Engle, TX 5 Acre Tree Pile Shredding and Forestry Mulching Project
Proudly serving Engle, Texas
A landowner near Engle in Fayette County had twelve large tree piles sitting across five acres, left behind by earlier clearing. We put the Weiler M860A on them and turned the whole lot into a mulch layer spread back over the ground it came off, over two days on site.
Weiler M860A parked on the finished mulched ground near Engle Texas
Twelve piles sitting on five acres
Piles like these are what is left when a property gets cleared and nobody deals with the debris. Cut brush, limbs and whole small trees get pushed into heaps and then they sit. They take up usable ground, they hold moisture and snakes, and every year they get harder to do anything with as grass grows up through them.
There were twelve of them spread across roughly five acres near Engle. The pasture between them was already open, mostly dry grass with trees along the edges, so this was not clearing land so much as recovering the parts of it the piles had taken out of service.
Why we shred piles instead of burning or hauling them
A burn pile needs the right weather, the right burn ban status and somebody sitting on it until it is dead out. Hauling means a grapple truck, a trailer, fuel and somewhere to take it, and the cost climbs with every load. Running a mulcher through the pile costs machine time and leaves the material on the ground where it came from.
The Weiler M860A is a high horsepower tracked mulcher. It works a pile from the outside in, taking the top and the face down in passes rather than trying to swallow the whole thing, and the head keeps recutting the material until it lies flat. What comes out is a mulch layer, not a heap of chunks.
What the ground looks like now
All twelve piles are gone. The mulch is spread across the footprints where they stood, thin enough that grass comes back through it and thick enough to keep the dirt covered into the fall. The trees around the edges were not touched. The owner has five acres of usable pasture again instead of five acres with twelve obstacles in it.
What this project cost
- Twelve piles across five acres
- Two days at the high horsepower mulcher day rate
- Debris left on site as mulch
- No burning and no hauling
- Machine transport into Fayette County
The high horsepower mulcher runs at $4,000 a day plus transport, so two days on the ground is where that number comes from. Pile work is priced by machine time, not by the acre, because the acreage tells you nothing about how much material is actually sitting on it. Five acres with twelve big piles on it is more work than fifteen acres of light brush. We quote after we see the piles.
Questions we get about pile work
How long does it take to mulch a tree pile?
It depends on how big the pile is, what is in it and how green the material still is. The twelve near Engle took two days with the M860A. A single large pile on its own is usually a half day or less.
Do you haul the debris off?
No. Mulching turns the pile into a mulch layer that stays on the ground where the pile was. Nothing leaves the property and there is no dump fee.
Will the mulch smother my grass?
Spread thin it will not, and grass comes back up through it. Left in a deep heap it will smother whatever is under it, which is why we spread as we go instead of building a new pile out of mulch.
Can you do this during a burn ban?
Yes. There is no fire involved, so a burn ban does not stop the work.
Do you work in Fayette County?
Yes. Engle, La Grange, Round Top, Schulenburg and the rest of the county are inside our normal working area.
Before and after
Land clearing around Engle
We work the country around Engle regularly, across Fayette County and the counties next to it.
Got piles sitting on ground you want back?
Tell us how many and how big and we will tell you what a day looks like.
Call 512-400-2693