I need a large Ash Tree removed from my yard. The guy quoted me 1700$ for removal and stump grinding. It that a reasonable price and I will help him the day he comes. He will have to pull over some higher large branches.

Tree work is exceptionally difficult to price. Personally ide never let a customer near my work site or my ropes, that kind of suggest a huge lack of professionalism.

Wish I could give you better advice but it's difficult to gauge a trees difficulty with pictures and impossible with words only.

Tree removal is a ripoff. They charge you to haul away the tree which they sell to a sawmill for additional profit.

Lol... buddy you got no clue.

Tree removal is expensive. Some you can do yourself but often it is worth having the experts do it. They have the knowledge, equipment, and skills to deal with dangerous situations. I recently paid $2500 for a crew to spend about a 1/2 day here. I don't know if it was a reasonable price or not but I paid it rather than risk life or injury.

I got a quote last year to have (2) large trees taken down that were near my house. They will have to be taken down in pieces. I think it was around $3,000 for both trees.

I have removed and trimmed 100's of trees in my life. I could do it but would need it hauled away and stump grinding needs to be done. I will be keeping all wood for fire wood. I will help junk that up and I will sell it and use some myself.

Hiring a professional is better than getting injured or worse.

Is it live or dead?

you could ask for the no clean up , no stump grinding price I did that on a large hackberry hanging over my house

I normally take down any tree not in danger of hitting anything , about half of this was all danger of hitting my roof

it has been a few years I think 2021 or 2022 but it cost me 450 cash on a Sunday morning for about 2 1/2 - 3 hours work
it left a huge mess that took me a lot longer than that to clean up

he could drive the bucket truck right up to the tree

A chain saw, long pull straps and truck or tractor to pull it over with most trees I ain’t paying nobody $1,700 to do it but that’s just me.

Here is one guy that knows how to pull a tree down. 45-1 advantage with ropes and pulleys. 10:23 crazy stuff

Yes. That sounds reasonable

It will take longer but you can burn the stump instead of having it ground.if you plan on keeping the wood to burn all that needs to be hauled is the smaller branches and they could be burned also.

People don’t realize the amount of weight/energy in a tree so you need to respect the process a lot can go wrong my landowners call me when it’s time to drop a tree, once it hits the ground it’s their clean up if it’s not good boiler wood. I help clean up I’m just not hauling it anywhere they have the means to move it. I section it up for them if needed.

The dropping of the tree is the biggest risk because of that weight up in the air it only takes one widow maker to end your life a smaller limb can weigh a lot so be careful don’t pull too much to splinter the tree that’s dangerous. I’m no professional just cut a lot of trees in my day it can be exciting sometimes more then expected. LOL

I also think that is reasonable.

I guess I’m just cheap. LOL

I'm planning to have two dead white oaks taken down in my yard. The trunks are about 2 foot across. Will have the main trunks hauled away and I'll cut up the branches that I can handle. The tree trimmer I will use is one who was insured with me. Insurance for tree trimmers isn't cheap. He has a bucket truck.

You guys can dump the ash and oak over here,
size don't matter.

Insurance was my first thought.
Dealing with home and auto right
now and have radar up.

I've dropped lots of trees in my life but that was at places where there was no chance of hitting a structure.

I hired pros to take down a huge dead ash, two poplars and a hickory that were leaning towards my house. They cut them from the top down, the safe way to do it and something I don't have the equipment to do.

I told them they could leave all the wood lay in the woodlot behind my house and had them leave the trunks standing at about twenty feet high. I'll drop those myself and have them milled for lumber for woodworking.

The charged me $2,700.00 which I thought was reasonable.

Snowy, I don't think $1,700.00 is out of line. I'd probably be good with that.

You hire a professional company for their expertise and their liability insurance policy.. You make a mistake it will cost you considerably more than $1700.. FWIW

Half way through I thought that guy's insane. Then I remembered the opening shot showed the tractor perpindicular to the rigging. He really should have called out that detail. By the time the tension is built up (and there's any real chance of a rope breaking sending a pully flying) he'd be well out of the way. By pulling perpendicular to the 5x rigging, the pully isn't going to fly towards him. But if someone tries to copy him and their vehicle travel is inline with the pulleys that would be very dangerous. The ropes themselves aren't a problem, but those pulleys would be could have a lot of energy flying through the air.

Sounds good to me just make sure they are insured

I watched the video- and think he could have got away with a lot less rigging had he hooked it up higher. And I bet there are still front roots hold even though it is toppled.

Like said if it’s close to a structure start trimming, if it’s got weight going in all directions start trimming then pull it in the direction you want it to go wear a helmet or you might see stars if you get hit with a small branch.

With the sound of the ropes and pulleys straining in that video , I was cringing the whole time. Guy knows what he is doing but I would be even further back. Scary stuff , especially for a non-trained person.

Sounds like my very valuable walnut!

Yep he has insurance. I could do it it wouldn't be an issue but to do it I need to be up on a ladder about 25 feet to get the job done. I just don't want to short myself on the years I have left.

Our locals make firewood to sell!!!!!

My employees make around $30 a hour, with payroll taxes, work comp, etc I use $50 a hour per employee as my cost. Now have two guys making firewood, $100 a hour total plus equipment. How much profit do you think there is in a cord of wood after that?

Most mills I know of wouldnt take a yard tree/log if you gave it to them.

