DK2's OPG777 Stump Grinder Costs 19 Days of Rental

Verdict $1,899.99 street, $2,090 from DK2: break-even at 19 to 21 days of the $100 daily rental. Fewer stump days than that and renting wins.

Prices are US list prices at the time of publication. Shipping, duties and local taxes vary by country — check with the manufacturer before ordering.

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Two rental yards, one in Texas and one in Michigan, publish what a stump grinder costs by the day. El Paso Tool Rental charges $100 for a 12-inch commercial grinder — $72.56 for four hours, $500 a week, $1,200 a month. TC Rentals charges $200 a day for a homeowner unit and $335 for a self-propelled commercial one. The machine El Paso describes on its own rental page sells for $1,899.99 with stock and $2,090 direct from the maker. That is 19 rental days at El Paso’s rate, or 21 at DK2’s own price.

The Machine

The DK2 OPG777 is a towable stump grinder: a Kohler Command PRO CH440, 14 horsepower, 429 cc, turning a wheel of nine cast-mounted carbide teeth. It cuts 3.5 inches wide, 12 inches above grade and 9 inches below. It weighs 234 pounds, stands 91 inches long on a 2-inch ball coupler, and rides on 145/70-6 wheels. Warranty is three years on the engine, one on the chassis.

DK2 sells it direct for $2,090. Wood Splitter Direct lists it at $1,899.99, in stock. DK2’s own reconditioned shelf had it at $1,519.99 with two units left the day we priced it — scratched paint or a damaged crate, no mechanical defects, same warranty. A teeth kit is $149.

The Numbers

The comparison here is not a contractor. It is the rental counter: the outfit that owns the machine so you do not have to.

The arithmetic, in the open. Divide $1,899.99 by El Paso’s $100 and the grinder is paid for on the 19th rental day. Use DK2’s own $2,090 and it is 21. Use the reconditioned unit at $1,519.99 and it is 16. Measured against TC Rentals’ $200 homeowner rate it drops to 10 days, but that is a smaller machine and the comparison flatters the purchase.

Rent by the week and the daily number stops mattering: El Paso’s $500 week is $71.43 a day, and four of those weeks pass the purchase price. Two straight months cost $2,400 — 1.26 times what a new one costs.

What Breaks

The four-hour block is the honest unit. El Paso publishes one at $72.56 — what a yard prices when the machine goes out for a morning rather than a week. Counted in those blocks, the break-even is 27 of them: a decade of ordinary yard work, and the number that should decide this purchase for most readers.

The teeth are not in the price. DK2’s kit is $149, or 8% of the machine, every time the carbide is gone. How many stumps a set survives is DATA NOT AVAILABLE FROM SOURCE, and neither yard publishes a wear charge. When you rent, dull teeth are somebody else’s capital.

Nine inches below grade is not stump removal. Illinois Extension notes that grinders range from flush with the soil line to over a foot deep, and that the chips left behind tie up nitrogen as they break down, “making it difficult to grow lawn, or another plant where the tree once stood.” Its advice is to haul the debris off and backfill with topsoil. That work lands on you whether you rent or buy.

You are not towing it home on the highway. DK2 lists 145/70-6 wheels with no road rating, while the same company’s chipper page advertises D.O.T.-approved tires. El Paso says it outright: a trailer is required, delivery costs extra. That cost sits on both sides of this comparison.

Twelve inches above grade is a ceiling. A taller stump gets cut down first, with a saw you also have to own or rent. Rocks, wire and old fence staples are what kill carbide, and none of the three are visible before the wheel finds them.

And the rented machine is a class, not a serial number. El Paso’s page describes a DK2 Power grinder with the same 14 horsepower, the same nine carbide cutters at 3,600 rpm and the same 3.5-inch cut — but lists 268 pounds against DK2’s published 234. Which model sits on that yard is DATA NOT AVAILABLE FROM SOURCE. The rate is published; the exact twin is not.

Who Should Buy This

The owner already cutting trees on a schedule. Storm-fall, a cleared fence line, a woodlot being thinned — the same pile that makes a portable sawmill pay off at 5,445 board feet leaves stumps behind it, and they arrive every year rather than once.

The landscape or tree outfit that already bills stump work. If the grinder earns on somebody else’s property, 19 days is a season, not a lifetime. This is the same shape as the ROV that breaks even at 12 dives: the count looks small because the alternative is priced by the outing.

The buyer who already has the trailer and the barn. Ninety-one inches of towable steel has to live somewhere between jobs.

Not for: the homeowner with one stump, who should pay $72.56 and go home. Not for anyone planning to replant in the same hole. Not for stumps standing higher than a foot, and not for a yard you cannot tow a machine into.

The Stack

No affiliate links in this issue. When a link earns us a commission, we always say so. Verdicts are never for sale.

If the stumps keep coming, the OPG777 at $1,899.99 is the cheapest in-stock way to stop paying by the day: 14 horsepower, nine carbide teeth, 12 inches above grade and 9 below. DK2 sells it direct at $2,090 and lists reconditioned units at $1,519.99 when it has them.

Budget the teeth kit at $149 before you order, not after. It is the only consumable here, it is what the rental rate quietly covers, and carbide does not survive a buried nail.

If the stumps do not keep coming, price the job instead. El Paso Tool Rental and TC Rentals publish full rate cards, so you can cost your afternoon without a phone call.

Either way, read Illinois Extension on what to do with that stump first. It is free, written by people with no grinders to sell, and it explains what the machine leaves in the ground after the noise stops.

No commission rides on either answer here, which is why this report is as happy to send you to a rental counter as to a checkout page.

Produced under the editorial standards of editor Nicolás Galindez. Spotted an error? [email protected] — the editor reads every reply.