Stump Grinding & Stump Removal

Grinding and Removal Are Not the Same Job

People use the words interchangeably and then get a quote that does not match what they pictured. They are genuinely different pieces of work with different machines, different prices and different holes left in your lawn.

• Stump grinding — a machine with a rotating cutting wheel chews the stump and any exposed surface roots down below grade, turning the wood into mulch. The root system stays in the ground and rots away over the following years. You are left with a shallow depression full of chips.
• Stump removal — the whole stump and root ball are excavated out of the ground. That leaves a large hole, proportional to the tree, that needs filling. It is heavier, more disruptive and more expensive, and usually needs an excavator rather than a grinder.

For the large majority of residential jobs, grinding is the right call. Removal is for when something is going in that spot that cannot tolerate roots.

How Deep Does Grinding Go?

Standard grinding takes the stump to roughly four to six inches below grade — enough to plant grass over it and forget it is there. What you do next decides whether that is deep enough:

• Lawn or bark bed — standard depth is fine. Backfill with topsoil and seed.
• New tree in the same spot — needs to go deeper, and the chip has to come out. Wood chip left in the hole ties up nitrogen as it breaks down and starves a young tree. We dig the chip out and backfill with topsoil.
• Patio, shed, driveway or foundation — grinding is usually not sufficient. Roots left in the ground continue to decay and the soil settles unevenly under whatever you built.
• Fence line or utility trench — tell us before we start, because it changes how wide we grind, not just how deep.

What Happens to the Chips

A ground stump produces a surprising volume of mulch — typically well more than fills the hole, because the wood expands as it is cut. You have three options and we will do whichever you want:

• Leave it heaped and let it settle — free, and it composts down over a season.
• Rake it level and backfill with topsoil so you can seed straight away.
• Haul it away entirely. This is the one that costs a little more, and it is worth it if you are replanting.

Will the Roots Grow Back?

Not from a ground stump on a conifer — Douglas fir, cedar, hemlock and pine do not resprout once the stump is cut below grade. Some broadleaf species will, and in the Puget Sound the ones that catch people out are bigleaf maple, cottonwood, alder, laurel and cherry. Those can push suckers from the remaining root system for a season or two.

If you have one of those, say so when we quote. The fix is grinding wider to catch the buttress roots, and knowing to expect a couple of rounds of suckers before the roots exhaust themselves.

Before We Arrive

1. Utility locateThis is not optional. A grinder wheel will find a gas line, a water service or a buried power feed. Washington’s free 811 locate service marks public utilities, and we will not grind until the locate is done. Private lines — a run out to a shed, a sprinkler system, low-voltage lighting, a septic line — are not covered by 811, so tell us where they are.
2. Clear accessA standard grinder needs about a 36-inch gate. Narrower than that and we need a smaller machine or a fence panel out, both of which are fine if we know beforehand.
3. Move what you care aboutGrinding throws chip and the occasional stone. Cars, garden furniture, planters and pets need to be well clear.
4. Say what is going in afterwardsGrass, a tree, a shed or nothing at all. It changes how deep and how wide we grind, and it is much cheaper to do it right once.

Stumps We Charge Differently For

Most quotes come down to diameter at grade, but a few things move the number:

• Access — a stump the machine can drive to costs less than one behind a house with a step down into the garden.
• Rock and soil — grit and stone around the root flare blunt the teeth fast. Common on fill and near old driveways.
• Root flare spread — a 30-inch trunk with a wide buttress is a much bigger grind than the diameter alone suggests.
• Multiple stumps — the mobilisation is the fixed cost, so a batch of stumps in one visit is far cheaper per stump than one at a time. If you have several, do them together.

We grind stumps left by our own tree removals and stumps left behind by somebody else, including old ones that have been sitting for years. Call (425) 584-1233 and we will come and look at it for free.