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I blew $600 on a stump grinder rental when my old method would have done the job in two extra hours
I want to save somebody else the headache here. Back in March I rented a walk behind stump grinder from the place over on Route 9 for a job in Amherst, and with the daily rate, the trailer, the fuel, and the blade wear charge it came to just about $600 for one day. The stump was a 22 inch maple that the homeowner wanted gone so he could put a shed there. I had done maybe a dozen stumps that size before with just my chainsaw, a mattock, and a hand axe, cutting the root flare and chopping out the main mass over an afternoon. It is not fun work and my shoulders feel it the next day, but it gets done. The grinder ate the stump in 40 minutes, which felt great right up until the hydraulic line started weeping and I had to shut it down and call the rental yard. They charged me for the downtime anyway because the damage clause said operator error. I spent more time on the phone arguing about that line than I would have spent swinging a mattock. If you are a one or two person outfit doing stumps under 24 inches, do the math on how many stump jobs per year actually need machinery before you sign a rental agreement. Has anyone found a yard that will rent a grinder without the wear charge, or am I stuck buying used if I want to make this pencil out?
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jana_jones18d ago
Grinder pays for itself when you hit buried rocks.
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