Impregnating a tree stump for burning out?

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

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

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!

SBK Sarcastic Bugger Killfiled.

G.Harman

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.

Just a thought, thermite ?

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.

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.

Silly Barsteward Knew.

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.

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

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

Cylinder of liquid oxygen and a long pipe?

I refrained from mentioning Honey Fungus :-)

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

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.)

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

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