Have any of you ever burned out old stumps?

Philip d

Well-known Member
There?s 7 or 8 old getting rotten stumps in my mother?s yard that are still way too solid to move with a rugged farm loader. The only ways I can see of getting rid of them are1, rent a stump grinder,2 hire an excavator,3 wait 20 years to rot or possibly 4, burn em out. I?ve seen a few videos on burning them and just wondering if any of you have successfully done it? Do they smoulder for days or burn up fairly quickly? I have a metal fire pit ring that?s about a foot high that?s big enough to go around then and there?s no nearby living trees and the closest one to a building is about 30?. Good idea bad idea? No we don?t have right next door neighbours, closest one is near a 1/8 mile.
 
I had one about 2 feet in diameter. I cut the ends out of a 55 gallon barrel and set the rest of it over the stump. Then I put about 60 lbs of charcoal in and lit it. It took a couple of days to burn. It was a cottonwood stump about 6 inches high.
 
Think of a stump as a wick, try to clear as much soil from around the base as possible ,cover stump when not working on it try to keep rain off. I used a pick madox and chipped away the center poured oil motor oil and charcoal in the void and burn it out. but keep it dry.
 
I burned some Box Elder stumps, and one Pine stump out. Took a coupla days. I drilled the stumps with a 1" bit first and poured some old motor oil down the holes a few days before I lit the fire. Also took a chain saw and put some grooves in the bigger ones across the tops. The holes are all filled now and grass has been seeded over them.
 
like others have said saturate with oil. I place a couple of old planter gauge wheel tires and charcoal on the stump and then cover with brush or old pallets and let it burn.
 
I've burned them out,what wood is left will char and never rot.My advice is get the stump grinder everything below the surface will gradually rot away.Digging them out will make a huge mess.
 
Morning: how about rounding up some 1 inch rope/chains and hooking about a dozen of those walking hamburgers to it??

Just a thought..where we have a full fire ban here, I assume you still have some snow cover, if you know the fire dept chief,
maybe mention that you are doing stumps and..IF...someone calls in it as a wild brush and world ending disaster of all HE!!
taking place in the front yard...no need to respond to a simple wiener roast :)
keep your taters on the ice...
 


Stumps of any size cannot be burned legally. The basic problem with burning a stump out is the OLD fire triangle. Oxygen is needed, and a stump has very little surface area for oxygen to get to the fuel, so it is going to take time, and you are required by law to attend it constantly. Unless you stay with it all night you will be breaking the law. An alternative is to drill 1/2 or larger holes down into it, and introduce "stump remover" and water.
 
I haven't tryed it but be told to drill a bunch of holes in it and pour ice meld in the holes. the stump will rot faster
 
yes have burned stump ,remember there are underground roots that the fire follows and can burn for a long time and get a long way from the original fire could burn a building???
 
I voe for the stump grinder. Don't take them out 20 inches deep, just 3-4 inches. remove the chips, and cover with soil. One day rental, no fire danger no smoke, no irritable family, over with. Jim
 
Ive never tried it personnaly because I have no stumps, but the method that kito169 mentioned is starting to get poplar in my area.
 
I make stump covers.
Use landscaping timbers, cover stump with dirt and make a raised flower bed.
Today's landscaping timbers are lucky to last 10 years before they are gone. By that time most stumps are gone too. Then I move flowers to another location, removed dirt, and covered with zoysia sod.

A neighbor would pick up sticks and burn them over a stump. It took him many years to burn out the stump.
That concerns me that he could catch something on fire.

I heard of a lady a few miles away was burning leaves, went to town, came home and her house was totally on fire.

Hiring someone grind them out may be the fastest way.
geo.
 
Pics of 11 year old stump I removed from my stump cover.
cvphoto257.jpg

Wasn't difficult to remove.
I removed dirt, leveled it, and covered with sod on pallet.
cvphoto258.jpg

George
 
I have burned out stumps a couple of times and also had a stump grinder here once and took care of about 5. I have also let Mother Nature work on them for a while and then use a chain saw, ax and splitting maul to attack them ( not bad to do on small ones. ) I would agree with the other posts- start to cover them when it rains to help them dry out.. I have drilled holes and poured old oil on them too. If it is all lawn around them you should be fine, if not rake away any leaves etc. Are they hardwood or softwood stumps? I have found that an old hardwood (maple) stump will burn for a couple days once you get it going and will burn some of the roots. A half rotten spruce or white pine is hard to get burning unless you get it kind of dry then start a fire on top of it with brush and sticks. If they are fairly soft they might grind up fairly easy. My neighbor once rented a stump grinder and he came up and ground out 5 or 6 small to medium softwood stumps for me. That worked out well too and didn?t take all that long. As mentioned you only need to go down 4-5? below ground. Never tried the charcoal method but it sounds interesting and you could cook up some steaks at the same time. I cooked steak over the maple stump when I burned it.
 
