When A Grinder Won't Cut It
Customer had a tree come down a few years back. The trunk got cut up and hauled off, but the stump stayed. Big mature tree, deep root system — way more stump than a normal grinder is going to deal with in any reasonable amount of time.
By the time we got there, the stump had become a yard fixture. Couldn't mow around it cleanly, couldn't plant near it, couldn't really use that part of the yard. They wanted it gone.
For stumps this size, the right tool isn't a grinder — it's an excavator. A grinder will eventually wear it down to chips, but you'll be at it for hours, and you still have a soft spot in the ground full of decomposing wood that'll keep settling for years.
An excavator pulls the stump and the root ball out together. Clean break, clean hole, no rotting wood left underground. Faster, more thorough, and you get to backfill with clean soil that's actually solid.
We worked the bucket around the root system, broke the major roots loose, and lifted. The whole root ball came up in one piece. Hauled the stump off, backfilled the hole with clean dirt, and finished-graded the area so the customer could mow over it without hitting a soft spot.
Yard's open again. One afternoon's work.
