I don't have any special expertise, but I'm happy to share what I did and learned. I wanted to take out the tree roots and all because of some upcoming construction. Getting the tree guys to do it all would have been over $1k. I had other trees to take down, so I just paid the tree guys to cut off all the limbs and drop the top. I brought in a 30 cubic yard roll off dumpster and put all the limbs/branches/leaves in it. That took most of a day and left me with a 30' high trunk to get down.Whoa! Hope you got pics of that, or better yet, a vid! Wish you'd done that 4 months ago, maybe I coulda saved a K or so... <sigh>
C'mon, gimme the skinny, and don't skimp on the details!
I got out the chainsaw and a couple of new chain files for sharpening, then it was: cut a root, sharpen chain, repeat until all roots are cut. Then I tied a stout rope to the top and pulled it for a while in one direction, then a while in the other until it tipped far enough to fall over. Cutting roots took most of the day, pulling the tree over only took about half an hour.
Next step was cutting the trunk apart and getting the stump out of the hole. I used a chain to roll it up out of the hole cut the trunk into 5 foot pieces. This took a couple hours.
Stump was too big to carry with the grapple, so I had to roll it up the road to the dumpster. Next step is to get the roots out of the ground, I think that will take another day. It's not easy but it sure is satisfying!
-- Carl