Stumper 220?

[Griff93]

I have an SK650 and I'm thinking about buying a stumper 220 attachment. I'm not planning on doing big nasty stumps, just smaller stuff. More than half of our stumps are less than 20 in stumps. I'm not looking for extremely high production but I don't want it to take all day for a couple of stumps. My plan is to basically have one of my guys grind while we're doing final clean up. For example, I had a job tuesday that we took down three small trees and pruned three more. The lady also had an existing 6 in stump in her front yard. My stumps were 10, 8, and 6 in for the small trees. I have a sub doing all of my stumps right now. It seems kinda counter productive to have to call him and get on his waiting list for doing something like this. If I can grind them in house, I won't have to wait on him to collect from the customer. Sometimes I end up waiting a couple of weeks. I'd also rather keep my guys busier instead of sending them home. I've paid my sub enough in the last year to have paid for the attachment, teeth, and fuel. So how well to these stumper 220 attachments really work? I'd like to demo one but the closest one is almost a 10 hour drive away from me.

 

[BC WetCoast]

I haven't used one of this so I can't comment on the machine, but can comment on a couple of other issues.

If all you plan on doing are small stumps, this makes sense. I know a guy who carries a small push behind unit on his chipper for small stumps. It's an efficient use of your crew, although they are going to be waiting for the grinder to do final clean up.

I would suggest you bid your jobs with the stump grinding separate from the removal. It would be a bit more of an accounting headache, having to issue two invoices, but would be able to get your removal money immediately and not have to wait on grinding. When I'm selling, I tend to itemize all the work, so the customer can mix and match to meet their budget. For example on a removal, the removal price will be take down and chip branches only, there would be a separate price for hauling firewood/logs. On stump grinding there is a price to grind the stump and leave the mulch with a separate price to haul the mulch. (I've been on jobs where I've had to take away a F550 load of mulch - loading by wheelbarrow and shovel - rest assured we charged plenty to do it)