Replies

1. 
   RW | Mar 14, 2003 02:44am | #1

   No issues. Just a few sags in the lawn. Well, then there's the thing with having twenty termite restaurants within walking distance of your house, but that's not too big. Actually, if you're in to fungus, let them get good and rotten for a couple of years and when the ground sinks close enough, you'll have all you can do trying to find recipies that call for mushrooms. I don't see any problems.

   What, me, jaded?

   " Shoot first and inquire afterwards, and if you make mistakes, I will protect you." Hermann Goering to the Prussian police, 1933.

2. 
   Luka | Mar 14, 2003 02:45am | #2

   Don't bury them. And you've got the reasoning right.

   They should be put through a chipper. Lots of labor, and you have to have a good chipper. Call a tree service and see what they would charge.

   Quittin' Time

1. 
   NickNukeEm | Mar 14, 2003 02:50am | #3

   And after turning all those stumps to chips, don't be tempted to sprinkle them around your foundation like mulch.  If you do, the termites will come, and they won't stop at the wood chips.  (I learned that lesson the hard way.)

3. 
   johnhardy | Mar 14, 2003 02:54am | #4

   You're gonna get sink holes at a minimum. My father-in-law had to chop down a diseased apple tree in the front yard and he cut the stump to a little below the grass line. I was there a few years later (I'm about 265 lbs and weigh more than twice what he does ...) and stepped into that area and my leg went about 15 inches into a large hole. We filled the hole with about five 5-gallon buckets worth of large stones and dirt. This could be really pretty dangerous.

   John

4. 
   BossHog | Mar 14, 2003 03:17am | #5

   I'm with everybody else in thinking that burying 'em on site ain't a good deal. Depending on your location, zoning, etc. you might be able to talk a farmer into taking 'em off you hands to fill a ditch or something like that. You'd probably have to haul them.

   Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion. [Norman Schwartzkopf]

1. 
   baseboardking | Mar 15, 2003 01:36am | #11

   Your quote is great, but it is correctly attributed to Michael Bolton (Yikes!)Baseboard been VERRRY good to me

1. 
   Ralph027 | Mar 17, 2003 10:08am | #12

   If you have the space, permits, etc. you could just burn them.  Thats what I did with several stumps/unusable wood.  Or find some "artist" that wants to carve them into wooden widgets.  People around Ohio make paintings on old slate from roofs, barnwood into picture frames and silly art from used copper pipe. 

1. 
   BKCBUILDER | Mar 17, 2003 01:59pm | #13

   Ain't those Ohio people just WEIRD? I think it's something in that Erie Lake that seeped into the water table....messes them ALL up.

1. 
   Ralph027 | Mar 17, 2003 06:58pm | #15

   Maybe its all the toxic waste from the 60-70's. Remember when Erie caught fire?

5. 
   BKCBUILDER | Mar 14, 2003 03:27am | #6

   We bury them on sight often. Usually at the back of the lot, and with a trackhoe, so they are at least 6' from the suface. They don't decay very fast at that depth, and we fill over them and compact it with the hoe at the same time. Your stumps a very small, and I don't see it as a problem. And if the termites came, why would'nt they chow on the roots and trees already in the ground? Do they only like dead wood?

     They are costly to haul off, and a hoe, at $65 per hour, can bury a whole lot in an hour.

1. 
   Piffin | Mar 14, 2003 03:54am | #7

   The standard they go by here is that, if you bury them eight feet, you can even build a secondary road over them. That removes them from the oxygen that is needed to feed the critters and keeps them cold enough that any rot would be so slow, it would take a lifetime to be noticeable.

   Bury 'm deep - or not at all!.

   Excellence is its own reward!

1. 
   Don | Mar 14, 2003 05:14am | #8

   Sorry, Piffin. Have a friend who had stumps/logs buried in his front yard. Less than 8 yrs after house finished, ground developed sinkholes that you could literally lose a VW bug in. SD builder brought a trackhoe & cleaned the mess out. Went 28 ft deep. Top of trash was 8 ft deep. Cost SD builder nearly $10,000 to clean up buried mess.

   DonThe GlassMasterworks - If it scratches, I etch it!

1. 
   fdampier5 | Mar 14, 2003 05:55am | #9

   I bury them in my own yard..  They decay slowly when they are as dense as stumps are and the gradual drepression that results is  easily solved with a top dressing of dirt every spring..   I buried mine about 15 feet down and over the past 5 years have had only minor settling.

        Believe me any yard will need top dressing periodically especially one that has been torn up while a house was built..  The dirt around the foundation may settle or where they ran the water, sewer etc. in.

     If you get a load of top dressing hauled in every spring within a few years your yard will start to become billard table smooth.. If not it will develop divits and pools thru normal ground movement..

     

6. 
   hasbeen | Mar 14, 2003 06:08am | #10

   Doesn't anybody think that climate and type of tree would make a big difference?

   There are 50 to 80 year old juniper and black (or Mexican) locust fence posts in use around here (high prairie) that you certainly can't push over!

   Is'nt oak (maybe indivisual varietyies vary:  burr, red, gambel, etc.) generally fairly rot resistant? 

   I can see how lot size might come into this question, as well.  If you are building on 7,500 sqr feet as opposed to 5 or even 40 acres:  different answer.

   It doesn't matter how fast you get there, it just matters that you go in the right direction.

1. 
   fdampier5 | Mar 17, 2003 07:22pm | #16

   my lot is 50 feet wide and I buried the stumps in my front yard..  dug a hole with a bobcat and shoved the stump over into it..  took about an hour of my time and the bobcat was already there..  To bury a stump you will need about 30x30 feet by the time you dig the hole and pile the earth.   as long as you have access to that much space it's a no brainer.. 

         ashes to ashes

         stump to dump,

          dig a big hole

          and save your rump...

1. 
   rez | Mar 18, 2003 02:53am | #17

   Ha! frenchy- the poet.  Feels pretty good getting out from under the press and being able to breath a bit again, huh?

    

    

1. 
   ponytl | Mar 18, 2003 06:37am | #18

   costs me $5.50 a yard to dump  (my truck) I'd take/send em to the dump... a 30yd container around here cost $190 delivered & picked up... end of problem

1. 
   fdampier5 | Mar 19, 2003 02:25am | #20

   Here they send a container back if it contains a tree stump, and our container cost for a 30 yard dumpster is $375.

2. 
   ponytl | Mar 19, 2003 04:31am | #21

   our  C & D landfills still take anything pretty much as long as it's not in 55 gal drums...

   guess we are lucky...   one more good thing about the south ....

   pony

   started out with nothing...and have most of it left

7. 
   GML | Mar 17, 2003 03:37pm | #14

   I live in the Black Hills of SD.Around here , if i cut oak and leave it on the ground for any period of time.It rots ten times faster than pine; must be like filet mignon to those microbe critters. Find a low spot and fill in with stumps and overlay with some soil and they should be gone within a couple of years.

8. 
   BowBear | Mar 18, 2003 07:32pm | #19

   For 50$ cnd I had one about 5' diameter hauled to a trout stream to be used for fish habitat and bank stabilization by the local anglers association. The first go with an excavator failed as it kept toppling the excavator. The second go with a fork failed when a tyne broke, third go, chained to a bucketless excavator worked well!

   An ex-boat builder treading water!