Stump Grinding in Dogwood Park, Portland, TN
Bryan James Lane, yes. Dogwood Park is a five minute run for us and we know it is a single-entry street, so we stage on your lot instead of the lane. Text over a photo and a firm number comes back before the day is out.
The stump waits because the street is one lane
Dogwood Park is one lane of one-level slab homes, mostly around 1,300 square feet with vaulted great rooms, and there is no through route. Whatever sits in the road sits in front of every neighbor you have.
That is why stumps here linger. People put off the call because they can picture the trailer parked sideways and the texts that follow. Meanwhile the maple stump by the corner of the slab is settling, the mulch bed around it has collapsed, and the downspout now drains into the dish it left.
We work off your lot, not the lane
The truck and trailer go in your drive, or up on the grass if you would rather, and the machine walks from there. Nothing sits in the road, nothing blocks the entrance, and if two of you on the lane want work done we do them back to back the same morning so there is one visit instead of two.
Most jobs in this subdivision are a couple of hours from arrival to raking out. If somebody on the street needs a delivery through or a school run out, tell us and we move rather than argue about it.
Stumps against a slab corner
These houses sit on grade with no crawl space, and the landscape trees were set close to the foundation because the lots are shallow. A red maple or a dogwood planted six feet off the slab in 2003 now has roots running under the footing edge and under the downspout splash block.
We take those down 6 to 12 inches below grade and shave the flare off in the direction of the yard, never toward the house. Where a root has grown against the slab we shave rather than pry, because levering a root that is touching a foundation is how you crack something that was fine.
Cedar in the fence line is a slower grind
A fair number of these back yards have red cedar along the rear fence, either planted or volunteer off the old pasture ground this subdivision sits on. Cedar stumps do not rot out on their own the way a poplar will. They stay solid for decades, and the wood is stringy enough that it wraps rather than chips clean.
Expect a cedar to take longer than a maple of the same diameter, and expect a fibrous, shreddy pile instead of a neat one. It makes good mulch for a fence line if you want it left.
What we do in Dogwood Park
Bryan James Lane questions
Where will your trailer sit while you work?
In your driveway or on your grass, whichever you prefer. We do not park in the lane here because it is the only way in and out for the whole street. If your drive is full, tell us when you book and we will plan to unload at the curb and move the truck straight off.
The stump is about four feet from the house - too close?
No. Four feet is comfortable working distance. We come at it from the yard side so the wheel is always throwing away from the wall, and we put up a screen for the last passes so nothing hits the siding. Tell us if there is a crawl vent or a dryer duct low on that wall.
Do you charge extra for a small subdivision like ours?
No. There is a minimum service call that applies everywhere, but nothing about being on a short street changes it. Five minutes from our base is about as cheap as a job gets for us, and there is no travel line on the invoice.
Can you get the grindings out of my mulch bed instead of leaving them?
Yes, and on these small lots most people ask for that. Ground wood comes back at two or three times the volume of the stump you can see, so a bed that looked plenty big before will not hold it. We rake the bed clean, backfill the void with what came out of the ground, and load the rest.