# Stump grinding



## Abbershay (Dec 19, 2003)

I personally like stump grinding , It is something i can do when i am tired. It would be just fine with me if i could do stumps the majority of the time. 

i have heard that many places people have a minimum to do stumps... 

i generally Like to get every stump i can. Stump jobs come before tree jobs for me. since they have away of disappearing . 

I guess i have about a 20 limit unless i am hunting. Hunting is a different price than people who call. 

I generally get about a dollar/ inch without clean up. With my 630b this adds up to about 125 /hr machine time.

The most i have made on stumps with this machine is about a grand in a day. 

How is it other places?


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## rborist1 (Dec 19, 2003)

:Eye:


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## Abbershay (Dec 19, 2003)

I did a job for a guy , it was 684 inches and soft stumps.... i felt 650. was more than enough for the job. I cant even imagine charging anyone 1500.oo or more.. Maybe i need to change my paradiam but thats allot of money to me.

Are you near the border do you cross it?


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## MasterBlaster (Dec 19, 2003)

I'ld rather climb then eat stump grindings, eh?


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## rborist1 (Dec 19, 2003)

:Eye:


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## ORclimber (Dec 19, 2003)

My rates are $3 inch with a $50 minimum. Too little on small 1 stump jobs, and too little on big stumps where chips need to be hauled off.

Running around getting single $50 stumps I can do 7-8 stops a day. $350-400 isn't so great on a machine that takes $230 starters and $125 poly belts. Grinding a 6' diameter fir stump 12" deep takes 2.5 hours of grinding, it's a half day job unless the customer is ok leaving Mt. chips. And what's up with those silver maple and sweet gum stumps, freaking icebergs never end underground.


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## Abbershay (Dec 20, 2003)

99 percent of my stump jobs are no clean up and they dont want me chasing roots all over the yard. They dont care if the stump is 4 inches down or 12 so i usally just grind 4 to 6 inches down. There are pleanty of uses for the chips do most times people can utilize the chips themselves. seldom do i spend over an hour at one job.


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## Ax-man (Dec 20, 2003)

> _Originally posted by ORclimber _
> 
> *And what's up with those silver maple and sweet gum stumps, freaking icebergs never end underground. *



I've lost many a tree removal job, because of those silver maple stumps. I cringe every time I run into one that is raised up out the ground with surface roots running every where. 

What is even more annoying is having to go and finish other peoples work because they under estimated the job and just didn't have a big enough grinder to do the job right in the first place.

I charge basically by the hour, with the stipulation that if I run into sub surface trash that tears up a set of teeth, the final bill will be more than the estimated price. Most people don't understand this, but then again they don't have to fix it, but I do. I can find other things to do with my time that are more profitable than replacing cutter teeth, not to mention on going repairs it takes to keep these machines up and running properly to make money with them.


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## Abbershay (Dec 20, 2003)

do you run into allot of rock trouble in or. the stumps around here are pretty easy, not to many rocks and we dont have the root problems to the extent that you seem to have.


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## ORclimber (Dec 20, 2003)

Sometimes rocky soil. It seems like most rock trouble here is man made; old fencepost concrete, rocks placed around stumps and forgotten, decorative rock, sidewalks. We do have a lot of clay soil that encourages surface rooting.

The 1620 is slow, only 20hp. Wonder if it could be PP'd.


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## Stumper (Dec 25, 2003)

Lots of rocks out here (they do call them the ROCKY Mountains) I hear about $5 per diameter inch occasionally but charge less generally. My philosophy and reasoning about stumpgrinding fees has been posted on other threads. No flat rate per diameter inch works out evenly on various sizes of stumps.


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## rahtreelimbs (Dec 25, 2003)

What is about Maple that tends to bog a grinder down more so than other trees?


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## lufkincy (Dec 2, 2007)

*My Stump Grinding Business*

I really enjoy stump grinding. My son-in-law has a fairly large tree business in East Texas and I bough his Vermeer 252. I'm 73 years old and retired in 1995 when we sold our printing company. I've been spending most of my time in front of my computer working on my eBay business, but when this opportunity came up I jumped on it. Most of my work comes from my son-in-law, but I've started trying to do a little marketing to get my own customers. My son-in-law gives me all of the stumps that are 28" or smaller with an occasional larger one that is soft or rotten. I charge $2 per inch with no minimum in the county. If the work is outside the county, I have a $.50 per mile extra charge for one way ($.25 per mile round trip). If there are more than 200 inches I drop to $1.75 per inch. So far I'm getting only about 10-20 stumps per week, but that is pretty good retirement money. I carry my CD player and listen to audio books while I'm grinding or listen to the portable XM radio I have mounted on the grinder. 

