Impregnating a tree stump for burning out?

[Martin Brown]

If you are serious then the only chance you stand and it is an outside chance at that is to drill a large number of 1" holes into the top as deep as you can and pack them with potassium nitrate fertiliser. Leave for about a year refilling as necessary and then after the longest hot dry spell you get build a fire on top and cross your fingers that the impregnation of the nitrate is enough to make it smoulder away until underground. It may still be too wet in which case you are stumped.

This sort of works but it also primes the wood for fungi to take hold and I got a spectacular chicken of the woods on my former pear tree stump. The ground where it was is still subsiding as the deeper roots were not eliminated by this method. In the end I prized the last bits up with a scaffold pole using an axe to cut the tap root. YMMV

I'd tend to favour digging it out.

[Tim Watts]

or just hire a bloke with a stump grinder in and get instant satisfaction.

[Martin]

or a machine with a stump removing attachment that will pull out the whole thing roots and all.

[Tim Watts]

Must check those out...

Having destroyed lots of spade bits on a single stump, sometimes DIY is not always the most straightforward course of action!

[damduck-egg]

SBK Sarcastic Bugger Killfiled.

G.Harman

[Jethro_uk]

Can you get to the edge of the stump ? If so, dig around as much as you can (I appreciate you've said it's tight) and the chop all the roots off, and lift the (heavy !) stumpball out.

When we moved in, we cut down an old apple tree, and I wanted to put a shed on slabs, where the stump was. I tried *everything* sort of dynamite to burn it out (diesel, petrol, white spirit. Drilling holes all in, filling it with liquid, setting it alight, seeing it flare for a few minutes, and then die out.

In the end I chopped it out.

[Jethro_uk]

Just a thought, thermite ?

[Jethro_uk]

[Martin Brown]

Too fast and violent. A bit like throwing petrol on a bonfire.

The only method that stands a chance is to saturate the wet wood with potassium nitrate and wait until it is the dryest day and then light a bonfire on top. You need both dry wood and oxygen to make it burn.

With any luck it will smoulder away deep into the ground, perhaps with the addition of some extra brushwood on top from time to time.

My burn attempts served only to hollow and weaken the large stump into three manageable pieces that I could then crowbar out with scaffold poles. Eventually they were dry enough to go in the wood burning stove.

[Martin]

Our local authority used a machine with an attachment to pull trees out the pavement after cutting the trunks off about a metre above the ground.

[Martin]

Silly Barsteward Knew.

[Spider]

I'm glad it worked for you. In principle, it's a good idea, but you could have introduced Honey Fungus or other problems. I wouldn't recommend it.

[Spider]

The OP said there wasn't access for a stump grinder.

[Spider]

A *termite* would enjoy doing it, but then it would probably eat all the wood in your house :-/

[philipuk]

Cylinder of liquid oxygen and a long pipe?

[Martin]

I refrained from mentioning Honey Fungus :-)

[Martin]

Thermite is a bit hotter than a termite. :-)

[Martin Bonner]

Possibly. In practise though, there's probably Honey Fungus (*) spores already present in the garden. All he's done is increased the dose on the stump. If there was a dying tree adjacent to the stump, bringing in the rot might hasten it's end, but that's all.

(I am assuming that "the forest" is within a couple of miles, rather than 50 miles away.)

*: Or whatever the NZ equivalent is.

[Spider]

Until now. Copy cat. Nah nah nah nah nah :~)

[Spider]

Is that because it swallowed an 'h' for hot? ;~)