Renting a stump grinder sounds like the frugal option, and for one small stump in an open yard it can be. We grind stumps every week across Marietta and Cobb County, so here is the honest comparison our crew gives homeowners who ask.
What a rental actually involves
Home improvement stores and equipment yards around Metro Atlanta rent walk-behind grinders by the half day or full day. You will also need a truck or trailer with a ramp to move a machine that weighs several hundred pounds, a way to get it through your gate, safety glasses and hearing protection, and a plan for the pile of chips and dirt it leaves behind. Budget the whole day, not the hour the store quotes you.
Rental grinders have a small cutting wheel and a low-horsepower engine. They handle a soft stump 8 to 12 inches across in an hour or so of steady work. On a hardwood stump 20 inches across, or one with surface roots running under a walkway, you will spend the day and still not get 4 to 6 inches below grade, which is the depth you need to sod or plant over the spot.
Where it goes wrong
Three things bring people to us after a rental weekend. The machine could not reach the roots, so the lawn keeps sinking as they rot. The wheel hit a rock, a piece of fence or an irrigation line, which is on the renter’s bill. Or the stump was closer to a foundation, sidewalk or gas line than it looked, and the job stopped halfway. Rental grinders also do not have the guarding or the operator training that keeps flying chips and stone out of your shins and windows.
What hiring it out looks like
Our grinders are tracked or narrow-wheelbase machines with a much larger cutting wheel, so a stump that takes a rental unit all day is done in twenty minutes to an hour. We grind to the depth you need, locate marked utilities and irrigation first, work within inches of a foundation or fence, and either rake the grindings back level or haul them off. Standalone grinding is priced by stump diameter with a minimum charge, and it drops per stump when there are several on the same visit.
Our rule of thumb
Rent if you have one stump under about 10 inches across, in the open, in soft ground, and you enjoy the work. Hire it out if the stump is hardwood, larger than a dinner plate, near anything you care about, or if there is more than one. For most Marietta yards the second list is the one that applies, and the price difference after you count the rental, the truck and the day is smaller than people expect.
Have a stump you want gone? Richmond Tree Experts has worked on Marietta and Metro Atlanta trees since 1985, and every job is looked at by an ISA Certified Arborist before it is priced. Start with stump grinding, or see everything we do: tree removal, stump grinding and arborist services across Cobb, Fulton, Cherokee, Gwinnett and DeKalb counties (service areas).
Call (770) 974-3964, 7am to 11pm every day, or request an estimate online.
