Rough cost to take down a large Douglas Fir tree?

[sidekickdmr]

Anyone had any trees taken down by the pro's lately?

What am I looking at per large Douglas Fir, I have about 4 to come out in total.

The wood will not need to be removed, I’m planning to process it into Cladding and off cuts will be firewood.

Never used a tree surgeon before so no idea if I’m looking at £100 or £1000.

Thanks

[brrapp]

Depends if its a straight fell with nothing to hit or avoid. You can fell a single tree in the middle of an empty field in less than an hour, so easily less than £100. At the other end of the spectrum, I've taken a week with 3 men, a cherry picker and a lorry to fell a single tree in small stages as it was wedged between two houses and a garage, this cost well into the £1000s.
We tried to produce an average single tree price for a large contract for the local council but it was very difficult. We eventually settled on around £250 per tree, some we made money on , some we lost a fortune but it averaged out ok at that on the basis we were doing around 2 or 3 per week for them.
In a one-of situation, you really need to get someone out to look at it. Bear in mind different tree surgeons will have vastly differing prices too so I'd get at least 3 quotes. Douglas fir is reasonably valuable as a timber so try and get the surgeon to factor this in to the price or arrange to dispose of it yourself and offset the felling cost..

editted to add ..sorry I've just noticed you're going to use the timber yourself.

Edited by brrapp on Tuesday 29th November 12:59

[mikeiow]

Can't be sure, but it sounds like a couple of days work for a couple of tree surgeons. I imagine you would be nearer (or maybe over) £1K.
We had a couple of large beech trees taken down plus some hedging work: took 2 days, just under £1,300....depends where you live as well!

[covmutley]

had 3 fir trees taken down recently. Think they were about 20 feet high or thereabouts.

They chopped the wood into 10 inch logs for our woodburner. Done (easily) in a day by a proper arb contractor, and cost just under £400.

edit to add, this didnt include stump removal, which would have added quite a lot.

Edited by covmutley on Tuesday 29th November 16:24

[boyse7en]

We had a tall (60ft-ish) fir in our garden cut down

couldn't be felled due to position. they did it in stages from ropes.

Burnable pieces were cut into 4ft lengths
trunk cut into slices
everything else chipped into a big pile of chipping

£400

This didn't include removing the stump, which we needed a 6-tonne digger to do.

[CAPP0]

Not a Douglas Fir but there is a large conifer of some sort in between our house and the neighbour, on their land but on the boundary. They want it out (and so do I). Trunk is about 12-15" across. They've been quoted £270 inc removal and stump grinding, and the guy who gave that said it was a very good price (he's a local, used by lots of people, so I'd tend to believe him).

[sidekickdmr]

They are not near any buildings, so should be able to be felled, I would guess they are about 60 foot, trunk is about 100cm at the base, and apart from chopping into say 3 20ft lengths they don’t need to do anything else as I can do that.

About £200 a tree seems about right then based on what you guys have paid.

Ill report back when I have the quotes from the pros in, cheers!


I dont need to worry about the stumps as the reason they are being removed is for excavations so have a JCB arriving once they are down.

[brrapp]

sidekickdmr said:

I dont need to worry about the stumps as the reason they are being removed is for excavations so have a JCB arriving once they are down.

Make sure you don't cut the stumps too short then. If you cut the tree of about 4 or 5 feet from the ground, it'll be easier to fell and easier to dig out the roots.

[sidekickdmr]

brrapp said:

sidekickdmr said:

I dont need to worry about the stumps as the reason they are being removed is for excavations so have a JCB arriving once they are down.

Make sure you don't cut the stumps too short then. If you cut the tree of about 4 or 5 feet from the ground, it'll be easier to fell and easier to dig out the roots.

Thanks, I'll bear that in mind!

[sidekickdmr]

To bring this thread to a conclusion for anyone interested, the 3 Douglas Firs were actually about 100 ft tall, and a tree surgeon is coming tomorrow to remove them for £350, which I think is reasonable!

Ill try and get some before/after pics.

