[Shop-talk] Using a stump grinder

[Arvid]

I can tell you about my recent experience. Had a very large box elder to one side of the front yard. We cut it down before it fell down, leaving a stump that was about 7 feet tall, based on the 20 inch bar on the chainsaw, 30 inches at the base.
I was going to remove it myself and started working on it with the small backhoe on the back of the tractor. About 4 hours later a fellow who was going door-to-door in the neighborhood stopped to chat. He indicated that his company 'did that sort of thing' so I said 'give me a quote, cut the rest down, remove the remains, grind the stump to below grade'.  We settled on $325 and I stopped trying to remove the damn thing myself as the score at that point seemed to be Stump - 8, Jedlicka - 0.
Four days later they showed up, cut the remains down and loaded it into their trailer, manuvered their REALLY SERIOUS Diesel powered stump grinder over to the area, laid waste to the stump, packed everything back up and were gone in 75 minutes. 
I considered it money well spent.
Arvid

-------- Original message --------
From: Jim Stone <1789alpine at gmail.com> 
Date: 8/10/17  6:42 PM  (GMT-06:00) 
To: Shop Talk <shop-talk at Autox.Team.Net> 
Subject: [Shop-talk] Using a stump grinder 

We recently had a couple of trees cut down to improve the driveway access to my new garage.  One was fairly large and the total stump is about 2' by 3' (at some point, the tree had a second trunk).  We're getting an estimate to have the stumps ground down, but as usual, I'm considering doing it myself, even though I've never used a stump grinder before. How hard is it?  Can a 65 year old guy - in reasonably good shape for a 65 year old guy - safely handle one?  Can a basic rental unit like Home Depot carries (http://www.homedepot.com/tool-truck-rental/mobile/Stump-Grinder/SG1314B/) handle something this big in multiple passes?  And more specifically: how likely am I to regret the decision if I decide to do it?
Thanks,
Jim

Sent from my iPhone
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