PIERCE
LAND
CLEARING
Stumps come out two ways here, and which one you need depends entirely on what is going on that ground next. If it is dirt work, the stump and the root ball get dug out. If it is clearing, the head takes the top down and the root stays where it is. We will tell you which one your job actually needs, including when the answer is neither.
If a slab, a pad, a road bed or a tank is going where the tree was, the stump and the root ball have to leave. That is excavator or dozer work: the crown comes up, the taproot follows, the hole gets closed and the ground gets compacted back. Nothing you build on later settles into a rotting root.
If the ground is going back to pasture, trail or open acreage, the mulching head takes the stump down level and the root stays in the soil to rot on its own schedule. It is faster, it costs less, and for most acreage it is genuinely the right answer.
Stump grinding is its own trade with its own machine, and we do not run one. Cutting a stump flush and calling it done is the cheapest bid on a construction site and the most expensive outcome, because the root is still there when the slab goes down. If flush grinding is what you want, you want a stump grinding outfit.
Tell us what is going on that ground next and we will tell you which method it needs. Getting this wrong costs real money in one direction or the other: digging out ground that only needed mulching, or mulching ground that a builder is about to pour on. There is a longer note on taking stumps out without tearing up the ground around them, written from a Lampasas job.
The most common call we get. The trees are down, the ground is open, and the stumps are the part nobody thought about until the tractor caught one. If it is going back to pasture we mulch them down. If something is getting built, they come out.
Roots under a slab are a settlement problem waiting for a wet year. Every stump and root crown comes out of the footprint before the dirt work starts, which is why our own dirt crews will not build on ground that has not been cleaned to that standard.
Old fence rows are full of stumps that stop a post driver and eat tyres. Same on a drive you want to widen. Usually mulched rather than dug, unless the line is being rebuilt properly.
Cut stumps that resprout are how brush comes back twice as thick. Where regrowth is the enemy the root has to go, which is grubbing rather than stump work, and we will say so rather than sell you the lighter job.
What comes out has to go somewhere. Stacked in rows for drying and burning is the economical answer, hauled off is the expensive one, and mulching the tops while stacking the crowns usually splits the difference.
Not our work, and we would rather say it here than on the phone. See the pricing below for why, and call a tree service or a stump grinder instead. They will do it better and for a fraction of what we would have to charge.
Whichever method the job needs. Mulching down runs at our published mulcher rates: $3,000 per day for a skid steer mulcher with transport included, $4,000 per day plus transport for a high horsepower machine. Digging out is dozer or excavator work at $3,000 per day plus transport. Our published price page carries the full arithmetic.
On every machine we run. A lowboy, a machine and an operator all have to turn up whether there are two stumps or two hundred, so the smallest job we can take is a day. That is the honest reason we are the wrong call for a single stump in a back garden.
Stem size and root age first, because an old-growth taproot fights harder than a young one. Then how many, how spread out they are, how far the machine walks between them, and what happens to the material afterwards. Ground conditions and rock underneath round it out.
Stump grinding, single residential stumps, and anything where a tree service would serve you better and cheaper. We would rather point you somewhere else than take a day rate off you for work that does not need one.
Quote first, walk after you approve it. Same order as every trade we run.
Photos of the stumps, a rough count or acreage, and what is going on that ground next. That last part is what decides the method, so it matters more than the count.
Machine days on paper: the machine, the days, transport, and what happens to the material. Priced from ground we have already worked rather than from a guess.
Once you approve the estimate we walk it together: access, staging, which stumps are coming out against which are getting mulched, and where the material ends up.
The lowboy brings whichever machine the method needs. We stage where you tell us and work around gates and stock.
Dug and closed, or mulched level, depending on what the quote says. You are welcome on site, outside the swing radius.
A slow lap around the finished ground together, against the quote. Holes closed, material where it was agreed, keepers still standing.
Mesquite resprouts from the crown below ground and comes back thicker than what you took down, so cutting it flush buys you about two years. That is the whole argument for taking the root. Cedar is a different problem entirely: it does not resprout from a cut stump, it reseeds. Cutting cedar genuinely gets rid of that tree, and what comes back arrives as seedlings from elsewhere.
People price off what they can see. On a mature hardwood the root plate can be several times the visible diameter, which is why a stump that looks like ten minutes turns into an hour and why we quote in days rather than per stump.
A root left under a pad does not stay put. It breaks down, the volume goes, and the ground above it settles unevenly. You do not find out for a couple of years, and by then it is a slab problem rather than a dirt problem.
Plenty of acreage does not need stumps out at all. If it is going back to grass and nothing is getting built, mulching the tops and leaving the roots is cheaper, faster and perfectly sound. We would rather sell you that than the version with more machine days in it.
Fast response to my inquiries. Great to work with! They went above and beyond to help me out with some root balls and lots of trees from the ice storm. We will be using them again.
Eric Wood, Google review
Just had a fence line for a 50 acre tract cleared. Some ravines, trees, trash trees. It is amazing! Will with his magic machine cleared that path and much more. Stumps, dead trees, things that the pioneers could have only dreamed of.
Jeannie Thurmond, Google review
From the moment I saw this forestry machine on their website, I not only believed it would get the job done but I desperately wanted one. To say it got the job done is a gross understatement. Cedar trees have no chance!
David McFadden, Google review
Stump work follows clearing work, so it tracks where the clearing is. Most of our stump calls come out of Parker County and the Aledo corridor, where cedar and post oak get taken off small acreage and the stumps turn out to be the part nobody planned for. The rest come from the Hill Country, where cedar removal leaves crowns behind, and from build sites around Fort Worth and San Antonio where a slab is going down and roots cannot stay under it.
This is priced by the machine day with a one day minimum, which means it suits a lot or a tract with a stump problem rather than a single stump in a front yard. If you have one stump, a stump grinding outfit will be cheaper, and we will tell you that on the phone.
Honestly, no, and you would not want us to. Our smallest job is a machine day, which starts at $3,000, because a lowboy and an operator have to turn up either way. A tree service or a stump grinding outfit will do a single stump better and for a fraction of that. Call one of them.
No. Stump grinding is its own trade with its own machine and we do not run one. We either dig the stump and root ball out with an excavator or dozer, or mulch the top down with a forestry head, depending on what is going on that ground next.
Mostly scale and intent. Stump work is the stumps themselves. Grubbing is taking a whole stand out by the root so brush does not come back. If you are dealing with regrowth across acreage rather than a handful of stumps, grubbing is the page you want.
Mesquite does, vigorously, from the crown below ground, and it comes back thicker than what you took down. Cedar does not: it will not resprout from a cut stump, it reseeds instead, so regrowth arrives as seedlings rather than from the stump you cut. Which one you are dealing with decides whether the root has to come out at all.
If a slab, pad, road bed or tank is going over them, yes. A root left underneath breaks down, loses volume, and the ground above it settles unevenly. You find out about it a couple of years later as a slab problem rather than a dirt problem.
Stacked in rows for drying and burning is the economical answer, hauling off is the expensive one, and mulching the tops while stacking the crowns usually splits the difference. Whichever you choose is a written line in the quote.
Priced in machine days. Mulching runs at $3,000 per day for a skid steer mulcher with transport included, or $4,000 per day plus transport for a high horsepower machine. Digging out is dozer or excavator work at $3,000 per day plus transport. One day is the minimum on all of them.
Yes. We run statewide, and transport is a line on the quote that reflects the distance. Send photos and your county and we will tell you honestly whether the travel makes sense for the size of the job.
Send photos and tell us what is going in there. You will have a ballpark in machine days the same day, and an honest answer about which method it actually needs.