Goodbye Nature: Eliminating the Tree Stump

The tree sits in its natural environment
of undies and goon bag fairy lights. 

Note the way it has grown into the very side of the building.

There was a big ass tree stump in our backyard.

It was sitting right up against the back of the house, and was where we will be pouring a huge slab of concrete eventually. It was also super close to a drainpipe. The stump is about 60cms at the bulge in diameter and the roots are quite deep.

We've been working on this thing for months now!

First off we hired someone from Airtasker to get the job done. Airtasker is like Gumtree for tasks you need done. You post tasks you need done and people (like cleaners, tradies or handymen and women) come and do the thing you want, for cash. We found a landscaper on Airtasker who said he could come and cut out the stump in one afternoon but for some reason unbeknownst to people who have graduated high school, he got diameter confused with circumference and didn't bring a big enough chainsaw. He went off to get a bigger one and that was the last we saw (ha) of him. Wait - that joke sounded like we killed him.

Last weekend, Gary borrowed a bigger chainsaw and hacked away at the stump for a few more mornings, and the bulk is now out. In the end, the last few vestiges of a once-grand testament to nature simply wouldn't be sawed, and the boys had to drill lots of holes in the wood until it could just be smashed apart. The remaining part will stay there and have concrete poured over it.

There wasn't an awful lot of technical knowledge involved in this job, just muscle to get the saw working and common sense for where to cut. If you wanted to try something similar, my advice would be to beg, borrow or steal the biggest chainsaw you possibly can to get it done. You can definitely save money by borrowing, but that added heaps of time for us because we simply didn't have a big enough tool to get the job done. That's what she said.  

To finish it off, lots of holes were drilled into the stump and into the holes we poured 3kgs of potassium nitrate (used to make gunpowder, readily available on eBay) into it to kill it off so it doesn't blossom under the future concrete slab and snap it in half.

Job done.

A work in progress. 

It was so difficult because we couldn't saw from
both sides, so had to try and snap it off from one angle only. 

Check out the hole in the laundry wall. 

Like it was never there! 

Cost of tree stump removal: $61 $25 saw sharpener, $20 potassium nitrate, $9 oil for saw, $7 snacks
Time taken: 10 hours 
Tools: 50cc petrol Stihl and a 1800w electric Makita chainsaw for the cutting, Dremel to sharpen the saw teeth, Electric drill (with a spade drill bit) to drill the tree, idiot Steve from Airtasker.