Living in the hurricane belt here in Central Florida, my wife was concerned about a couple of very tall pine trees in our back yard. She called a tree service to get a quote for removing them.

The owner of the company came by to take a look. He stated that the trees were healthy and refused to give us a quote; he was adamant that his company would NOT cut down a healthy tree unless there was a real danger.

We still have the trees.

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Originally posted by OttoSig:

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Originally posted by selogic:
As I said , this tree cannot just be dropped . No room for that . It cannot be climbed safely . It will take a crane truck and some careful work . It will have to be hauled away after and it's too rotten to be sold as firewood . I wish it was as easy as ya'll think it is but that's not the case .

Do YOU know it can't be dropped, has to have a crane, too dangerous to climb, or did the guy asking 2K tell you those things?

Give me a little bit of credit here . This ain't my first Rodeo . The tree is double trunked and both of them are too big to reach around . It sheds rotten limbs every time the wind blows . It sits right on my property line and is boxed in by other big trees and a storage building . There is nowhere to " just lay it down " . It has to come down in pieces and it is too far gone to climb safely . It is worthless as firewood , and it will have to be hauled off .

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Originally posted by selogic:

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Originally posted by OttoSig:

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Originally posted by selogic:
As I said , this tree cannot just be dropped . No room for that . It cannot be climbed safely . It will take a crane truck and some careful work . It will have to be hauled away after and it's too rotten to be sold as firewood . I wish it was as easy as ya'll think it is but that's not the case .

Do YOU know it can't be dropped, has to have a crane, too dangerous to climb, or did the guy asking 2K tell you those things?

Give me a little bit of credit here . This ain't my first Rodeo . The tree is double trunked and both of them are too big to reach around . It sheds rotten limbs every time the wind blows . It sits right on my property line and is boxed in by other big trees and a storage building . There is nowhere to " just lay it down " . It has to come down in pieces and it is too far gone to climb safely . It is worthless as firewood , and it will have to be hauled off .

Sounds good. 2k is a steal then for sure!!!

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Originally posted by OttoSig:

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Originally posted by selogic:

quote:

Originally posted by OttoSig:

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:

Do YOU know it can't be dropped, has to have a crane, too dangerous to climb, or did the guy asking 2K tell you those things?

Give me a little bit of credit here . This ain't my first Rodeo . The tree is double trunked and both of them are too big to reach around . It sheds rotten limbs every time the wind blows . It sits right on my property line and is boxed in by other big trees and a storage building . There is nowhere to " just lay it down " . It has to come down in pieces and it is too far gone to climb safely . It is worthless as firewood , and it will have to be hauled off .

Sounds good. 2k is a steal then for sure!!!

Finally , somebody gets it .

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Originally posted by Gustofer:
When I bought my house, I had four 100'+ Ponderosa pines within 15' of the house in the yard. Job #1 was getting rid of them. I had a local fella come out with a few helpers and they brought them all down, limbed them, and stacked the logs for me for $500 and lunch...and a few beers. $2-$3000 for one tree? Nope...unless that's your only option. It's robbery IMO.

What year did this happen? Gas used to be $0.19 per gallon too.

A lot of people think cutting down trees is so easy. It is difficult and dangerous work. Last week, one of my employees was hit in the head and torso with a falling limb. He was knocked unconscious and got a collapsed lung. I have cut my leg with a chainsaw while climbing and have had several close calls of getting seriously injured or killed. One of my very experienced employees would have had a serious cut if he wasn’t wearing protective chaps.

Tree equipment is expensive. My bucket truck cost $170,000.00, the chipper is $75,000.00, the tracked aerial lift is $180,000.00, chainsaws are $700-$1,800.00. I just had to buy a clutch for the chipper and the parts cost $2,300.00. I had to have two hydraulic cylinders repaired for $3,300.00. Insurance is $2,500.00 a month. Every job has at least $150.00 in costs just to dispose of the chips or logs.

$2000.00 is more than a fair price for that tree.

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Originally posted by mojojojo:

Gas used to be $0.19 per gallon too.

I remember when the "standard" price was 25¢ / gallon, and local price wars would take it down to 21¢ or even down to 19¢ -- that was in the mid to late 1950's, when I was running between Navy bases in Virginia and home in the NYC metro area. There was a section of the route just south of the NJ Turnpike where there were a lot of gas stations that had the lowest prices on the trip, so we would always stop to fill up, in that area.

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Originally posted by V-Tail:
Living in the hurricane belt here in Central Florida, my wife was concerned about a couple of very tall pine trees in our back yard. She called a tree service to get a quote for removing them.

