Come to Florida The Hurricanes will take them down for nothing!!

Kind of funny to read all th3 answers. I've done my fair share of tree dropping. My best tool is my jeep with a winch on the front. It doesn't weigh very much, maybe 4500#. If you've been using one for years, you pretty much can tell where the tree will fall without it. I don't try to fight nature or gravity.

a few years ago I had a knock on the front door. It was a good ole hillbilly in his pickup truck. The one maple out front had 2 trunks, and needed work done. He offered to cut the broken and dying trunk and stack it as firewood in my drive. His price was $40. I let him go at it. It was worth the money not to bother. The guy was good, took it down and sawed it up in under an hour. He was going home from work and saw the chance to make some beer money. I'd use him any day over Skins union friends. Its the American way. Work, get paid, go on your way.

Skins...are you on FB? If so, are you a member of RHOLC? There are several guys in there who own tree services and will get you fair pricing. They're mostly all in Loudoun.

When we were getting quotes 15yrs ago to wire for a hot tub, we got quotes of $1200 from most electricians. I spent $200 on supplies and with help from my brother-in-law who's a GC down in NC, we knocked it out in 45min. As my wife says; "$200 for the work, $2k for the know-how".

I'm pretty good with a chainsaw and have used them a lot. When it came time to down a very large Pecan tree, I felt it was not worth the risk because of where it was located. The tree was located between my House and Shop with only one direction it could go safely. It had to fall perfectly to avoid doing any damage.
All I was looking for was someone who could put it on the ground. I would do the rest. I called several tree services in my area and got bids from $1200 to 1800 to just down the tree. I felt every bid was outrageous so I continued to look for a cheaper price. I ended up calling a tree service recommended by a co-worker and he gave me a price of $400.00. Turns out, he was one of the best and busiest in the area. It took him about an hour.
Shop around. Prices can vary greatly.

If you're not afraid of heights you can rent a lift from sunbelt and cut the tree down yourself. I've taken down two trees in my yard doing the work myself. With a lift you just cut from the top down, the lift gets you to the top of the tree and has enough standoff distance that nothing can fall on you as you cut. Just get a lift that will reach to the top of the tree.

quote:

Originally posted by calugo:
If you're not afraid of heights you can rent a lift from sunbelt and cut the tree down yourself. I've taken down two trees in my yard doing the work myself. With a lift you just cut from the top down, the lift gets you to the top of the tree and has enough standoff distance that nothing can fall on you as you cut. Just get a lift that will reach to the top of the tree.

If you do this and you drop the tree in pieces and you have yourself secured to the tree with a safety strap, please wrap a chain around the tree below the cut but above your safety strap. Some trees will split below the cut when/if the top part starts to fall before the cut is complete. Folks have been severely injured or killed by the safety strap when that happens. A tightly wrapped chain can prevent the problem.

Also, be advised that the tree may sway a bit when the pieces come off. When I was a teenager, I needed to drop a couple of 80’ eucalyptus on Mom’s ranch. Not wanting to chance dropping one on one of the avocado trees instead of the dirt road, I climbed up the first to about 50’ and dropped the top 30’. It felt like it swayed 12’ each way, but it was probably somewhere between 4 and 6’. I took on more cut on the way down. The second one I just notched well and droppedon the road. I was not going back up one of those trees...

ETA: Terrible reading comp and I wasn’t even drinking. Sorry about that!

The suggested man lift would be much safer than climbing. You still need to take care positioning the lift so if a limb hangs on and swings, then breaks it still isn’t going to hit the lift, but it is much safer than climbing.

quote:

Originally posted by rburg:
Kind of funny to read all th3 answers. I've done my fair share of tree dropping. My best tool is my jeep with a winch on the front. It doesn't weigh very much, maybe 4500#. If you've been using one for years, you pretty much can tell where the tree will fall without it. I don't try to fight nature or gravity.

I too used a man lift, then PULLED down a large green oak that was leaning out over our kitchen. Used a 1 ton hand winch and 120’ cable attached about 20’ up the tree for plenty of leverage then used a snatch block to double the pulling power. It was cut a little pull a little until it fell dead center of the 16’ opening between the house and garage. No skill was involed. I just had to outsmart a tree.

quote:

Originally posted by PGT:
Skins...are you on FB? If so, are you a member of RHOLC? There are several guys in there who own tree services and will get you fair pricing. They're mostly all in Loudoun.

When we were getting quotes 15yrs ago to wire for a hot tub, we got quotes of $1200 from most electricians. I spent $200 on supplies and with help from my brother-in-law who's a GC down in NC, we knocked it out in 45min. As my wife says; "$200 for the work, $2k for the know-how".

Not member of RHOLC. Saw something in the Loudoun Times Mirror about them and thought about joining.

This one is being left to the pros. Besides the know-how, I don't have three or four, or more dump trucks to fill with the debris, no chipper, no climbing rigs, and no secret stash of Central Americans in my basement. We are talking about the equivalent of a number of cars in weight of the wood alone. Also it overhangs - my shed, my patio, my neighbors house, his deck, and a little over my garden and house. The pictures don't do it justice, it's the BIGGEST tree in the neighborhood.

I suggest calling the insurance company and verifying that the policy is active.

So the weather is not going to be too well this week, he called today to tell me we'd have to change the date due to the weather, I asked if it would be next week sometime, he answered actually I want to do it tomorrow. Wait.... what? Yeah he's moving it up to deal with bad weather not pushing it off. Cool.

Anyways, I want to get him to cut a couple of rounds for me to save and try to turn into a table or something.

Questions:

Optimal thickness to prevent cracking?

Anything I can apply to prevent cracking?

Best place to dry? Indoors/Outdoors? High/Low humidity?

Any other tips?

Laminating them to a sheet of plywood cut to the same dimensions with epoxy would prevent them from cracking. Coating them with another type of epoxy such as West System, or table top resin will prevent cracking. Dry them on a flat surface.

I sure as hell wouldn't be subsidizing work for the 'neighbor' any longer!

Got my quote on the tree I needed out. $650 which includes grinding the stump and cutting the tree into fireplace sized logs which I gave to my SIL since I've converted my fireplace to gas. Four man crew (one climber and three on the ground) finished in 2 1/2 hours... tree down, stump ground and unusable fire place wood put through the chipper and a pretty good clean up.

A few pics

Sounds like you got a fine deal and a good job.

One of the oldest and most experienced tree services in our area had a crane topple over last year in extremely wet weather. They put plywood sheets down but the ground was saturated and the crane toppled. The bucketman was banged up pretty bad and broke his arm but could have been much worse.

https://www.newsandtribune.com...0b-b33ff6cf1c65.html

Came with a giant crane. Took this monster tree down in four hours including stump grinding and clean up. I was amazed how fast they did it. They removed it swinging very large pieces over my house so we mostly stood outside watching, just in case the rigging failed somehow. Ended up with some turf that will need ruts fixed and seed from the grinder, but nothing serious. A plus job from these guys.

Here is the round I had cut from the tree. I need to figure out the best way to dry it and find someone who can plane it flat for me. It's not perfect to start with. Convex/concave on top/bottom and almost an inch difference on thickness from thickest to thinnest parts.

Any suggestions for me on how to dry and how to plane it?