Call 811 Before Stump Grinding or Root Work

A stump grinder is a spinning wheel of carbide teeth chewing through wood and dirt to somewhere between eight and eighteen inches below the surface. A gas service line to a house can run at that depth. So can the water service, a cable line, low-voltage lighting, and every irrigation pipe in the yard.

We hit none of those on purpose and we want to hit none of them at all, which is why locating comes before grinding. Here is how that works and where the responsibility sits.

What 811 is

Sunshine 811 is Florida's one-call utility locating service. You or your contractor submit a request, and the utilities that own buried lines in the area send locators to mark them with paint and flags within a set number of business days. The service is free to the person requesting it.

The marks show the approximate path of utility-owned lines: gas mains and services, electric, telecom, cable, water and sewer where the utility owns them. Florida law requires a locate request before mechanized digging, and stump grinding qualifies.

What 811 does not mark

This is the part homeowners miss. The locators mark lines their member utilities own, up to the point where ownership changes to the property owner. That means 811 will typically not mark:

• Irrigation lines and valves. Private. Everywhere in a Florida yard, and shallow.
• Low-voltage landscape lighting. Private, shallow, and usually run in a straight line from the transformer to the fixtures.
• Private gas lines from the meter to a pool heater, grill or generator. Private, and dangerous.
• Septic tank, drain field and the line between them. Private.
• Well lines and pump wiring. Private.
• Pool plumbing and the electrical to the equipment pad.
• Downspout drains and French drains.
• Invisible dog fence wire.

For all of those, the homeowner is the only source of information. If you know where the irrigation runs, tell us. If you have the sprinkler layout from when it was installed, that is gold. If you do not know, we can get a private locating service to trace the lines for a fee, and on a stump next to the pool equipment or the generator, that is money well spent.

Where stumps and utilities meet

Stumps are near houses and near hardscape, and so are utilities. The spots that come up most:

• Between the house and the street: water service, gas service, cable and phone all come in here, usually in a line from the meter or pedestal to the house.
• Along the driveway edge: irrigation main lines, sometimes electric to a gate or lights.
• Around the pool equipment pad: gas to the heater, electric conduit, and the suction and return lines running to the pool.
• Near the well or septic: pump wire and water line, tank and drain field.

A stump in the middle of the back lawn is usually simple. A stump against the front corner of the house is where we slow down.

How we handle it

For scheduled grinding, we submit the locate ticket ahead of time and wait for the marks. On the day, we look at the marks, ask about private lines, and adjust: grinding shallower over a marked line, hand-digging to expose a line where it crosses the stump, or in some cases grinding the stump only partly and leaving the section over the line. Our stump grinding page covers the general process.

For emergency work after a storm, when a root plate has come up with the tree and the hole has to be dealt with, lines are often already exposed or broken by the uprooting itself. That is a situation where we work carefully and where the utility may need to be called before anything is backfilled.

If a line is hit

Gas: everyone away, no ignition sources, call the gas utility and 911 from a distance. Electric: stay away from the equipment and the wet ground, call the utility. Water or irrigation: shut the valve; a broken irrigation lateral is a quick repair. Cable and phone: an inconvenience and a call to the provider.

A properly located, properly marked line that is hit anyway is a different question from an unmarked private line. The locate ticket is what documents that the work was done correctly. This is one reason to hire a company that actually calls 811 rather than one that grinds on arrival; see How to Vet a Tree Service.

Roots are the same problem

Root pruning, root barrier trenches, air spading and any excavation around a tree hit the same lines. Trenching for a root barrier along a driveway is nearly guaranteed to cross the irrigation main. Locate first. See Root Pruning Before Construction for how that work is planned.

Frequently asked questions

How long does the locate take?

Utilities have a set number of business days to respond to a ticket, so grinding is scheduled a few days out to allow for it. Emergency tickets exist for genuine emergencies.

The stump is in the middle of the yard. Do you still call?

Yes. The law does not have a "middle of the yard" exception, and private lines run in unexpected places.

I do not know where my irrigation lines are. What now?

Turn on each zone and look for the heads; the lateral lines run between them. The main line runs from the pump or backflow to the valves. If the stump is near any of that, a private locate is worth it.

Who pays if you hit my irrigation line?

That depends on whether we were told where it was. We will ask, and we will tell you before we start what we know and do not know about what is under the stump.

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ArboristRX grinds stumps and does root work across Edgewater, New Smyrna Beach, Port Orange, Oak Hill and Volusia County, with locates called ahead. Call (386) 444-5959.