That is a good question on whether a person is responsible for rental equipment if it breaks down for whatever reason. If we do look into renting, I will definitely ask about that.
Oh, on the cost, I was a little misleading in my first post, I should have worded that differently. I had a $500 quote for the 4 stumps only in the front yard that are really large and humped up. We have a total of 10 stumps probably, but just 4 are in the front. Those are the ones we want out for sure because they heaved the ground up so badly and the front yard is so tiny, they look just awful. The back yard would be nice to have done, but not something we would pay all that much for since we can't afford it. That is why we thought by renting we could do it ourselves and get them all. My husband cut all of the trees in the back yard last summer. Some of them were rather large, but they did not heave the ground up like the front ones. The ones in the front yard were cut several years ago, probably after a really bad ice storm we had in the area, and judging by the roots, they were probably soft wood-silver maples, I think, so they probably were damaged pretty badly. Alot of the trees in the area were damaged badly.
