Rent a stump grinder, or hire it out?

The short answer

Rent it if the stump is small, the ground around it is clean, you've already got a truck that can tow, and you'd honestly enjoy spending a Saturday on it. Plenty of people do, and we're not going to talk you out of it.

Hire it out if the stump is big, old, or wedged into a tight spot. Hire it out if you'd be renting a truck to tow a trailer to tow a grinder. And hire it out if the day is worth more to you than the difference between the two numbers, which is where most of the people who call us land, but not all of them.

The rest of this post is how we'd actually work that out, with the real rates from the yards you can call from here.

Who actually rents a stump grinder around Spokane

Fewer places than you'd think. Most tool counters in town will rent you a trencher or an auger without blinking. A stump grinder is heavier, more specialized, and harder on itself, so only a handful of yards keep one. Here's what we found.

Lake City Rental — Hayden and Coeur d'Alene

The only yard we found that publishes its stump grinder rates online, and the only one with two sizes, which is what makes the math below possible. Both counters run Monday through Friday 7 to 5 and Saturday 8 to 5, closed Sunday. Hayden is 208-762-1175, Coeur d'Alene is 208-666-5591. From Spokane, figure roughly 40 minutes each way on I-90 before traffic or weather.

Tax and the damage waiver are extra on both, and neither amount is on the website. Ask when you call.

Home Depot Tool Rental — three Spokane stores

North Spokane at 9116 N Newport Hwy (509-465-3718), the Valley at 5617 E Sprague (509-532-7406), and the South Hill at 4515 S Regal (509-503-9556). All three rent a towable stump grinder, and all three are open weekends, which matters more than it sounds when the job is a Saturday project.

Home Depot prices tool rentals store by store and doesn't post the Spokane rate online. The same machine at other stores shows up around $219 to $239 for four hours and $299 to $319 for a day, so expect that neighborhood and call the desk for the real number. It's a heavier package than Lake City's small unit: the specs list the grinder and its trailer at about 2,170 pounds combined, on a 2-inch ball, cutting 14 inches below grade and 32 above.

Home Depot also rents the truck. The Load 'N Go flatbed runs $19 for the first 75 minutes or $129 for the day, with a $150 deposit. One catch worth knowing before you plan around it: the hitch is only available when you're renting Home Depot's own towable equipment. You can't use their truck to go pick up Lake City's trailer.

United Rentals — 204 S Fancher Rd

The big national yard off Sprague and Fancher, Monday through Friday 7 to 5, 509-532-1235. They list stump grinders in their catalog but price them by quote, so there's no number to put here. They're closed weekends, which means a Saturday job is a Friday pickup and a Monday return. Ask how that gets billed before you say yes.

What a rental grinder can and can't do

The spread in those rates is the spread in the machines. A 12 hp grinder with a small wheel and a 25 hp tracked unit are both called stump grinders the same way a push mower and a zero-turn are both called mowers.

• The small towable is built for a stump you could wrap your arms around, roughly a foot across, in ordinary soil. It'll do that in an hour or two once you get the rhythm. Point it at a two-foot oak with a root flare and you'll be there all afternoon, and it may not finish.
• The tracked unit climbs over roots and uneven ground, grinds deeper, and has the power to keep the wheel turning in hard wood. At 35 inches wide it'll squeeze through a standard 36-inch gate. It will not fit a 32-inch one, and on soft ground the tracks will leave their mark on the lawn.
• Depth on either machine is 12 to 16 inches below grade by the listings. That's enough to get grass growing over the spot. It's not the same as pulling the stump out, which we cover on the removal and cleanup side of the services page.
• The learning curve is real. Sweeping the wheel, how deep to bite, keeping the engine from bogging, where the chips are flying. Everybody's first stump takes about twice as long as they figured, and the second one goes fine.
• Rocks are the thing. A grinder tooth that finds a rock in the root ball stops being a tooth. Teeth aren't usually covered by the damage waiver, and the yard counts them when you bring the machine back.

What the rental day actually looks like

The rental rate buys you the machine from open to close. Here's where the hours go.

1. Two business days before: call 811 or file the locate online so the utility lines are marked before the wheel touches dirt. Both states require it. More on that below.
2. Pickup morning: Lake City opens at 7 on weekdays and 8 on Saturday. Paperwork, the waiver, a card on file, a hitch and light check, and a look at the teeth. Budget a half hour at the counter.
3. The tow: roughly 40 minutes from Hayden to Spokane, longer if you're honoring the 45 mph tow limit on the small unit, which puts you in the right lane on I-90 with a line behind you.
4. Unload and position: ramps down, chocks, walk the machine to the stump, get it through the gate and squared up. Another half hour before the first pass.
5. Grind: an hour or two for a small fresh stump. Most of the afternoon for a big old one, if the machine will do it at all.
6. Chips: a 20-inch stump ground a foot down makes a pile several times the size of the stump. Rake it back into the hole, haul it, or live with it. The rental yard doesn't take chips.
7. Load, clean, fuel, return: hose the mud off (some yards bill a cleaning fee if it comes back caked), top off the tank, and be at the counter before 5. Miss close and the day rate rolls into another day.

