Should I fill in hole?

[Cupocoffee]

I grind em and my wife fills them.....we allways push shavings into the hole and press
them down and then level and spread the rest, unless the customer has a tractor or
tells us not to bother, we just finished a 192 stump job and filled and leveled all the
holes, we get a lot of compliments on our work and it leads to more jobs, a lot of
times customer will give us more than the bid just because of our work....

Bob.....

Hey Bob, I am curious how others bid and price jobs. I am curious how much you made on a 192 stump job. How deep did you grind? How long did it take? What grinder do you have? Did you have to deal with rocks? Were the trees cut low to the ground? I have never had a job that big but would love to. Thanks.

 

[RDAA]

On a full clean up job I always clean my grindings out, rake everything up nice, backfill with topsoil, and seed with grass.
I rarely do that for a single stump. I usually stack up a bunch of stumps and go around with my grinder behind one truck and take my dump truck and pull a trailer with the skid and my 8' snow bucket one guy grinds while the other cleans up chips with the skid. We go back after the grinding and clean up to backfill with topsoil and double team that. I am lucky that I am in a small town thats not too big. If Im not in town Im at a farmplace where we can usually scrounge up some topsoil. I am lucky that I can do this with our market and we dont have guys taking out three foot stumps for twenty bucks like other places. Grinding stumps isn't my favorite but It sells removals and leaving the job as perfect as possible helps build the reputation.

 

[OLD MAN GRINDER]

Hey Bob, I am curious how others bid and price jobs. I am curious how much you made on a 192 stump job. How deep did you grind? How long did it take? What grinder do you have? Did you have to deal with rocks? Were the trees cut low to the ground? I have never had a job that big but would love to. Thanks.

U really do not make as much on big jobs, my best money is on jobs 25 stumps and under..

On this job i made 2400 at 12.50 per stump, did job in 20 hrs so 120 per hr, i try to
get a min of 100 per hr, u won't get the big money down here like u do in other parts
of the country, lots of competition..

Most trees were low, had to cut down about 10-12 of the bigger ones, they were a mix
of pines and oak, mostly pine but 2-3 yrs old so they ground up pretty easy, if they had
been fresh cut pine i could not have done them as cheap, lots of dust but no rocks...

I am presently using a bandit 2150xp, love it so far, 160 hrs been thru one jacksaft belt
still on orig cutter belt,,,have about 100 teeth on hand for it, thinking about trying to
sharpen a set of teeth and see how they cut, don't know if it will be worth it or not, i have
had a vermeer sc252 and a shaver sc25 pto grinder on a kubota tractor, the bandit is
hands down better than either one of those, will take on any size stump, i can do a 40 inch
stump in at the most 1/2 hr if it is cut down low, if not that is what i have my 660 for....

i normally grind 6-8 inches down unless customer wants them deeper, hope this ans
some of your questions, i work for 4 diff tree services plus call ins and that keeps this
old man plenty busy...

Bob...

 

[Cowboy78064]

Thank yall for being very informative. I just started this company and its good to get great info from others who have more experience than I do. I would love to get a stump grinder but Im not really sure if anyone in my area would even carry them. We dont have alot of demand for them down here. But I do work for John Deere and have basically and unlimited supply of finding different equipment dealers.

 

[landscape doc]

Chips decomposing suck up nitrogen ,taking it difficult for grass to grow.

 

[beastmaster]

Chips decomposing suck up nitrogen ,taking it difficult for grass to grow.

Yep. That's the reality of it. It helps sometimes to throw in a few handfuls of ammonium sulfate. It'll sink as it decomposes also, if its leveled out to grade it'll leave a depression. The difference in texture of the soil that was put back into the hole from its parent soil will affect its ability to hold water or release it, forming a dry spot or bog.
It's not as cut and dry as some think, and back filling is mostly for safety, cosmetics, and convenience. Talking about doing it "right", opens up a whole can of worms.