Stump Removal

Landon Tree And Stump Removal Service can also provide unique stump removal services for its customers. Unique in the fact that many stump removal companies do not do the complete job. Our company not only does stump grinding but also removes all the grindings, removes the crown, back fills the cavity with black dirt and will seed the spot with grass seed if desired.

Many companies that we work with, or have talked with, do not remove any of the debris from the stump grinding leaving the entire mess for the customer to clean up. Of the companies that say they do cleanup, they simply leave the hole filled with enough grindings to keep someone from twisting an ankle if they were to step into the hole, but it will take years to grow grass. Few companies may even throw a layer of dirt on the top of the grindings.

This type of work seems like such a short cut and scam of the customer. Maybe we are just to much of a perfectionist or maybe that's why we are not making money at it  L. But we just don't see how to do the job any other way except the way we would do it on our own property. If we were to develop a slogan, that would be the one I would choose.

Grinding a stump is to get the wood out of the ground for a couple of reasons:

(1) make the area look neat

(2) allow it to be used, mowed, etc.

(3) prevent mushrooms from growing

Think about this a minute. When you are in the woods and you see mushrooms growing, what are they always growing on? Well the correct answer is dead wood even if it is on what appears to be a live tree. True some grow out of the ground, but that does not help my argument here. I'm only interested in the ones that grow on wood. Some of the real ugly black ones that grow in your yard are actually growing out of wood buried in your yard or roots from old trees. By leaving the grindings in the hole there is an excellent chance that the spot will produce mushrooms for several years to come. Many Tree Services will tell you "ah, it's all natural and will decay... it's good for the soil" and many other EXCUSES for.... "let's hurry up - get this done - get our money - and get on to the next job". By the time the customer sees any bad signs it may be 6 months to a year .... too late.

Another reason for not doing the job properly is the difficulty of carrying and obtaining black dirt when you're a tree company. This means you need a pickup or a truck to get black dirt, store it and transport it to the work site. Not to mention the inconvenience of leaving the job site to get it.  It is easy to see why a tree service may want to just "grind and run" instead of do the job correctly.

I'm not saying our method is the holy grail of all methods. Our method can have problems as well, just not as many.

We do our stump two different ways. Basically we divide them into big ones, little ones, quantity and hard to access. Then we determine which method to use; our MutiTrac attachment or Contracted.

MutiTrac Grinder

Our MutiTrac has a unique grinder attachment than most on the market. The grinder was developed by the distributor we purchased the MultiTrac from. When we bought the machine this grinder was being developed and the distributer was not happy with it. We purchased it as it worked, just not very fast, but fast enough to do the job for small stumps, bushes and in hard to reach areas. But to use it on large jobs would take an hour or longer. It just did not have the speed or power to handle big jobs.

This grinder attaches to the front of the MultiTrac, as most of the attachments do. One of the first models of the grinder used a motor and switches to move the head back and forth as other grinders do.  In the picture above you can see the controller for the actuator rams designated by the red arrow and the rams by the white arrows. The switches the operator used were on a box in the cockpit shown to the left by the white arrow. It became apparent that this method provided less control than using the steering and boom controls of the MultiTrac where you could feel the grinder better and have better control. This made the job faster and more accurately position the grinder. From the picture you can see the right hand is on the boom control and (though hard to see) the left is on the steering wheel. You can click on the images to make them bigger and easier to view. As a result we eventually removed the rams on each side of the grinder along with the controller on top.

Instead of rotating toward the machine the grinding wheel rotates away. This means the chips from the stump are directed away from the machine instead of under it as most grinders. The reason for this is to allow the MultiTrac to still be maneuvered during the cutting process. This, however, creates a different problem. The chips are now thrown into the air and scattered around the area. To counter this we built a netting or cage type device with see-through screen to catch the chips. This limited the maneuverability somewhat but allowed us achieve the results we wanted with the device.

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Contracted Stump Grinding

This is how we do most of our stumps today. We have decided that it made more business sense to contract this part of the business due to the time it takes and the stress on the MultiTrac. The time alone we could make more money taking down another tree. We have made an agreement to have all our stumps done by a local contractor in return for discounted price. This has turned out to be a super business decision and relationship that has continued for several years. As you can see 3 stumps like the one at the left can generate a trailer load of chips. This would have taken a good portion of the day to grind and created a lot of wear on the frontend of the MultiTrac.

Though we believe our method of doing a stump sets us apart from the rest, it does not worry us to describe in detail how we do it. It is not a big secrete but rather common sense and, as mentioned before, a method most tree services would not implement anyway. Most tree services would think our method interferes with "turn-around time" doing trees. Most tree services would also tell you, and I would agree, there is no money in doing stumps unless that is all you are doing. I would suggest that a tree service only does them because their customers want them done as part of the job and they are already there with their equipment. So if they cut corners to get the stump done they could make a little extra money. Besides stumps are no fun and not really tree work anyway.