Stump grinding in the Roanoke Valley

Ground below grade, not shaved flush.

A grinder cuts the stump and the major surface roots down below the level of your lawn -- typically six to twelve inches, more if you are planting something there. Shaving it flush with the ground looks fine for a month and then you have a hard mound in your lawn again as the soil settles. We go deep enough that you can put topsoil over it and forget it existed.

What is left afterward, honestly.

Grinding produces a surprising volume of chips -- a big stump can fill a wheelbarrow several times over. Standard for us is to rake the chips back into the hole, mound them slightly because they will settle, and haul off the excess. If you want the hole filled with clean topsoil and seeded instead, we can do that, it just costs a bit more because the chips have to leave.

What we cannot see going in.

Stumps hide things. Rocks, old fence wire, buried concrete and forgotten utility lines all live in that soil, and any of them can stop a grinder or damage teeth. We call 811 for public utility locates on anything nontrivial, but private lines -- the run out to a shed, an invisible fence, a sprinkler system -- are not covered by that call. If you know where yours are, tell us and mark them.

What stump grinding includes

• Grinding below grade, deeper if you are replanting the spot
• Major surface roots ground back, not just the visible stump
• Chips raked back and mounded, excess hauled away
• 811 utility locate called where the job warrants it
• Site left ready for topsoil, seed or sod