Need A LOT Of Stumps Removed

Fire

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What’s the best course of action?

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To have left half the trees.

If you have them pulled out of the ground you will eventually have holes there to go along with your erosion.
Grind 'em

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Then you'll have subsidence

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Would discing the area after not fix that?

Trackhoe to dig up stumps in the area where home will be built. Forrestry mulcher to mulch all remaining stumps to dirt level

Why do you want to clear 5 acres? Leave a good bit natural. A lot less maintenance and a lot more privacy.

I have a woodland mills wg24 three point grinder for my tractor it has done a great job and you can grind a decent sized pine stump in 10-15 min. Cost me $2500 at the time so if you have a tractor with hydro tranny it’s a great option. Would be hell with a manual shift and you have to creep and take multiple back and forth cuts. I have probably ground 75+ stumps with it so far great investment for my property

It seems like you know the correct answer to mitigate all the issues you’re worried about. Pay the dozer to dig them all up, stack em, burn em, then back fill the holes with new dirt. It’s required for where the house will be anyway, and will guarantee you won’t have subsurface rot and result in a sink hole.

If you grind the stumps, you will eventually have dips and low spots and sink holes depending on the size of the stumps. If you’re not bringing in any dirt to backfill, the wood chips will eventually decompose as well, so you’ll have to carefully grade and then regrade the area.

Forestry mulcher can handle the smaller stumps but you won’t have the perfect clean, level, graded area. Some roots and stumps and surface material will remain. This will also decompose below the surface over time.

$30k is a lot for the dozer work on 5 acres if it’s already been cleared. Since that includes the driveway (but no house pad?), I’m not sure what that includes as far as dirt cost, etc. You should be looking at around $1000-1500/day for the dozer work, plus some extra charge if it’s a long drive out to the place. Diesel is expensive right now.

Will eventually have holes when stump below the ground starts to rot. Better to have holes now while a dozer is there to fill and smooth

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$30k is a lot for the dozer work on 5 acres if it’s already been cleared

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Guy said that even though the trees were gone the stumps would still slow him down (wild guess is around 250 stumps). Actually said he’d prefer they were still there so he could have just pushed them. Also said he’d have to do a combination of building the driveway up on the flat part and cutting it out on the hill. I plan on using dirt from the land for this so that’ll help some. Then again that may have been his “I don’t want the job” price. Have another guy coming next week to give me a price as well.