# How to fill an old stump hole



## bfriendly (Jul 1, 2015)

So I had a tree cut down right beside the house, maybe 8 years ago. I have burned and burned the stump and finally yesterday I burned it with a Barrel on top in hopes of removing the Rock hard stump edge(its mostly GON). The problem and what freaks us out it when it rains. 
The neighbors yard pitches down to us and there is a lot of flow over and into it. You can watch water steadily flow into and it will NOT Fill up......I imagine it will take several attempts to fill and pack the hole. But I am wondering if I should put sand in first(I have two bags of play sand), just dirt, rocks?
Any suggestions are welcome....and yes, water does get into the basement garage during heavy rains. I really dont want to end up with a sink hole beside my house, so when I fill the hole, I will be sure to raise the level a bit to reroute the water flow.........What do I put in the hole?


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## jimbo4116 (Jul 1, 2015)

bfriendly said:


> So I had a tree cut down right beside the house, maybe 8 years ago. I have burned and burned the stump and finally yesterday I burned it with a Barrel on top in hopes of removing the Rock hard stump edge(its mostly GON). The problem and what freaks us out it when it rains.
> The neighbors yard pitches down to us and there is a lot of flow over and into it. You can watch water steadily flow into and it will NOT Fill up......I imagine it will take several attempts to fill and pack the hole. But I am wondering if I should put sand in first(I have two bags of play sand), just dirt, rocks?
> Any suggestions are welcome....and yes, water does get into the basement garage during heavy rains. I really dont want to end up with a sink hole beside my house, so when I fill the hole, I will be sure to raise the level a bit to reroute the water flow.........What do I put in the hole?



I have a similar situation though not a stump hole.  I put in sand and it just washed down the hole. This hole is about 3 foot across and was a washout next to a storm drain. Water was entering the hole before it would go into the storm drain.  It was washing out around the pipe to the storm drain.

I began packing in clippings from my yard. This stopped the hole from getting bigger. As the clipping decayed I put more in and packed until it was pretty solid. Then I put in some river rocks covered them with sand and packed, let stand. Then washed the sand into the rocks. Put more sand and the a layer of top soil and sodded.  Holding up pretty good so far. This was about a 2 month long process.


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## NE GA Pappy (Jul 1, 2015)

you need to dig that hole out bigger, and find the root that rotted.  Then pack that sucker full of clay and such from that point back up to above ground level.  Throwing stuff in it is just putting a bandaid on a broken leg.


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## T-N-T (Jul 1, 2015)

Stump holes can be big depending on type and size of tree.

I know a lady who fell waist deep with one leg in one.  She had to have an excavator dig 3 out and refill.


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## SarahFair (Jul 1, 2015)

You're going to want to dig the whole stump out. Its going to rot and give way, rot and give way, rot and give way. 

You can pack all the stuff you want on top, it's not going to stop the natural process of decay.


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## bfriendly (Jul 1, 2015)

Thanks guys.......it was one of those trees with the little pine balls...Sweetgum?

I dont think digging out the stump will be an option, but I started digging around it, hitting it with the back of my axe(its moving some) and am finding more holes and will burn it a few more times.......some of the old stumps from when we moved in, just burned like crazy, deep into the ground. This stump wont burn and I had a barrel on top, lots of firewood burning and even brought out the blower to really heat it up...........but I think I can burn the roots on the sides with a few more attempts.


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## Dub (Jul 17, 2015)

Folks above have nailed it down.

We had a number of pine trees cut down in our front yard 17 years ago.    The roots have since rotted and collapsed the front yard in a number of spots.  I packed it down with rock, sand and soil and sodded over the spots.  Even then it was something that needed tending to a couple more times.  

I like to do the touch-up work in the winter so it's not unsightly for long.....just pack everything back down and top it with winter rye along with the rest of the front yard.


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## shakey gizzard (Jul 20, 2015)

X2 on the clay! Sand is too permeable !


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## GA native (Jul 21, 2015)

A mature sweetgum will drop a taproot 8' deep. 

So your best bet would be a backhoe. Bring it in, and just chew up the Earth and compact it. Back fill with native clay dirt. Dress with topsoil and and throw some seed on it.

And finish with a nice little Jap maple. It will grow fast in the loose dirt.


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## tree cutter 08 (Jul 21, 2015)

Yep if you want to fix it right, dig it out and fill with clay.


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