That one job where I fought a stump for 3 hours and lost

I took on a fence post removal in my own backyard thinking it'd be a quick afternoon thing. Turned out the oak stump had roots wrapped around a buried pipe from the old house. Three hours turned into a whole Saturday with a borrowed mini excavator and a lot of sweat. Now I always scout under the ground before I even touch a post hole. Has anyone else hit a surprise underground obstacle on a simple project?

3 comments

3 Comments

torres.thea1mo ago

oh man, i feel this one way too hard. i once spent a whole afternoon fighting what i thought was a small bush root, only to discover it was actually twisting around an old septic line. i mean, three hours and a lost battle with a stump? that's basically a rite of passage at this point. my back still yells at me when i think about that day. idk why we always think "oh it'll be quick" when digging stuff up, feels like the ground just hides all its secrets until you're already too sweaty to quit.

murray.jana1mo ago

Thea @torres.thea that septic line part is rough, but actually roots don't really "twist" around pipes like that, they just grow right into the cracks or joints if there's already a leak. I learned that the hard way too, after a long afternoon of what I thought was a tangled mess turned out to be a root searching for water in an old clay pipe.

hall.joel1mo ago

Three hours and a stump you couldn't beat. I get that. But I gotta push back on the idea that roots only go into already cracked pipes. I've seen them wrap around intact cast iron like a python, squeezing until the pipe cracks from the pressure. Happened to my neighbor's place last summer. A big maple root literally bent a four inch line out of shape. The pipe wasn't leaking before that root decided to hug it.