Tree removal in Albany and the mid Willamette Valley

A removal is the one piece of tree work you cannot undo, so it is the one we look at hardest before we agree to it. When we come out we walk the whole tree, not just the trunk. Which way it leans, where the weight actually sits, what is under the canopy, how close the fence, the house or the drop wire is, and how near we can get a chipper and a trailer. Those are the things that decide the day, and none of them can be read off a phone screen, which is why the estimate happens at the property and never over the phone.

On most of the properties in this valley the tree cannot simply be felled. There is a house on one side, a fence on the other and a lawn underneath that the owner has spent years on. So the tree comes down in sections. The top comes out first, either off a climbing line or out of the bucket, and then the spar is taken down in lengths. Bigger pieces get rigged and lowered rather than dropped, so they land where we put them. It is slower than felling and it is the safe option, and it is the only way to take a sixty foot tree out of a small back garden without leaving a mark on it.

The part most people underestimate is the debris. One mature broadleaf produces far more material than it looks like it will from the ground, and if there is no plan for it the job stalls halfway through with a garden full of brush. We plan the haul away before we plan the cuts. Brush goes through the chipper as it comes off the tree, wood is cut into rounds and loaded out or stacked where you want it, and the ground gets raked before we call it done. If you want the rounds kept for firewood, tell us at the estimate and they stay.

We take the tough removals other landscaping companies would rather not deal with. Trees tight against a building, trees that have already partly failed, trees on a slope where the ground has moved, trees somebody else has quoted and then not come back on. What we will not do is take a tree out that needs a permit before one is in place, and we will not work a site we cannot reach safely with the equipment the job needs. If that is the situation, we will say so at the estimate rather than find out on the day.

Most removals run one to two days from the first cut to the last rake. We give you the real answer on that at the estimate, and most jobs are quoted the same day we look. Nothing is scheduled until you have the written quote and have said yes to it, and we take no deposit to hold the date.

Whether we can do the work at all comes down to access more often than it comes down to the tree. A chipper and a trailer need to get within reach of where the material is landing, and on a tight lot that can mean working off the street, taking a fence panel out and putting it back, or carrying everything through a side passage by hand. All three are possible and all three change the day, which is the last reason the estimate happens on site. You will know which one your property is before you agree to anything.