Trees come down first. If you’re selling timber, the logging crew handles felling and skidding merchantable logs. All remaining slash — branches, tops, small-diameter trees — gets chipped with a wood chipper. Chipping in place eliminates the slash pile entirely, creates wood chip mulch that can be spread on site or used for erosion control, and removes the single biggest obstacle to the next phases of work.

NorthPoint’s Bandit 65XP chipper handles material up to 6.5 inches in diameter. The 12XP Intimidator handles larger material up to 12 inches. For NH clearing projects, having a chipper running alongside the felling crew dramatically speeds up the overall timeline.

With slash cleared, surface stumps become accessible to the stump grinder. Grinding stumps to 8–12 inches below grade removes the above-ground obstacle but leaves the root ball in place. This is appropriate for lots where the cleared area will be seeded for lawn or pasture, where the root system will decompose in place over time without interfering with construction.

If you’re building on the cleared area — a house, a barn, a driveway — grinding alone is not enough. The next phase removes the root balls entirely.

For construction sites, a mini excavator equipped with a hydraulic thumb attachment grubs out the root balls that stump grinding left behind. The hydraulic thumb grips the root mass, allowing the operator to tear it free from the soil and load it directly into a dump trailer. This phase also handles any ledge or large boulders encountered during clearing.

This is also the phase for rough grading — establishing the basic site contours before fine grading. The excavator establishes drainage slopes, building pad elevation, and driveway alignment at this stage.

With stumps and root balls removed and rough grade established, a skid steer handles the final surface work: spreading topsoil, smoothing the grade, and preparing the site for seeding, construction, or driveway installation. The skid steer’s speed and maneuverability make it far more efficient than the excavator for surface finishing work across the cleared area.

NH’s glacial history left boulders at unpredictable depths throughout the soil. Many clearing projects — particularly in the White Mountains and Lakes Region hill country — encounter ledge during root ball grubbing. Have a contingency plan: NorthPoint rents hydraulic breaker attachments for breaking ledge, and large boulders may require a larger excavator than a compact model. Call our team before finalizing your equipment plan if ledge is a possibility.

Clearing steeply sloped lots — common in NH’s hill country from western Grafton County to the White Mountains — requires tracked machines. Rubber-tracked mini excavators and compact track loaders maintain stability on grades that would be unsafe for wheeled equipment. Always specify tracked machines for slopes greater than 15%. Call NorthPoint to discuss slope conditions when booking.

Clearing a wooded lot within 250 feet of any NH water body requires careful navigation of the Shoreland Water Quality Protection Act. Specific restrictions apply to what can be removed, what must be retained as a vegetative buffer, and what grade changes are allowed near the shoreline. Many Lakes Region and Lakes Region properties fall under these rules. Consult NH DES before clearing any waterfront lot.