Stump righting

[swamptrac]

I have several trees along a fence line in the woods that fell over from tornado damage. I have cut them back to about 3 to 4 feet from the root ball and just want to push/pull them back into an upright position with my tractor so I can repair/replace the fence line. What is the best way to do this?

 

[woodlandfarms]

I doubt you can without more work than you want. You will need to remove all the dirt that has fallen into the hole where they were originally. Come along might work, large track hoe then to right the stumps.

If they are over, it should be easier to finish popping them out than try to upright something that is going to rot away

 

[k0ua]

I don't understand why you would want to push the stumps back upright. If that is what you want to do, it should be easy,, just push them back up with your FEL, after you get them up off of the ground a little bit they will continue on their own as the root ball falls back in the hole. But why would you want to do that?

I would wallow the stumps and root balls around with the loader to get as much dirt off as possible, then cut off as much trunk off as I could, then pull the stumps away from the fence line to rebuild the fence..

 

[swamptrac]

I have no where to put the stumps if I pull them. They are in the woods and won't be in the way but I need the root ball back in the ground to replace two sections of privacy fence. Thought just pushing them upright would be the quickest and easiest solution. I thought using the FEL would be easiest since they have only been down for two months but some people have told be to use a chain and pull them back into position. That option just doesn't seem safe to me.
Thanks for the input.

 

[k0ua]

sometimes when you cut the majority of the tree off the root ball will overturn back by by its own weight. I don't think your front end loader will have any trouble lifting the cut end and shoving it back to upright it.

 

[swamptrac]

I had three that popped back up when I cut them back but 2 didn't - always at least one that doesn't work!

 

[lostcreekranch]

Why not get the stumps out of the way and backfill holes with dirt? Get as much dirt off of the stumps and add more dirt as needed to fill holes. Use your tractor to pack the dirt and add more dirt untill level.

Burn stumps after they dry out.

 

[Dr_Zinj]

Make sure that nothing and nobody is in the root hole when you cut the trunk off. I seem to recall a guy killing his little grandson that way. Little tyke was down playing in the dirt when Grams was cutting up a blow down.

 

[k0ua]

I had three that popped back up when I cut them back but 2 didn't - always at least one that doesn't work!

Cut another foot off the stump!:laughing:

Yeah sometimes they don't pop back because they are pointing downhill or something like that. But I can't imagine it being much trouble to lift one with a loader and get it back upright.

 

[k0ua]

Make sure that nothing and nobody is in the root hole when you cut the trunk off. I seem to recall a guy killing his little grandson that way. Little tyke was down playing in the dirt when Grams was cutting up a blow down.

Yep, been more than one little child killed that way.