Stump Grinding in 12 South, Nashville
Yes - 12 South is ten minutes from us and we are between Wedgewood and Kirkwood most weeks. Photo in, firm price back the same day. Routine grinds run three to five working days out; a tree on a structure is seen same or next day.
A sidewalk stump on 12th Avenue South is not your tree
The most common call from these blocks starts the same way: the willow oak out front has pushed the sidewalk into a step, somebody nearly went over on it, and the owner wants the tree and the stump gone this month. Then they find out the tree is not theirs.
Anything standing in the strip between the sidewalk and the kerb is a Metro public tree. Removing or damaging one requires a permit from the urban forester first - a ten-dollar administrative fee, notification when work starts and when it finishes, and an obligation that if a public tree is taken without that permit, it is replaced in whatever manner the city directs. That last part is the one worth reading twice, because the obligation attaches to the address, not to the crew who did the work. We start every front-yard job here by establishing whether the trunk is inside or outside that line, and we do the paperwork rather than pretending the question does not exist.
Grinding in the right-of-way, and the second permit nobody mentions
The tree permit from Urban Forestry covers the tree. Physically opening ground in the Metro right-of-way is a separate matter handled by NDOT, and it is the one that bites when a sidewalk panel has to come up as part of the work.
In practice we split the job cleanly. Grinding a stump down within the strip, with the spoil removed and the surface restored to grass, is stump work. Breaking out and replacing a heaved sidewalk panel is construction in the right-of-way and belongs to a concrete contractor working under the correct permit. We coordinate with whoever is doing that side so the sequence is right - stump and roots out first, base prepared, then the pour. Pouring a new panel over a ground stump that was taken only to lawn depth is the most reliable way to have the same crack back within a few years.
Clearing a stump for a detached ADU behind a bungalow
The other half of the work here is out the back. Detached accessory dwellings have been going up on these 0.20-acre lots since around 2015, and the footprint almost always lands where a silver maple or a hackberry has stood for sixty years.
That is a construction grind, not a landscaping grind. It has to reach under the new footing, the laterals crossing the building footprint have to be extracted rather than trimmed off where they meet it, and the hole has to finish empty of wood - anything organic beneath a slab rots, shrinks and takes a corner of the pad with it. We also plan a route for the machine that does not cross the line the concrete trucks will use, because turning a lawn into a mud track twice is nobody's idea of efficient. Builders on this side of town tend to call us at framing stage; the right time is before the footings are marked out.
Replanting rules that follow a 12 South stump removal
Since Metro's canopy ordinance took effect on 15 March 2023, a single-family or duplex lot that triggers the rule plants one new two-inch canopy tree for every twenty feet of street frontage, alley frontage excluded, capped at eight per lot and doubled on a cul-de-sac. Replacement trees have to survive a three-year establishment period to count.
That is a planning matter rather than a grinding matter, but it changes what you ask us to do. If a two-inch tree is going back into the same ground, the void needs soil and not chip, and the old laterals need chasing out far enough that the new root ball is not sitting in a mat of decaying wood. It is a twenty-minute difference on site and it decides whether the replacement is alive in three years, which is precisely what the ordinance is counting.
Walking a stump grinder past a Sevier Park bungalow
The streetcar plats here - Sweetbriar, Paris, Linden, Gilmore - gave the house a deep front porch and left a narrow flank. Between the wall and the fence you generally have three feet, and the ADU or garage at the back has usually taken whatever gap the drive left.
We measure the pinch point first and bring the machine that fits it. Where the only route runs past a raised porch or through a gate under thirty-four inches, we lift a fence section and reset it - routine work, quoted in, not a reason to decline the job. Street staging is its own consideration on the busier blocks: 12th Avenue South near the park is not somewhere a trailer can sit blocking a lane on a Saturday, so those addresses get an early weekday slot and we tell you the window rather than giving you a day.
Sources
- Substitute Ordinance BL2022-1409, Metro tree canopy ordinanceEffective 15 March 2023: single-family and duplex lots plant one 2-inch caliper canopy tree per 20 feet of frontage, up to eight per lot, with a three-year establishment period
What we do in 12 South
Stump Grinding 12 South: Frequently Asked
Who grinds stumps in 12 South when there is no alley access?
We do, with the narrow-frame machine down the side of the house. Plenty of these blocks have no service lane at all, so the side run between the bungalow and the fence is the only way to the back, and three feet of clear width is enough. The things that stop us are a raised porch step, an air conditioning pad set in the middle of the run, or a gate post that has been bricked in.
Can I take out the tree between the sidewalk and the street?
Only with the urban forester's permit, because that tree belongs to Metro rather than to you. The application fee is ten dollars, the city has to be told when the work begins and ends, and if a public tree comes out without that approval it gets replaced on the city's terms at the property's expense. We handle the process as part of the job instead of leaving you to work out who to ring.
The stump is where the ADU slab goes. How deep do you grind?
Below the bottom of the footing, which on a typical detached unit here means a good deal deeper than the six to twelve inches a lawn gets. We take the laterals out inside the building footprint and remove everything, leaving a clean void the contractor can fill and compact in lifts. Grindings under a slab compost, shrink and take the corner with them, so nothing organic stays in that hole.
How long does a curb-strip stump take, and how loud is it?
Reckon on an hour or so of actual cutting for a typical strip tree, with setup and clearing up either side of it. The noise is real while the wheel is turning, which is why we take these early on a weekday wherever we can. We sheet the walk and the kerb line first, because chip on concrete gets tracked into houses and washes to the nearest inlet, and everything is blown clean before the trailer moves.
Will grinding the stump fix the lifted sidewalk on its own?
No. Taking the stump out stops any further movement, but the roots already holding the slab up stay exactly where they are until they are removed. If the panels are being replaced, we grind the stump and then take the root runs down below the depth of the new base inside the area being repoured. That gives the concrete crew flat, sound ground instead of a ridge to bridge over.
We are replanting after it comes out. Anything you should know first?
Tell us at the quote and we will change how the job is finished - deeper grind, laterals chased out, all the chip removed and topsoil brought in. Also worth checking the species against Metro's recommended list before you buy, because the frontage replanting requirement counts canopy trees and a small ornamental may not satisfy it. Native oaks are the backbone of that list for good reason on these streets.