Whats the best equipment for stumping?

Keep a good close eye on the logger.They are crooked dudes around here.

Make sure if you rent the track hoe you get unlimited hours. Most equipment rentals I've dealt with base it on 40hrs...

I'd work a deal with the logger to pull the stumps and stack all the trash in a few different piles and save yourself 80% of the time and labor also money you have to pull back out of your pocket ! Anyone who is seriously logging already has a large dozer and hoe .and there going to have to bring them out there to cut 20 acres anyway . It may work out to be very easy to get them to do it for you as part of your logging deal .

If it's not cut now don't cut it. Get a decent sized excavator, tip the entire tree over and then take the stumps off afterward (or let a logger do it). It takes a lot less effort and time to do it with the tree attached for leverage and leaves less hole to deal with. It'll end up costing you half as much and taking half the time compared with having to dig the stumps out later.
We hire a 25 ton Volvo excavator with a grapple and a front dozer blade to do all our fence or other clearing, does a beautiful job.
Anybody clearing land for a living that tells you to cut the trees first is just short on business and trying to take advantage of you.

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None of the loggers around here are willing to mess with the stumps. They've got to much standing timber to cut. I agree that pushing the tree over with stump attached works best. I've cleared about 3 acres that way using my tractors back hoe to dig around then pull down with a chain. Cut up stack haul. Makes for a long tired day and pays squat. The mills wont buy just a few logs at a time. Want the same size kind and grade for the whole load. Most wont even buy your logs unless you jump through hoops.

Larry
A World Away

A D9 Cat comes to mind.

Yep that would do it too. lol may even be overkill.

Larry
A World Away

I would call the man down the road that has that BIG track-hoe with a Thumb. Let him come and walk across that 20 acres, pile the stumps for me---pay him and be done. If you buy something, just the fuel and the time you have in it will will amount to alot. If he breaks---it comes out his pocket---if you break---you pay.

If you have alot of other things that you need done then you might come out alot better buying a GOOD piece of equipment.

My Dad rented a small dozier and used it for 2 days, he pushed and pushed on some stumps for seem like a hour a piece and he got stuck. He got a guy that brought a D9 to get the small dozier out the hole, then he payed the Guy to do 1 hours work. The D9 did more in one hour that Dad had done in 2 Days. My Dad(and I) learned a Lesson that Day. If he had of Hired the D9 guy for a couple hours----the job would have been finished, would have saved Dad 2 Days work and would have been alot cheaper---to Use The Right Size Piece of Equipment to Do the Job!

Yes a D9 might seem like overkill but just imagine how quickly it could "walk" through that job.
Also a second small rig following along pushing those stumps over to your dispose pile. would save time for the D9.
Don't recall you saying what kind of trees they were, But many I know about have darn big root systems which would need a D9's power to get them out.


don't take a butter knife to a gun fight . . . . . . . .lol

Pigs can do it.

The stumps I had taken out, we used a self-loading log truck. Take hold of them with the grapple and it pulls them out with about 15 foot of the roots still attached. Then it swings around and stacks them for you.

A well used log truck can be had for pretty cheap.

Try some TNT. It is much more fun that way.

I have never seen a self load log truck or heard of one. That must be one heck of a unit as some of these trees are 30" D. I'll have to look that one up. Most are smaller and most are hardwood. There are quite a few gum too which is about the worst stump to get out.

Thanks everyone for all the great replies.

Larry
A World Away

I see those self loaders a lot around here.
They will handle some pretty hefty logs . . . .
But I really dought they would be any where near stout enough to handle those big stumps.
Nor do I think the owner of a self loader would even begin to think about allowing his rig to do that sort of "stumping" job... also I have never seen one with out riggers...
Around here any stumping job is done with big Cats.