That's a full day for one stump, and every step except the grinding takes the same time whether the stump is 10 inches across or 30.

The real math

The day rate is the number everyone quotes and the one nobody actually pays. Here's the rest of the ticket, using the published figures we could find and flagging where you'll need to ask.

• The rental. $122 or $263 a day at Lake City, depending on the machine. Home Depot and United, call for the Spokane rate.
• Sales tax. Idaho charges 6 percent on rentals. In Spokane it's roughly 9 percent. Either way it's on top of the rate.
• The damage waiver. Rental yards typically price it at 10 to 15 percent of the rental charge. Lake City doesn't post theirs, so ask. It's technically optional, the counter will push it, and it almost never covers teeth.
• Teeth. A Washington yard renting the same 25 hp tracked model lists broken teeth at $20.95 each outside the waiver, and the industry range runs about $15 to $40 a tooth. There are a dozen or two on a wheel. One buried rock can take out several.
• The truck. If you own one with a 2-inch ball and a trailer light hookup, this line is zero. If you don't, Home Depot's $129 day rate works only with Home Depot's grinder, so a Lake City rental means borrowing a pickup.
• Fuel. The tracked unit burns 2.4 gallons an hour at full load on a 6.8 gallon tank, so a hard afternoon of grinding is a tank, plus the tow both ways. You return it full.
• The deposit. Some yards hold a few hundred dollars on your card until the machine comes back and the teeth are counted. The Home Depot truck alone is $150.
• Your day. Six to eight hours of it, including the parts that aren't grinding.

Run that with Lake City's rates, Idaho tax, and a 10 to 15 percent waiver and the small machine lands around $140 to $150 for the day before fuel, teeth, or a truck. The tracked unit lands around $305 to $320 on the same assumptions. If you own the truck and the stump is small and clean, that's a reasonable Saturday. If you need the big machine and a rock finds the wheel, you can be north of $400 before you've raked a chip.

Stump size is the whole ballgame

Nothing on that worksheet moves the way the stump does. Diameter, age, and what's in the dirt around it decide whether renting is a bargain or a long day that ends with a phone call to someone like us.

You still have to call 811

Renting doesn't skip the locate. In Washington, you're required to request utility marks at least two business days before you dig, and no more than ten, and the marks are good for 45 days. The law does exempt shallow digging on private property, but that exemption stops at 12 inches, and a grinder goes past it on purpose. In North Idaho the same two-business-day rule applies through Dig Safe North Idaho, which covers Kootenai, Bonner, and Boundary counties. Either way you dial 811 or file online, and either way it's free. We go through how the marks work and what they cover in our 811 post.

What 811 won't mark is anything you own: the sprinkler mains, the landscape lighting, the gas line to the shop, the power out to the shed. Those take a private locate, which runs $185 to $200 an hour from the locators we trust. On a rental day, that's your call to make and your cost to carry. When you hire us, we file the 811 request as part of scheduling and we'll tell you if the yard looks like it needs the private one too.

If the stump is anywhere near the street

This is the part where we'll be blunt. A rented grinder and a busy street don't mix. The strip between the sidewalk and the curb is often public right-of-way even though you mow it, and the City of Spokane can require an obstruction permit for work there, which takes a few business days to get and may come with a traffic control plan on an arterial. The rental yard doesn't handle any of that. Neither does the damage waiver when a chip goes through a windshield.

On a quiet cul-de-sac, a stump near the curb is a judgment call. On anything with real traffic, hire it, and ask whoever you hire the questions in our north Spokane post.

How we'd decide

Rent it if

• The stump is about a foot across or less, cut in the last year or two, in soil you've dug before without hitting rock.
• You own a truck with a 2-inch ball and working trailer lights, or you're renting Home Depot's grinder and truck together.
• The gate is at least 36 inches and the path to the stump is open lawn, not steps and retaining walls.
• You've called 811, the marks are down, and nothing you own runs through the spot.
• You've looked at the teeth in the yard and they still have an edge.
• The stump is in the yard, not in the parking strip.
• You've got the whole day and you'd rather spend it than spend the difference.

Hire it if

• The stump is big, old and silver, has a wide root flare, or somebody's already dug around it.
• There's more than one, or there's a root run you want chased out.
• You'd be borrowing or renting a truck to make the rental work.
• The stump sits in a tight spot, on a slope, or anywhere near traffic.
• You want the chips gone and the ground ready for grass, not a pile to deal with Sunday.
• You want one number, in writing, and a day that stays yours.

If you're on the fence, send us the photo anyway. If the stump is a rental-sized stump, we'll say so.

Stump grinding in Spokane and Coeur d'Alene

We handle stump grinding and full stump removal and cleanup across Spokane, Spokane Valley, the North Side, the South Hill, and out through Liberty Lake into Post Falls, Coeur d'Alene, and Hayden, along with the rest of the Eastern Washington and North Idaho towns on our about page. Every job gets the scope and the price in writing before anything is scheduled, and we file the 811 request as part of setting it up.