I dug out a 12 foot section of my yard by hand last weekend and hit a root the size of my leg
Last Saturday I decided to finally put in a small gravel patio behind my garage. I marked off an 8 by 10 foot area and started digging with a pointed shovel around 8am. By noon I had pulled up two wheelbarrows of dirt and then my shovel just stopped dead on something solid. It turned out to be a maple root about 10 inches thick, running right under where the patio was supposed to go. I spent the next 3 hours with a pruning saw and a hatchet trying to get through it, and my back is still sore today. Has anyone dealt with a root this big, and did you cut it out or just move the whole project somewhere else?
That root saw you coming and decided to win the fight, huh? A 10 inch maple root is no joke though, those things are basically underground tree trunks at that point. I would not move the whole patio over one root if you already got that far into the dig, especially after all that sawing and hatchet work. Cutting it out is the usual move, but you have to be ready for the stump to rot and leave a soft spot under your gravel in a couple years. Next time save your back and rent a mattock or even a small root saw before the shovel hits the wall.