The owner of the company came by to take a look. He stated that the trees were healthy and refused to give us a quote; he was adamant that his company would NOT cut down a healthy tree unless there was a real danger.

We still have the trees.

That guy is an idiot . Suppose you wanted to build on your property or extend a driveway , etc. ? I'm sure there are plenty of guys willing to take those trees down .

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Originally posted by Suppressed:
A lot of people think cutting down trees is so easy. It is difficult and dangerous work. Last week, one of my employees was hit in the head and torso with a falling limb. He was knocked unconscious and got a collapsed lung. I have cut my leg with a chainsaw while climbing and have had several close calls of getting seriously injured or killed. One of my very experienced employees would have had a serious cut if he wasn’t wearing protective chaps.

Tree equipment is expensive. My bucket truck cost $170,000.00, the chipper is $75,000.00, the tracked aerial lift is $180,000.00, chainsaws are $700-$1,800.00. I just had to buy a clutch for the chipper and the parts cost $2,300.00. I had to have two hydraulic cylinders repaired for $3,300.00. Insurance is $2,500.00 a month. Every job has at least $150.00 in costs just to dispose of the chips or logs.

$2000.00 is more than a fair price for that tree.

I'm confident that it is . I've been talking to people that had work done . This same crew cut a tall Pine tree for a neighbor a few weeks ago so I know what kind of work they do . Licensed Arborist and one of the biggest outfits in the area .

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Originally posted by bendable:
I asked a local if he cold calls people with offers to remove trees.

He said he makes too much money letting them wait and wait and wait to get it done.

He was charging $900.00 to remove $2,500.00 "today" trees.


It's pretty ludicrous how meticulous people are with their lawns,
But refuse to care for their trees.

Yep, that’s been my experience as well. My whole neighborhood was built in the late 70’s through early 80’s. Houses are all built solid. I’ve had several contractors in the house doing various things and many of them remarked how well the house was built. They said night and day to today’s builds where they chintz out on this and that. Only thing a new home has over mine is the insulation (walls not the roof).

But this whole fucking neighborhood was built by builders who put in massive trees too close to the home. You know the type that hang all over the homes, tower over the homes, etc. Big oaks, all sorts of shit. I had 3, 2 were end of life, with 1 healthy Magnolia. Thankfully mine were not like neighbor homes with Oaks and their root systems growing into the foundation of the homes. Idiotic planning. Neat they shelter your roof “some” from the sun. Minimal help on the kwh bill. Problem is we get storms, tornado storms, with high wind speeds, flood rain, name it. I’ve seen big ol’ limbs that went through the shingles, plywood, right into the fucking living room. No thanks. Had all 3 removed. I could have kept the Magnolia but the leaves were acidic so any time it would rain, the leaves would drop and kill the grass underneath it. I’m not that guy worried about the “impeccable” lawn with yard of the month, I just got tired of cleaning up all the leaves. It would take me hours.

I consulted with A&M for replacements and went with proper shade trees. A&M in my state are the tree/botany experts and their recommendation is around a home trees should be no taller than the home due to storms. They recommended shade trees so I bought 2 and planted them farther out in the yard and made sure the type I chose didn’t have elaborate root systems that would grow all over the yard. Made sure they were water efficient, drought resistant, and can handle freezing temps. Just doing the research, which took many hours, and hours more to find the right tree company to buy from. In the end I felt like I had got a damn degree in botany. PITA. Then I had the trees I wanted sexed as I didn’t want the males or females (don’t remember which) that dropped seeds or whatever droppings.

And like you said, these people will have immaculate cut grass and the trees they just don’t maintain. And even the people that do maintain their trees, shit they have to spend $ every year to trim them. Way too much hassle and $ to me. These are big uns they have to pay a company to trim, with the crane mounted in the back of the truck just to get up there. Then all the limbs and debris sit out on the curb a week or more until their lazy asses schedule the city to pick all that shit up out of the street. Too much hassle for me. I trim both of my trees in 20 minutes once every couple of years and don’t even have to get a ladder out. At least not yet. I didn’t pay $3k or anything like that. It’s been about 7 years now but I paid something like $500-750 a pop. He cut them down in sections over a week then came back a few weeks later with a shovel and saw to hack up and remove the roots. But he’s just the local landscape guy who spends most of his time cutting neighbor lawns so I made out pretty well.

