Stump Grinding in Mauriceville, TX

Stump Grinding & Removal Services in Mauriceville, TX

Walk the old fence line on a Mauriceville tract and you can usually find where the fence used to be by the stumps. Somebody cut the tallow back years ago, the stumps stayed, the wire grew into some of them, and the brush came up around the rest. Closer to the house there is often a stump or two from the shade trees that came down in a hurricane and were cut up where they fell. Both kinds can be dealt with on one visit, and they usually need different methods.

Mauriceville is unincorporated country in the north of Orange County, and land here tends to stay in a family for a long time. That means stumps pile up. Rita and Ike each took crowns out of trees across this area, and Harvey and Imelda soaked the ground long enough that root plates on the low side of tracts let go. When those trees were cleared, the trunks and limbs were dealt with and the stumps were left, and on forty acres nobody gets around to the stumps until they start causing trouble. The fence lines carry the most. Chinese tallow grows along every wire in this part of the county, and cutting it at ground level does nothing to the roots, which put up new shoots right away. Older fence lines also hide wire, staples and the odd T-post grown into a trunk, and those go through a grinder wheel badly. Before any fence line stump is ground or pulled, we look for metal. A stump that has grown around a strand of barbed wire or an old staple gives no sign of it from the outside, and the first hint is usually the sound of the grinder hitting it. Around the house, the stumps are usually water oak and pecan, the trees planted for shade and let grow big and close. They sit beside the porch, the well head or the septic field, which is ground where you want the smallest disturbance possible. The soil is the same heavy Gulf Coast clay found across the county, draining slowly south through Cow Bayou toward the Neches and the Sabine. It holds water for a long time after a rain, and running a loaded machine across a wet pasture leaves ruts that will not grow grass. Most drives here cross a ditch on an old culvert, and that crossing has to carry the equipment before any stump work starts. Late summer through fall is the time the ground usually allows it.

Fence lines and pasture stumps are excavator work. The excavator with a thumb pulls each stump with its root plate, which is the only way to stop tallow coming back from the roots, and lays the root balls where they can be loaded or burned. Holes are backfilled and compacted, then dressed so the pasture can be mowed or grazed. If the wire is staying, the machine works along it; if the fence is coming out with the stumps, say so and it becomes one job. Stumps by the house are ground. The grinder takes each one below grade without opening up the ground beside a well or a septic line, and the surface roots are followed as far as you want. 811 locates the public lines, such as the electric service along the road, but not your private ones, such as the well line, the line to the barn or the septic, so we walk those with you first. Where lawn is going back, the chips come out and topsoil goes in, which we deliver, and the spot is leveled. Material is the next decision. On rural ground, burning root balls is often the cheapest ending, but Orange County burn bans come and go and TCEQ outdoor burning rules apply regardless, so the current position is confirmed rather than assumed. If burning is off, the material is ground into mulch or hauled off. Stumps are never buried in the pasture, since a buried stump rots and leaves the ground sinking over it. A stump job on a Mauriceville tract often turns up more work: a fence line that is more tallow than fence, a corner of the pasture that holds water, a drive crossing that is falling in. The same crew and machines handle those without a second mobilization.