After researching, I decided to get a cord of firewood from Woodchuck Stumps because, although $375 was pricier than others, 1) the description on the website of seasoning wood made me think they seasoned it for quite a while and 2) the convenience factor of the pallets for stacking. The load was primarily red oak, with some random other logs that were clearly older. Immediately when I started stacking I could feel that there were a lot of heavy logs so I put them at the bottom of the pile. In fact, the moisture readings that Mark did showed some of the logs around 45%, so he hunted for the handful of pieces that were obviously more seasoned. Even they came in close to 30%. But at that point I had a pile of firewood in my driveway so not much I could do. Skip to a couple months later and my first few fires, the logs sizzle significantly, literally dripping from the ends, and have a difficult time burning. I emailed about it and the paraphrased response was "welp, that's too bad". So I've got a solid cord for next fall / winter, but that doesn't do much for me at the moment. read more

I hired mark at woodchuck stumps, LLC, to build a large gravel parking lot at the side of my house. As there was water drainage going under my existing driveway and exiting right where the new gravel parking lot would be installed he suggested to extend the waiter drainage pipe all the way under the new lot and exiting behind it with a pop up drain, this was for an extra cost, of course. Once completed everything looked great. When the first hard rain happened a couple of weeks later the drainage didn't work at all. The pipe he had laid doesn't drain at all and now the water just flows out of the gutter where it is supposed to go underground and exit the pop up drain, but instead water just tracks a bunch of mud in my driveway every time it rains. Three times I have tried to contact him about this issue and both times he's replied that he will look at it. My first initial contact was 2 months ago and still no action taken. Apparently customer satisfaction is not on the top of his list. I paid extra for this drainage and it does not work. I feel like the right thing would be for him to fix the issue so I would get what I paid for. Hopefully he'll see this and rectify the situation. read more

Project 1: Log Splitting I had about 2 medium sized trees worth of logs in my backyard that I wanted cut into firewood. I couldn't find a company in my area that was willing to do the work. I went into Angie's List, Yelp, called a number of landscapers and all of them said either they wouldn't do it but also that nobody in the Arlington area would. They kept telling me it was easier to simply get rid of it.  I know firewood is at least $8 for about 6 pieces. So I never gave up. Finally a neighbor told me to go to Craigslist (something that I'd never think to look for contractors since they don't have reviews.) I found two businesses, one was Woodchuck Stumps. Called both. One of them never returned my call. Woodchuck Stumps' owner, Mark, did and he was very professional. He asked me to send pictures, then came by to take a look, without charging me, and sent me an estimate. He and his crew came with their machinery, cut all the logs (including some 300-and-over LBS) down into firewood, and stacked them up in a nicely organized pile in front of my house where I have a patio. They were done in 4.5 hours for 2 trees (including stacking.) He had quoted me 4 hours and did not charge me extra. He told me he would charge me for what he quoted me. That was incredible. Most contractors would just add some extra dollars here and there. In the end I had about 3 cords of wood. Just one cord costs $350-400. Project 2: Landscaping I immediately trusted him. Two months later, I called Mark again to do some landscaping work. Basically my backyard was rockscaped. I had about 600 sqft of 3 levels of stone pavers, held by timbers with iron pegs, a crooked garden bed with concrete blocks, 2 stumps, and stone gravel. Mark and his crew cleared it all in 3 hrs, then regraded the backyard so the water would drain out of the lot, added top soil, and Pennington Tall Fescue from Meadows Farms (a nursery I trust), and hay on top by the end of the day. All that in one day. It is day 8 now and the grass is sprouting nicely. Mark was always responsive and honest. I asked him for multiple estimates, and took my time in making a decision. He always took me seriously even though I never said I would do it. read more