That?s all good advice thank you. I know the local fire chief,I?ll ask him his feeling on it and see what the verdict is. If he says don?t do it, I?ll see about renting a grinder when it dries up. It?s still very wet here right now and some snow left to go. On second count there?s only 2 maybe 3 that are still high enough that need to be cut around with a weed eater.
 
When clearing land and removing trees in non lawn areas, I build the brush piles around the stumps. Simply wait awhile and burn the brush pile.

Works well for a tree or two but takes lots of wood for 7 or 8 stumps.

I've gone the stump grinder route in my lawn, but there is still considerable work remaining after the stumps are ground out if you want grass to grow within 5+ years and/or do not want a depression where the stump and roots once were.

Dean
 
Google char pit stumps- there are a couple of books on there that explain the process. Basically, you dig as far under the stump as you can and set a fire, then cover the whole thing up with sod or dirt. It turns everything to charcoal, and whatever is left above ground can easily be pulled out because the root system is gone. My dad did it on ground he was clearing back in the '30's- said it really works once you get the hang of it.
 
Drill a bunch of holes in it then get some liquid nitrogen fertilizer and pour in holes speeds up rotting.

Pete
 
I pull them using the 3 point with a toolbar. This is one I pulled a couple days ago. It was a blowdown Douglas Fir from 4 years ago. Just starting to get a bit of rot. Dug around a bit of it so I could chain around the bigger roots. Wiggle it and pull and re-position and repeat and pretty soon she rolls out.

mvphoto52046.jpg


Then gather it up to the toolbar with a couple chains and binders and haul to the old stump pile.

mvphoto52047.jpg
 
I bought a product that you drill out holes in the stump then fill with powder then soak in kerosene and light . It did not work . Stump grinders are cheap here in Florida. I would hire a guy.
 
There are, of course, lots of ways to get rid of a stump, depending on your time frame, budget, equipment available, local regulations, etc. etc., but if you do choose to burn them, the process is pretty straightforward. I recently helped a relative get rid of a fair-sized elm stump by covering it with half a 55-gallon drum I had handy, then adding some dry wood to get it started and using an old furnace blower and various pieces of scrap pipe and ducting to make a forced-air blower. I capped the last chunk of pipe and drilled a series of holes on one side of it to blow air directly on the bottom of the fire, much like the tuyere in a forge, and moved it around every few hours as the stump burned. It took a couple days to completely burn the stump, but when we were done there was nothing left above ground and he was able to rake out several inches of ash below ground and re-cover the area and seed grass over top so you would not know a tree had ever been there. Total cost was only whatever little bit of electricity the blower took and all the components were saved for the next time we need to burn a stump. You could do the same thing with your fire ring and practically any source of forced air, though you'll need to keep an eye on the proceedings to make sure things don't get out of hand.
 
I do not like to burn them, seems to turn them into petrified wood, then they never rot. Don't tear up a piece of equipment trying to remove them, hire it out, will be cheaper.
 
(quoted from post at 11:01:19 04/06/20) Specifically, What law is it that doesn't allow you to burn a stump?
Most localities that I'm aware of have burn bans in effect in early spring.
 
The open burn policies vary considerably from one area to another.

In some areas you could use dynamite, other areas you could not do it all.

Check your local fire chief.

Larry
 
(quoted from post at 08:01:19 04/06/20) Specifically, What law is it that doesn't allow you to burn a stump?

jddrawbar, Open fires have to be attended. If you are going to stay up all night with it then provided a permit is acquired if required it will of course be legal. You don't want to leave it smoldering then have the wind come up and set buildings on fire.
 
A fifth option is to use a chemical stump remover to speed up the rotting process. That has worked OK for me. One brand is Spectracide. Cutting the stump off at or below ground level and covering the top of the stump in dirt after treatment seems to help too.

If your mother lives in town, I would not attempt to burn it as it could smolder for days or weeks until a neighbor calls the fire department or the police. 1/8 mile is still pretty close if the wind happens to blow smoke into a neighbors house for a few hours. Smoke smell is hard to get rid of, especially when it is someone else's fault.
 
Yes, I've burned out a few stumps over the years but mine were not large, maybe 18" to 2' diameter. I bought a roasting kettle with handles and a lid at a garage sale for $2, cut the bottom out of it and placed it over the stump. Put a large amount of charcoal in it, douse it with a little gasoline, light it up and put the lid on it. The charcoal will burn for many hours. When replenishing the charcoal I would move the kettle to an unburned area and, in my case, 2 days later the stump was gone. A stump this size took about 15 pounds of charcoal.
 

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