Quickest pine stump removal

[sawguy21]

He says he wants a carport, dynamite or tannerite might be hard on the house. ;D Call in a hoe and a dump truck, not the cheapest but quick and easy.

[Southside]

Any body mention dynamite?  8)

See Reply #2.  Great minds think alike.  :D  Or at least minds that have played with things that go BOOM!!   ;D

[mike_belben]

Mike, a skid steer works just as good on stumps as an excavator- when you don't have an excavator😁 My machine is a bit different animal than your Bobcat, too.

I guess that is true.. If youre doing the job the tool you have is better than the one you dont.


If all i had was the bobcat i wouldnt even start on any substantial oak stump here.. Takes 2+ hours with the dozer, my junk bobcat wont do it at all. 



We are all clay based down here.  When dry enough for a skid steer to operate, the roots may as well be cast in concrete.  When saturated enough to slake the clay and release the roots, the skid steer cant turn for lack of traction in the mud pit it creates.  Very easy to get sunk to the belly pan because youve had to work the water in deep.  


I did one in my former bosses new holland ls170.  The tree was already topped and limbed and i used forks to rip the roots but just couldnt drive up into the freshly ripped mess to actually push the stem.  Had to curl it out with a crawler loader as the skid steer couldnt even get to the stem to push. Stiff breeze woulda been sufficient as the tree was uprooting and leaned already but the bobcat couldnt get through the warzone of ripped roots. If it could have, it would bee sitting on the root matt that the tree was attached to.




I still maintain that its just not a good stumping platform.  A stationary base with tool on an articulated arm is best.  I dig them out with the mini hoe on my tractor then cable straight up with the forklift, if i cant pop them with the fork itself.  My rack wont allow both forks to come together and theyre irreplaceable so i have to take care not to bend them.

[btulloh]

I have seen a guy with a good size skid steer put pallet forks on and poke all around the base in a circle at a pretty steep angle to remove a tree. Sort of emulated a tree spade. Worked pretty well. Tree was a good size post oak in hard clay. After the fork treatment he pushed the tree over with the bucket up pretty high on the tree. Took about half an hour and the tree and stump were gone. Of course that tree didn't have a tap root, so . . .  Anyway he was an experienced operator and he'd done this more than a few times. The skidsteer isn't the best weapon for that kind of battle, but it works if that's the weapon you have. 

My vote is a hoe for this job and make sure you don't leave any organics. 

[mike_belben]

Thats what i did too but couldnt get traction on the wet roots so just kept high centering on thick roots in mud, getting stuck then having to push myself back with the forks.  550 deere loader had no issue.

[barbender]

Tracks make a big difference in that situation. Hard pan clay would be tough though, and it's something I've never had to work with. To be clear, I'm not recommending a skid steer as the best solution for stump removal- not even close. But the large frame machines can do it in many situations with an experienced operator. I've rolled out root balls that were bigger than my machine before. If Doc Henderson borrowed me his 287 Cat MTL I could really roll stumps out- even at the Belbens'😁 But I'd way rather do it with an excavator! 

[mike_belben]

Im glad to point you at some scarlet oak stumps waiting patiently a few years but you need to fill in the 40 foot moon craters you make in the process.  I wont mind firing up the dozer to get you unstuck as many times as needed.  

;D

[livemusic]

All of these answers have made me wonder how in the world anyone builds a housepad from a heavily wooded lot. I guess without removing every stump, you're asking for trouble many years down the way. Houses built around here are built on concrete slabs. I shudder to think of stumps below that. Hopefully, it's routine to remove all stumps before building. I've never really thought about it. The last pad I saw was just a few months ago and they did, indeed push all the trees (pines) over with a dozer. Hopefully, enough of the stump came up that it will be ok years down the way. But those pines were not as big as mine, they were about 10"-15" DBH.

[Ed_K]

 In 85 when we built our log cabin I had all the stumps removed and buried at the edge of our future lawn. 36 yrs later and I've been filling the sunk in holes with more loam and there is still a 1 1/2 ft drop where each one is buried >:(. Where there was holes from the stumps at the front of the house footing we dug down a couple feet lower and back fill with good gravel in 6" lifts and haven't had any problems. Some of the stumps were 24" across .

[thecfarm]

That's what they did here. Dig out the old dirt, stumps too, can't forget the rocks either ;D and bring in some nice gravel for the slab for the garage. I only had a  few stumps. One big one is up in the woods. I think it will be there a while. 

[tawilson]

I wouldn't entirely rule out a skidsteer.


 

[mike_belben]

Is it really a skid steer if its got a hoe on?  
;D


The parking lot at smith and wesson had a strip caving in parallel to and near a major city owned water main in a straight line.  My boss (maintenance dept) was going back and forth with the city over whos problem the leak was.  Several times it was shut off and scoped on a shared cost without finding issue.  


I looked at the 1930s aerial nostalgia photos in the hall.. That area was once a pine forest made parking lot in the early 40s iirc.  Went back and said 'Bill, water doesnt make a straight line underground, but a cable bladed dozer cutting a slot trench to bury stumps and tops does.'  An excavator would dig a deep roundish hole but dozers were much more common than steam or cable shovels in this area.



 They test bored and later pulled up a huge strip of rotted wood.

[tawilson]

There's a "skidhoe" joke rattling around in my brain but I can't quite put it together.  Lol