^^^^^ I can get a guy in with his machine and cut and spit 20 cords for 1g,,,, lots of money left…

I had two huge soft maples. Stumps every bit of four feet across. Limbs, big ones, hanging over the roof. Were there when I bought the place 3 years ago. Its across the street from where I live. Few years ago a limb came down and was up against the front door. Old man in poor health lived there. Me and another guy cut and hauled it off. My insurance deductible is 5g. Thats what I paid to have them removed. I rented a stump grinder and finished it. The equipment they had to use could not have been cheap. Was worth every penny.

Snowy, I’ll do it for lifetime turkey hunting privileges on your land

Way off base there. Like not even close. I make logs for sawmills and export yards. But I’ve climbed and pieced down my fair share, and I can tell you it takes skills and knowledge that cost money. And if I’m removing a tree that way, it’s because it won’t fit anywhere in big enough pieces to sell to a mill, they don’t want firewood chunks.

It's clear who has experience and who doesn't. Yes I may make $450. an hour on the job time but

Figure time giving estimate, equipment cost and upkeep, paying help, insurance, taxes, time dealing with the stuff you hall off sight. It's sounds expensive untill you Figure out how much it cost and how much work it is.

Good example is the consumer that wants it droped and left they want to clean up the mess to save money. OK so I drop it. Within 2 weeks they call back wanting it cleaned up for the full removal price I told them. Decided the clean up is more work than they want. BUT my price to come back will be at least 1/3 more.

Why more 1.I have to come back = more time.2 I would have cleaned it up as it came down removing all the brush Before the logs came down. Now the logs are on top the brush making it a royal pain to clean up tripping Over brush stuck under the logs cleaning up the logs first so you can get the brush out from under them.

It's not worth my time selling firewood. Cutting and splitting it them loading and delivering, unloading then driving back home is not a money maker. You give the wood away and discount your labor. Now I will burn it my at home or would sell it if the boys cut and split it if people want to come get a truck load but is still not a money making thing. I


A lot of the post here remind me of people that think the wood is worth a lot of money. Hear is a way everyone should be able to relate to it. It's about like people wanting you to trap their problem animals for free but you can keep the fur for payment.

You can rent stump grinders in several sizes around here. I don't own one BUT would wait tell I had several to grind and then rent whatever size grinder I needed and would spend the day or weekend grinding stumps. Often I made double what I charged to do the stump to clean up the chips, fill the hole with topsoil seed fertalize and straw it.

That's being fed symmetrical logs from a forest, yard trees suck. Just hauled out a semi full of logs, think it was 11 cords and needed to go on a 3 hour round trip with the semi. I got $1800. Haul away logs, cut them to length, hire a log truck to pick them up and drop them off, yep, I'm getting rich off the wood alright.

Seen a lot of firewood businesses come and go the ones that seem to do well are the small bundle sellers at C stores and campgrounds the truck big load guy don’t often stick around long it seems like. That’s a time consuming task moving a lot of weight to keep moving around over and over again.

Snowy, just ask Spike369. Sounds like he’s the guy……
Make sure to video the event as it’ll probably go viral. The tree safety guys that teach courses will use it for the beginning of the course…..lol

A question like this came up a couple months ago.

Really, I know a few they charge big prices and then sell the wood for fire wood, Cash jobs are almost always untaxed cash in the pocket . So dont try and snowball the people you service

That’d be like me doing an ADC job when the target is in season……you think I’m just burning the animal? People are just lazy and cheap…..lol

It is expensive and hard work one tree wont be hauled to a mill if there is even one close by. It is also dangerous and hard on the body that price seem reasonable but if you want to take it on go for it. I would pay to have it done especially if its close to the house or utility lines make sure he is insured for any loss or damage lot of guys are not especially out of city work, no permits required.

I got the deal of a lifetime for you, come to my yard and you can have as many logs as you want free. I have a small pile I'm saving otherwise take whatever you want. Likely 100 cords there now.

Only thing I ask is once your done post how much time it took and how much profit you made off the firewood.

"small pile I'm saving" How much for this pile?
There's a warm rain falling down my back lol.

Gun stocks, music instilments,
whiskey barrels, aspirin, veneer,
furniture, ball bats, turkey calls,
What other "wives tales"?

My latest collection is,,,,
phone poles, big bucks.

If I could, I would leave all the wood from tree jobs at the customer's place, no money in wood and chipping brush. Now that very valuable walnut!

If there was easy money in most of the remains from taking down yard trees, tree companies wouldn't be paying to dump it or hauling it long distances to dump it for free.

Keith

If you want to save money have them knock it down and you clean it up just a thought

50% of these jobs, the customer calls you back to do the cleanup. They have no idea of the work involved.

Exactly see my post one page back. if I go back it cost them quite a bit more than the original total removal price given.

sounds like a Golden Opportunity to make easy money...why don't you jump in?

I hired a crew called tree sixty last year.The owner had just bought a 120 ft crane that he had 2 straps hanging from the ball on the crane and they had a guy in a bucket hooking up the straps and making the cuts.These were massive trees taken down with maybe 10 cuts and dropped down to the ground crew that had them cleaned up as fast as they could set them down.He charged me $3000 for 2 trees one of which was in my dog kennel with no way to access but the way he did it.So glad I happened to find him.He made $8500 on my block in about 8 hours with a 4 or 5 man crew. He really screwed up though as he dropped all the big money firewood a block away for free,lol

Well got the tree down hauled away and stump ground up. Cost me 1500$ and one guy spent 26 hours doing it. I help some some just to get it done.

My question is I kept a heaping pickup truck full of ash wood. All in about three foot logs with round from 4 to 8 inch rounds. About 5% of the wood needs to be split. I will try to sell for fire wood what would be a good price for a fully pickup box full of ash wood be worth???

Locally, that's worth around $60.00 to $80.00. You can buy a whole cord for $125.00.

Keith