Big Stump Removal Project Options

[dynamike]

Using your numbers, $1680.00 month for backhoe, most rental places give you 176 hours per month. If you get one stump per hour average thats 176 per month. You will burn 350 Gallons of fuel per month. Thats another $700.00 so now you are up to $2380.00 per month. Or $13.52 per stump. Which equals $67,600.00 not to mention that you will be spending 5000 hours of your life digging out stumps. And also not to mention that you will still have 5000 stumps to dispose of or burn. Do you see my point? I still say get someone with a big grinder on a big Excavator, but thats just me talking.

 

[Highbeam]

"If you have the stumps removed as opposed to letting them rot, then it probably will cost most, if not all of what you made on the trees."

You found the treasure. A good logger is equipped to do the whole job including stump removal, burning, and raking. The logger doesn't do this for free. The logger will likely do all or part of this in trade for your portion of the timber proceeds. This is the cool part. If you get a check for the proceeds then you pay income tax on it. Pow! 30% gone and that much less money to pay the stump guy. If the timber proceeds go right to the logger then you get more clearing bang for your buck.

Include all stump removal, burning, and slash cleaning in the log contract. Make it clear that you want no money out. You are in effect hiring the logger to clear the land at a 30% discount. This is my plan and the logger was more than happy to work this deal with me.

 

[Cityboyfarmer]

I blew it and took the cash. Down here it is not recommended to let the loggers do the clean-up, but it sounds like a logical choice depending on your circumstance and location. Also, I imagine the level of "clean-up" you get may vary with the loggers definition of clean.

 

[Cityboyfarmer]

Price checked a John Deere 200 excavator. For a month, with taxes and delivery is $6,428.00. Then add the fuel that baby uses and you're over $7,000. Then comes the dozer rental to clean up. Even doing it myself will eat up $10,000, assuming I can get it done in a month.

Got a contractor bid in today for $2450 an acre. Other estimates are in the $1200 an acre range so far.

Wow! I had no idea going in it would be this expensive /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Plan B: Maybe I'll just do a couple acres and let the rest rot and do controlled burns and bushhog. Or fence it in and get a goat herd.

Man, this is depressing /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[EddieWalker]

I've never been to Georgia, so I don't know about your weather conditions, but I'd bet they are similar to East Texas. Hot and humid with four distict seasons.

My land was logged about five years ago, before I bought it. Almost all the pines were totally rotted away, but from a distance, looked perfect. When you hit them with the dozer blade, they just cumble. Sometimes a snake will come out, once it was a copper head. And every now and then I hit one that stops me in my tracks. For some reason I don't understand, a stump ten feet away from another will have no rot on it at all. Go figure. The hardwoods are all solid without any rot either.

I think cleaning up one acre and letting time do the rest is gonna be the smart move economically.

Eddie

 

[Taylortractornut]

I have a friend that does stump splitting with his PC400 Komatsu and a splitter puller attachment he is supposed to send me the number to an associate that harvests stumps. He said he may know someone wholl take them off your and and harvest them to. As for your brush pile some logging companies make some serious money off boiler fuel. here Timberline logging take it all and then buy up brushpil;es from other logging contractors.

 

[dmccarty]

CityBoyFarmer,

I think you did the right thing in taking the money from logger. Its what I did as well. The logger is making money on cutting trees. The company that won the bid for our timber had equipment to harvest trees not pull/grind stumps. If I had put that in the contract he would have bid it out and most likely taken a cut as well. The way I looked at it the logger is there to cut trees. I wanted and did maximize the money I got for selling the timber.

Fiver years later the trees are growing up in the areas that were cut the most. Roughly five acres had pine and that was clear cut the other 35 or so acres was selectively cut and while there are stumps here and there its not that big of a problem in the woods. Where the decking operation was located is a mess but that is mainly from the pile of wood that was removed later for our house.

The plan is to have a tub grinder come and mulch it up.

The numbers you have on the stumps per acre sounds like mine. And the costs are comparable. I cleaned up what I could with my tractor by pushing into small piles. I dug up stumps that where up to 36 inches with my JD 48 backhoe attachement. Some stumps took eight yes eight hours. I did not have alot of time but I had more time than money. I got it done. The area where the pines where located is just regrowing. I build the piles and this summer I'm going to get back in there and recut the trails. With the trees growing up you can't see the piles anymore....

I asked around about selling the stumps for turpentine but everyone looked at me like I was nuts. Maybe in your neck of the woods there is a market. My dad saw a train load of pine stumps in Fl a few years ago that had to be going of for some sort of processing...

If you can let it rot, let it rot. I have burned some as well. Not fun but cheap. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Buring and rotting are the cheap way to go. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Later,
Dan

 

[Cityboyfarmer]

Taylor,

That would be great if you knew someone in Georgia who would find value in pine stumps. Sounds like a win-win situation.

I'd gladly give the brushpile to anyone willing to haul it off, stumps too. I'll start asking around to see what I come up with.

 

[Cityboyfarmer]

Well, heres plan B. I'm going to have my best, flatest 5 to 6 acres stumped, graded and burned. The burn ban in my county is over October 1, so I'll have the contractor come in then and burn while he pulls stumps. The loader operator will add the stumps to the burn pile as the excavator pulls them up, while working the wind rows to speed the burn time.

The rest I will begin fencing and get a few head of cattle and goats to help keep down the scrub growth while waiting for the rest of the stumps to rot. Plus a whole bunch of bushhogging in between.

Come on Georgia lottery! /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[PBinWA]

If you can get the stumps pulled sooner and let them dry out before October the burning will go easier. Otherwise, the stumps will be too wet to burn easily and you'll have to use diesel to get the fire going. It's much better if you can give them a month or two to dry out.

At least that's been my experience.

I had a 47,000 pound Kobelco excavator come and clear 55 Douglas Firs off my property. He had them plucked and stacked in 4-6 hours. Cost me $1000. The size of the excavator makes a huge difference as other companies had quoted me a higher price because their excavator was not as big. Shop around - I found my guys when they were between jobs, they showed up two days after I called them. This was easy money for them.

I found a guy who is building is own log home and he is going to come by and take the logs away for me. He's not the fastest but the price was right - free.