Stump grinding in Palomino Valley and along the Pyramid Highway (89510)

ZIP 89510 is big, empty country: about 1,460 people on nearly 600 square miles north of Spanish Springs. About 96% of homes are owner-occupied and about 28% of households heat mainly with wood, the highest share of any place we serve (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2020-2024; a small population, so the figures are approximate).

At a glance

• About 67 minutes from our yard without traffic
• About 28% of households heat mainly with wood
• Grind near the house and drive; leave the far ones
• Wells, septic and private power: you are the map

Which stumps are worth grinding on acreage?

The ones near where you live and drive. A stump in the yard around the house, beside the driveway, in a corral gateway or where a building is planned earns its place on the list. A stump a quarter mile out in the sage does not.

Walk the property with that in mind and write the list before you call. Because of the distance, we would rather grind eight stumps in one visit than two stumps on each of four.

• Within reach of the house, decks and outbuildings
• Along the driveway and around gates
• Inside pens, yards and garden plots
• Where a pad, a tank or a fence is going in

Stumps left by firewood cutting

More than a quarter of households here burn wood for heat. Dead trees near the house often become firewood, which is a sensible use for them, and the stump is what remains. We grind stumps we did not cut. If you would rather buy wood than cut it, the office can tell you about firewood and wood chips: call for availability and pricing.

Nobody marks a private well line

Rural parcels run on private systems. A well and the pipe from it, a septic tank and field, buried power to a pump house or a gate, propane line from the tank to the house. An 811 request, made a few business days ahead, covers the utilities' lines only. For everything else the owner's memory is the record. Mark what you know on the ground with flags or paint before the visit and tell the arborist what you are unsure of.

Dry ground and big fires

The nearest NOAA precipitation station, Reno 22.2 NNE, averages about 9 inches a year. Stumps here cure hard and last. They also burn. The federal record maps the 2017 Winnemucca Ranch Fire, at 4,799 acres, with its center about 2.4 miles from this ZIP's town point, and the 2018 Perry Fire, at 51,386 acres, about 8 miles away.

ZIP 89510 has no wildfire rating of its own. Washoe County's risk to homes ranks higher than 97.2% of US counties. Keep stumps, grindings and stacked wood out of the first 5 feet around the house. Our page on defensible space in Palomino Valley covers the rest.

Grinding, or a machine?

Where a shop, a barn or a driveway is going in, stumps are better dug out than ground, and the same visit can include lot clearing and brush mowing. Say what the ground is for and the estimate will name the method.