I've got a chair set up beside the controls and use plywood deflectors on each side in front of the rubber deflectors. I started using the plywood deflectors when a piece of bark flew back and broke my plastic face shield. An extra benefit of the plywood deflectors is that when I finish a job I'm not covered with chips and dust.

I've exchanged the regular teeth with a different type of 2-sided tooth. They are easy to remove with a crescent wrench. I've got two sets of the teeth. When one side gets dull, I turn it around and use the other side. When the second side gets dull, I put in the second set and sharpen the first set. Changing out teeth only takes about 15 minutes per set.

I've got a fully equipped tool box mounted on one fender of the Vermeer trailer and an extra battery & charger mounted on the other. On the 2" square recepticle just behind the steering rod I've got a tractor seat mounted on 2" square tubing. This way I can sit in the tractor seat and drive to my stumps. My rake fits perfectly in the track on the trailer after the grinder is loaded.

When I'm working a yard I put a 3'x4' sign in the front yard that has huge letters reading "Stump Grinding" and below that my phone number. I also have a fairly large "A" sign I put on the street in front of my parked trailer. It reads "Men Working, Stump Grinding, and my phone number. Finally I have two warning cones I put in front and behind the trailer. Using these I never have to worry about finding a parking place or getting ticketed by the men in blue.

I've tried to make it as easy and as much fun as possible while making an extra $50 to $60 per hour


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## intheelements (Dec 21, 2007)

*Maybe its just me but*



lufkincy said:


> I really enjoy stump grinding. My son-in-law has a fairly large tree business in East Texas and I bough his Vermeer 252. I'm 73 years old and retired in 1995 when we sold our printing company. I've been spending most of my time in front of my computer working on my eBay business, but when this opportunity came up I jumped on it. Most of my work comes from my son-in-law, but I've started trying to do a little marketing to get my own customers. My son-in-law gives me all of the stumps that are 28" or smaller with an occasional larger one that is soft or rotten. I charge $2 per inch with no minimum in the county. If the work is outside the county, I have a $.50 per mile extra charge for one way ($.25 per mile round trip). If there are more than 200 inches I drop to $1.75 per inch. So far I'm getting only about 10-20 stumps per week, but that is pretty good retirement money. I carry my CD player and listen to audio books while I'm grinding or listen to the portable XM radio I have mounted on the grinder.
> 
> I've got a chair set up beside the controls and use plywood deflectors on each side in front of the rubber deflectors. I started using the plywood deflectors when a piece of bark flew back and broke my plastic face shield. An extra benefit of the plywood deflectors is that when I finish a job I'm not covered with chips and dust.
> 
> ...





With the cost of the machine, teeth, maintenance, maintenance time, gasoline, insurance, truck, trailer, advertizing etc How is it profitable to run a stump grinding business at 50 to 60 dollars an hour ?? I'v been in the business for four years now and there are guys here that think making 50 to 60 an hour is great, until the machine breaks down that is, and then they go out of business, while those that charge the rates that are needed to "run a stump grinding business" lost the jobs and are shaking their heads wondering when all these grind them cheap people are going to disapear. The only people that are making out with these prices are the customers


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## lufkincy (Dec 21, 2007)

_With the cost of the machine, teeth, maintenance, maintenance time, gasoline, insurance, truck, trailer, advertizing etc How is it profitable to run a stump grinding business at 50 to 60 dollars an hour ?? I'v been in the business for four years now and there are guys here that think making 50 to 60 an hour is great, until the machine breaks down that is, and then they go out of business, while those that charge the rates that are needed to "run a stump grinding business" lost the jobs and are shaking their heads wondering when all these grind them cheap people are going to disapear. The only people that are making out with these prices are the customers._

In this part of the country $50 to $60 per hour is great. Like any business, you have to set aside part of the gross to cover mainenance, fuel, insurance, etc. The $50 to $60 per hour I was talking about is the net. I've been fortunate so far. Other than replacing the Vermeer teeth with the Yellow Jacket teeth and buying a second set as a backup, I have not had to touch my maintenance fund and there is a little over $2,000 in that fund. I lose a number of jobs to an individual who has a large machine, but make it up on those jobs that do not have enough access for him to go through. I don't normally work very hard at it, but have taken a sub-contract with my son-in-law who has a 3-month contract with one of the cities in the Oklahoma area cleaning up after the ice storms. So far he has given me almost 400 stumps, averaging 15", at $1 per inch more than I get in our area. I still think it's a nice extra income for a retiree.


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## undercut (Dec 22, 2007)

*you need to read this thread*

the title is "Stump Grinding prices." is it in this forum.


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## lone wolf (Feb 26, 2017)

rahtreelimbs said:


> What is about Maple that tends to bog a grinder down more so than other trees?


The damn roots that make the job never ending is what I hate about them.


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