Stump Removal

The stump is the obvious part. It's everything around it that gets people on the phone.

Mower damage is the most common complaint. A stump sitting proud of the lawn takes the edge off your blades, and the surface roots running out from it do the same where you can't see them. Buffalo and kikuyu will hide a root for months.

Then there's regrowth. You cut a tree down and a fortnight later there are twenty shoots around the base, or a line of them tracking across the lawn where a root runs. The tree isn't dead. The trunk's gone, the roots are still alive, and they keep trying. Figs, poincianas, jacarandas and camphor laurels are the usual offenders around here. Cutting the shoots off just makes them come back thicker.

Termites are worth taking seriously in south east Queensland. A dead stump is damp timber sitting in the soil, and subterranean termites hunt exactly that. If they set up in a stump eight metres from your back steps, they've got a nest close to the house with the food already in it. We won't tell you a stump means termites. We'll tell you it's a free feed in the wrong spot.

Trip hazards sound minor until someone goes over. A stump cut flush with the grass is invisible by the second mow, and so is a root that's lifted 20mm out of the lawn.

Then there's the slow stuff. A stump takes years to rot out, and as the timber collapses the soil above it drops away. You end up with a saucer-shaped dip, ant nests, and mushrooms after every wet week. Grass struggles over an old root plate because there's more timber than soil under there.

For builders and pool companies it's a different problem. Timber left under a slab or a pool shell keeps breaking down and the ground settles unevenly on top of it. That's why new build sites get ground deeper than a standard turf job.

As for why Brisbane has so many stumps, it's the age of the suburbs. Mount Gravatt East and Holland Park are full of post-war blocks planted out with big shade trees a metre off the boundary. Tarragindi is much the same, mostly older cottages with a narrow strip down one side. Our clay soils crack in a dry spell and swell again in a wet one, which shifts paths and footings near a big root system. Storm season finishes the job. Every November to March we get calls after a southerly has taken a limb or laid a whole tree over, and the stump is what's left once the make-safe crew has gone.

You ring, and you'll usually get Troy. He still quotes the jobs himself, and you get a written quote before work starts.

Have a look at the stump before you call and be ready to tell us three things: roughly how wide it is across the cut, what the tree was, and how we get to it. A photo of the stump and a photo of the side gate helps more than anything else. Text them through and we know which machine to load.

Small, straightforward stumps we can price off photos. Bigger jobs, multiple stumps, anything with awkward access or a retaining wall in the mix, Troy will come and have a look. No sales pitch at the end of it. You get a straight price and a rough timeframe.

Once you book, we give you a day and an arrival window. Our days start early, from 6am, so we're often on site before the neighbours are up. We knock first, walk the job with you, and confirm the depth you need and where you want the mulch to finish up.

Before a machine turns, we find out what's underground. Water, gas, power, telecommunications, irrigation, pool plumbing, septic. We lodge a Before You Dig Australia enquiry for the property, then we walk it with you, because you know where the sprinkler line and the pool pipe went in better than any plan does. Anything we're unsure of gets marked and we hand dig around it.

Next is protecting the yard. Bog mats go down on soft turf so the machine doesn't rut it, boards or ply go over paths and driveways, and tarps go up against fences, windows, cars and pool fencing to catch the chips. Kids, pets and anyone keen to watch go inside. A grinder throws debris, so the exclusion zone isn't up for negotiation.

Then we grind. The cutting wheel takes the stump down in passes rather than one big bite, working across the face and dropping lower each time. Standard depth is 100 to 200mm below ground level, which suits turf and garden beds. Slabs, pavers, pools and new builds get deeper. We chase the main surface roots out from the stump as well, because that's where the suckers come from and that's what lifts your pavers.

When the stump's out we deal with the hole. Most people want the grindings raked back in, levelled and mounded slightly, because mulch settles over a few weeks. That's the default. If you'd rather the grindings went away, or you want clean fill because turf is going down on Saturday, tell us when you book and we'll price it in.

Last is the clean-up, and it's the part our reviews talk about most. We rake, blow the paths and driveway, pull the mats and tarps, and walk the job with you before we leave. Most single stumps take under an hour on the machine. You can mow it, turf it or plant it out the same week.