The proper rant would be me bitching about all these fucking neighbors with their gigantor trees. Here in a month or so they all start dropping their leaves and neighbor yards are so littered with leaves you can’t even see the grass. And they’ll fuck it off for weeks so it ends up in my yard, and I have to clean up their tree bullshit because they are lazy as fuck. I’ve got the rake out and I’m cussing up a storm saying out loud “I thought I got rid of my got damn trees that did this”. The best part is the pool. I’m out there every single day for over a week cleaning the skimmers. Pulling the Polaris out every day too to empty his net. It’s aggravating as fuck cleaning up other people’s shit. “Oh the pretty trees” man fuck all that. Either cut em down or maintain your shit. Fuckers should be paying me. I’ve got big uns all around me and some of the neighbor trees worry me in storms. They could hit my house and cost me thousands. Having insurance is neat and all but TX insurance carriers forced us to up our out of pocket expense. I remember when homeowners was $70 a month, now it’s almost $350 and that’s with doubling my deductible. Can’t wait to move rural and get out of a fucking subdivision permanently. Long past tired of neighbors costing me money and time. Dipshits won’t cut these monsters down until it goes right through their roofs.

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:

That guy is an idiot . Suppose you wanted to build on your property or extend a driveway , etc. ? I'm sure there are plenty of guys willing to take those trees down .

I probably should have been a bit more clear about that. My wife was concerned about the possibility of the trees falling, in a storm. The arborist who owns the company stated that the trees are perfectly healthy, he did not see any risk, and as such, his company would not cut down healthy trees.

Sure, if there were a reason like you mentioned, he would do it. But he would not cut a healthy tree just because somebody was concerned that it might get blown down in a storm -- he did not see any danger of that happening.

Gotcha .

I paid about $9k to remove three pines about a year and a half ago. Got three quotes. One was rotting and I was advised to not let anybody climb it. The second was dead. The third was between the utility wires coming to the house. They brought in a crane.

quote:

A lot of people think cutting down trees is so easy. It is difficult and dangerous work. Last week, one of my employees was hit in the head and torso with a falling limb. He was knocked unconscious and got a collapsed lung. I have cut my leg with a chainsaw while climbing and have had several close calls of getting seriously injured or killed. One of my very experienced employees would have had a serious cut if he wasn’t wearing protective chaps.

Tree equipment is expensive. My bucket truck cost $170,000.00, the chipper is $75,000.00, the tracked aerial lift is $180,000.00, chainsaws are $700-$1,800.00. I just had to buy a clutch for the chipper and the parts cost $2,300.00. I had to have two hydraulic cylinders repaired for $3,300.00. Insurance is $2,500.00 a month. Every job has at least $150.00 in costs just to dispose of the chips or logs.

^^^^^^^^^^^^
I had some trees removed after Katrina. They used heavy equipment and ruined my lawn. It was expensive since everybody needed tree work. It was an unpleasant experience. There are plenty of loggers around here, but prices were high due to the demand,

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Originally posted by mojojojo:
What year did this happen? Gas used to be $0.19 per gallon too.

2013.

quote:

Originally posted by mojojojo:

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
When I bought my house, I had four 100'+ Ponderosa pines within 15' of the house in the yard. Job #1 was getting rid of them. I had a local fella come out with a few helpers and they brought them all down, limbed them, and stacked the logs for me for $500 and lunch...and a few beers. $2-$3000 for one tree? Nope...unless that's your only option. It's robbery IMO.

What year did this happen? Gas used to be $0.19 per gallon too.

Exactly. You’re not getting it done like that anymore. Certainly not someone with insurance. I can tell a lot of people haven’t had trees cut down in a long time. I’ve had 27 trees cut down over the last 8 years and I’ve had dozens of quotes and 4 different companies do the work. I’ve never had a quote under $1500 for a single tree. They are all big trees but still.

https://imgur.com/a/wj56vBd

Trunk 18 inches, first branch at 8 feet.

$850 for the tree
$150 for stump grind

I just had a 60 foot maple removed as it had become infested with carpenter ants. Circumference at the base was about 45 inches, so I would say a "medium" tree. It was however right on the property line next to a fence - no way to get a bucket truck back there so they had to have a climber section it and lower the pieces by rope. I got 3 bids - $1250, $900, and $800. The $800 was from a larger local company with a good reputation and fully insured. Stump grinding was an extra $300 - but where the tree was there are existing cable, power and phone lines as well as sprinkler lines, so I just had them cut it flush and I'll take care of it from there.

quote:

Originally posted by selogic:
His quote of 2 thousand is a bargain .

Definitely. 2 grand to have it done compared to costs for ER visit, hospital stay, physical therapy, lost income......

A bargain.

The tree service showed up at 8:00 am and left at 11:30 . They had this really cool manlift type of thing with rubber tracks and a telescoping boom that reaches 115 feet . Doesn't tear up the yard . While they were here I had them trim some limbs from another tree by my deck . Cleaned up and hauled off . All in for $2200 and I couldn't be more pleased with the crew and their work .