Im planning to get a mobile sawmill out and use some of the wood as waney edge cladding for a new workshop im building.

What else is Douglas Fir good for?

[Simpo Two]

sidekickdmr said:

To bring this thread to a conclusion for anyone interested, the 3 Douglas Firs were actually about 100 ft tall, and a tree surgeon is coming tomorrow to remove them for £350, which I think is reasonable!

If that's £350 for all three trees that seems very cheap. Are you sure you get to keep the wood?

[sidekickdmr]

Yep, thats for a proper (insured), local and reccomended arbourist company too.

They are only taking it down, and leaving in 12ft lenghts, leaving me to process it from there and deal with all branches/leaves.

[mike74]

Surely if there's enough room to fell it in one go you can do it yourself?

Felling it is probably no more difficult than all the processing work you'll be doing anyway?

Edit - just spotted your update!

[S11Steve]

Just seen that this is an old-ish thread, but I took out 43 trees myself over the last two years, including stump grinding. They were from 15ft to 50ft, and in total I think it was 7 jumbo skips worth of waste. There are three trees left around 60ft tall that are just a little too close to the house for me to feel comfortable dropping them.

I've also had it with stump grinding, lopping and disposing of the wood, so I called in a few quotes which all came in around £350-500 for stumping and removal of all waste. They all reckoned it could be done in a day, maybe two at most if weather got in the way.

[magooagain]

Douglas pine is a very good construction timber for roofing joist's and beams. But there will be a dry and stocking time to adhere to.

Wavny edge cladding i expect can be used sooner.

Have you had a quote from the saw mill yet?

The 350 pounds seems a decent price,but I expect it will be an easy day for the people dropping them.

[mikeiow]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4aDIFQAbNg

Just saying.....

[Evanivitch]

S11Steve said:

Just seen that this is an old-ish thread, but I took out 43 trees myself over the last two years, including stump grinding. They were from 15ft to 50ft, and in total I think it was 7 jumbo skips worth of waste. There are three trees left around 60ft tall that are just a little too close to the house for me to feel comfortable dropping them.

I've also had it with stump grinding, lopping and disposing of the wood, so I called in a few quotes which all came in around £350-500 for stumping and removal of all waste. They all reckoned it could be done in a day, maybe two at most if weather got in the way.

You cut down a load of trees and sent them in skips to landfill? Why!?

Fire wood and even chippings can be taken away by a quick advert on gumtree.

[S11Steve]

Evanivitch said:

You cut down a load of trees and sent them in skips to landfill? Why!?

Fire wood and even chippings can be taken away by a quick advert on gumtree.

The main trunks and limbs were put on a local FB group as free to collect, but the garden had been untouched for years so a lot of the wood was unsuitable for anything other than green waste. There were loads of useless twiggy tree-bush things that were 15-20ft tall, but the skip hire rate was reduced slightly as it was all compostable green waste, rather than landfill.

This is the before and after... A hedge is going along the wall, and we have enough space for a double garage at the side of the house.

[Evanivitch]

S11Steve said:

The main trunks and limbs were put on a local FB group as free to collect, but the garden had been untouched for years so a lot of the wood was unsuitable for anything other than green waste. There were loads of useless twiggy tree-bush things that were 15-20ft tall, but the skip hire rate was reduced slightly as it was all compostable green waste, rather than landfill.

This is the before and after... A hedge is going along the wall, and we have enough space for a double garage at the side of the house.

Huge improvement!

Sounds fair enough. Would have been a shame to see it go to landfill.

[All that jazz]

S11Steve said:

The main trunks and limbs were put on a local FB group as free to collect, but the garden had been untouched for years so a lot of the wood was unsuitable for anything other than green waste. There were loads of useless twiggy tree-bush things that were 15-20ft tall, but the skip hire rate was reduced slightly as it was all compostable green waste, rather than landfill.

This is the before and after... A hedge is going along the wall, and we have enough space for a double garage at the side of the house.

What a disaster! You've gone from having a nice private and secluded garden to living in a goldfish bowl!