of the pile in the fire with my tractor I would say that this work 100 times better then handling every single branches and trees one by one.

 

[4570Man]

when i burn my piles I made a small fire in the big pile then I pushed the sides of the pile in the fire with my tractor I would say that this work 100 times better then handling every single branches and trees one by one.

I don’t handle everything one by one. I dump them on with either my excavator or grapple. The push it on approach isn’t bad if the pile is small but it doesn’t take long to get a bigger pile than you can push.

 

[BLSXJ]

After reading everyone's opinion, sizing up the stump piles and brush piles (attacking one with the wood chipper) and looking at the mountain of work ahead, The boss and I made a choice.

We are going to have the brush and stumps shredded. There is a contractor currently working at the local land fill shredding the C&D waste, he will be coming to our field of nightmares when he is done

If we tried to burn everything we'd be at it well into next year, all the while the fuel wood logs would start to rot, the mill wood logs wood get bugs in them, and the clearing would still need "smoothing", tilling, and seeding.