A guide for Lewisville, NC yards
What to Do With Wood Chips After Stump Grinding in Lewisville
The machine leaves a mound of chips where the stump was, and it is yours to keep, spread or have taken away. Here is how much one stump makes, why the pile goes back in the hole, what it is worth as mulch, and what haul-off adds to the quote.
Free, no-obligation estimates. Say on the call whether the chips stay or go, and the whole job is quoted before we start.
Wood chips after stump grinding in Lewisville
Grinding turns the stump into a mound of shredded wood mixed with dirt, and that mound is what is left on the spot. The stump grinder is a high-speed cutting disk with fixed carbide teeth, and it shaves the stump and the top of its root ball into small chips, pass after pass, until the cut sits six to twelve inches "below grade". Every pass throws chips, bark and clay to the side, so by the time the last of the stump is gone a loose heap sits beside a hole. The trade calls the heap "spoil", and it is never clean chips: it is the shavings of the stump, the bark that came off it, and the red Piedmont clay the wheel cut through on the way down, all mixed together.
That is the pile this page is about. On a standard residential job the crew rakes the "chip-and-soil mix" straight back into the hole, levels it, and clears the debris around it before leaving, so most Lewisville owners never lift a shovel. A stump that stood behind a gate or beside a patio gets the same treatment, since the rake goes wherever the machine went. What is left after that is the surplus. The mound sits higher than the lawn because the stump that came out of the ground had a volume of its own, and loose shavings take up more room than the solid trunk did. How much room is the first thing people ask.
How much one stump makes
A stump can make roughly its own volume again in loose chips, so a wide one leaves a mound well above the lawn. The wheel takes the stump down to six to ten inches under the surface, and everything it cuts comes out as shavings that no longer pack together the way the solid trunk did. A foot-wide crepe myrtle stub leaves a heap you would rake flat in a minute. A thirty-inch oak with its root flare leaves a pile that fills the hole and still stands a few inches proud once it is raked in, and a row of them along a fence line leaves a ridge. Width at the base drives the volume, and it also sets the price of the tree stump job: grinding is quoted from that width, so the measurement that tells us how big the pile will be is the same one that starts the quote for tree stump grinding. Tell us the width and we can say whether the chips will sit flat or need somewhere to go. Most people keep them.
Using them as mulch
The chips spread well as mulch on beds and paths, which is why they are usually left on site. Grinding avoids chemicals and burning, and what it makes is compostable mulch a bed can take straight from the pile. The chip-and-clay mix goes around shrubs, under a hedge, along a path through the back of the lot or into the compost, and it breaks down over a season or two the way any bark mulch does. The US Forest Service's urban forests guidance treats this kind of residue from yard trees as something to reuse rather than send to a landfill, and a Lewisville yard with a bed to top up usually has a use for it within the week. Two cautions. Fresh chips pull nitrogen from the top inch of soil while they break down, so they belong on top of a bed as a mulch layer and not dug into it. And a pile left to sit for months mats down and grows fungus, so spread it or bag it the same season. When there is no bed to take it, hauling is the other answer.
What taking them away costs
Taking the chips off site and filling the hole with fresh topsoil is quoted as an add-on, by volume. Hauling is an extra charge on any stump grinding job because the chips are otherwise left where they fall, for mulch or for backfill, and the trade's usual figure for hauling and fresh fill runs about $25 to $75 depending on how much there is. A single small stump sits at the low end of that; a wide oak or several stumps in one visit sits at the top, because the pile is bigger and the fill that replaces it is more. The trade calls the full version "site restoration": chips out, fill in, the spot graded and seeded or sodded so nothing shows where the stump was. It is the right answer when the spot is going back to lawn and there is no bed to spread the pile on. Say so on the call, and the "haul-off" goes in the quote with the grinding, with no surprise charge after. The base stump grinding cost the add-on sits on top of, inch by inch, is laid out on our page on what stump grinding costs.
The pile is settled on the call
Tell us how wide the stump is and whether the chips stay for mulch or go with fresh fill, and the whole job is quoted before we start. We answer the phone or call back the same working day.
More on the pile
Two further questions follow. Both come up once the chips have gone back in the hole and the lawn has had a season to close over it: why the spot that was raked level in spring is a shallow dish by fall, and whether the loose ground where the stump was is any place to set a new tree. The short answers are here, and each has its own page for the long one.
Why the filled hole sinks
Chips packed back into the hole can lose volume as they break down, so the spot settles. The "backfill" is mostly shavings, and as they rot they shrink, so a spot raked level in spring can sit an inch or two low by the next year. The fix is a topping of fill dirt and a second seeding, or the site restoration above, with fill brought in and graded before the seed goes down. The full run of what stump grinding leaves in the hole, from the first raking to the last of the settling, is on our page on what happens to the hole.
Whether a tree can be planted into it
A seedling set into the loose chips can struggle, because wood that is breaking down takes nitrogen out of the soil around it. The chips have to rot before the ground there feeds anything, and the NC State Extension publications on soils and yard trees cover what a planting hole needs. Replanting a tree where the old one stood has its own rules on depth and spacing, and the depth and spacing that give a sapling a fair start are on our page on depth and spacing.
What our neighbors say
Tommy came out the same week and took the old maple right down below the lawn. He raked it level before he left and you cannot tell where it stood.
We had three of them and a mess of raised roots along the drive. All of it went in one visit and the spoil went back into the holes.
Needed a big pine out before the new turf went down. Quoted over the phone, done two days later, and the spot was left flat and ready.
Keep the chips, spread them, or send them off.
Tell us how wide the stump is and whether the pile stays. Free, no-obligation estimates, the whole job quoted before we start, and the spot raked level when we leave.