Stump grinding is a gear problem as much as a skill problem. The machine that eats a wide camphor laurel stump in an open front yard is useless if it can't get past the meter box.

So we run more than one. The narrow-access grinder is the one that earns its keep around Brisbane: it fits through a standard side gate, goes up and down steps, and gets into courtyards behind townhouses. For open front yards, acreage and big timber we bring a larger machine with more weight and more bite. Out at Eight Mile Plains the blocks are often open enough for the big unit, which means less time on site for you.

The business end is a wheel of tungsten-carbide teeth spinning across the stump face. Teeth get checked and changed regularly, because blunt teeth burn time and fuel and they're harder on the machine. Root chasing happens with the grinder where there's room and by hand where there isn't. Mattock, hand saw, shovel. Slower, but it's how you get a root out from under a path without cracking the concrete.

For the tree side of the business we climb, and we run a spider EWP. That's an elevated work platform on tracks, the same idea as a cherry picker but narrow enough to get into a backyard. If a tree still has to come down before the stump can be ground, we do both and you deal with one crew.

On safety and standards, here's what actually matters to you. Underground services get located before we start, and a Before You Dig Australia enquiry is free, so there's no excuse for skipping it. Any pruning we do follows AS 4373, the Australian standard for pruning amenity trees, which is the difference between a cut that seals over and one that rots. Where a stump sits close to a tree you're keeping, we grind with that tree's root zone in mind, which is the ground AS 4970 covers for protecting trees on development sites. No sense saving a jacaranda and then cutting its structural roots off two metres from the trunk.

We also check for hollows and habitat before anything comes down. Where there's koala habitat we take extra care, because that's what the job needs. Everyone on site is in PPE and the exclusion zone stays clear while the wheel is turning. If you want to watch, watch from the back deck.

Our hours are 7 days, 6am to 6pm. We move fast inside those hours, because Troy runs the diary himself and the crews are all local. Outside them, call any time for emergencies, 24 hours a day.

Storm season is the busy stretch. From November through to March a southerly comes through, limbs come down, and every so often a whole tree goes over. That brings a run of Shailer Park and Rochedale South calls, usually a week or two after the make-safe, once people can see what they're left with.

If a tree is on your house, across a driveway or anywhere near powerlines, don't call us first. Call triple zero if anyone's in danger and get onto Energex for anything touching the wires. Once it's safe, we'll sort the removal and the stump.

Some jobs genuinely can't wait, and we treat them that way. A concreter, turf crew or pool company booked for next week and the stump still in the ground. Settlement on a sale with the stump written into the contract. A termite inspection that found activity in an old stump near the house. A trip hazard where someone's already gone over once.

One bit of practical advice on urgent work: ring us. Send a form at 9pm and we'll see it in the morning. Ring and you'll talk to someone who knows where the trucks are tomorrow. Photos by text in the meantime, and tell us the actual deadline you're working to rather than 'as soon as possible'. We'll tell you straight whether we can hit it.

We started in 2015 with one grinder and a ute. Since then we've picked up plenty of five-star Google reviews from Brisbane yards. Have a read of them. The two things people mention over and over are the clean-up and the straight quote.

Troy still quotes the jobs himself. He'll explain what's about to happen in your yard and why it costs what it costs. You won't get a salesperson, and the quote is in writing before work starts.

It's a family business in the literal sense. Troy's three boys grew up helping on weekends and came in full time as they finished school. They're the ones on the grinder and up the trees now. When it's your own name on the truck and your kids on the job, you don't cut corners in someone's backyard.

We work from our depot at Wishart and cover Brisbane and the bayside. We're regulars for Capalaba and the suburbs out that way, along with everything closer in.

Stumps are the specialty and we've kept them that way on purpose. Plenty of tree companies treat grinding as an afterthought. We started as a stump business and the whole crew grew out of it, so you get people who do this all week and can tell what a fig root plate is going to do before they touch it.

The clean-up is part of the job. Mats down, chips contained, mulch back in the hole, paths blown, and a walk around with you before we go.

Ring Troy on 0400 721 715, or text a photo of the stump and the side gate to the same number. We'll tell you which machine we'd bring and what it'll take.