Will a Rented Excavator Take Care of my Oak Stumps?

[LouNY]

AC would be fantastic. We are in the 90's now.

What are you going to do with the stumps once you have them out?

May be easier to dig a large hole next to them and then pull/push them into the hole and cover them up.

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

I'd just burn them with the rest of the trash wood. Easy with the tractor.

 

[hkbirdman]

Just realized the local Kubota dealer will rent me an excavator of 8.5 to 10 tons. I don't know why I didn't think of checking them.

If I rented one for a week, I could totally transform this property. I have some nasty buried boulders I'd like to get rid of.

I could also bury the bodies behind the garage a lot deeper than they are now, but enough about that.

Here in NH you can rent (from a Kubota dealer) a KX-080 excavator (9 tons) with AC for $500.00/day or $1800.00/week plus a fee of $250.00 for round trip pick-up and delivery. I am quite sure that 2 days with this machine would easily allow you to rip out 15 stumps and handle the buried boulders.

 

[kozal01]

I dug out 3 oak stumps with this last year. Took some digging but worked well.

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

Went out and looked at the yard with my wife. We have made the decision.

When I got this job done, I left a number of oaks that still have to go down. I only paid for 1.5 days of work, and I made the crew get the trees I couldn't cut safely first. That's why I still have some work to do.

We have decided to wait for October so it's not boiling hot. I will cut the remaining trees and get rid of them, and THEN I'll get an excavator. I may cut the less-challenging ones right away.

I'll see if I can rent for two days with an option to extend for a week.

I have 4 burn piles now with many tons of oak in them, so waiting will give me a chance to burn and free space for more wood.

This should be perfect.

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

I dug out 3 oak stumps with this last year. Took some digging but worked well.

What size stumps?

 

[kozal01]

What size stumps?

From 18”-30” diameter. The big one had been rotting a couple years but the other two were fairly new.

 

[4570Man]

Digging and burning 10” stumps is no big deal. A 5 ton machine will do that in just a few minutes and you can clean the dirt off good enough that they will actually burn. The 2ft ones are a different story. You can’t clean them very well. It takes repeated cycles of burning them and knocking out dirt and burning them again. You’ll need several tons of dirt to fill in the hole as well. I’d recommend getting a stump grinder instead.

 

[ultrarunner]

Brother hired a large excavator with operator and stump grinder head...

First day cost $2500 as the guy was productive all was done in a day... The $2500 included transport.

Machine had good reach could go just about anywhere...

All my brother had to do was point... actuality he marked with caution tape.

Minimal ground disturbance and after working the better part of 2 days on his own for one big stump figured the money well spent...

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

I've burned stumps and filled holes before. It's easy. Don't worry.