From £220 for a small tree; a large tree taken down in sections £900 to £1,800
Tree felling and dismantling
A dead ash by the road, a leylandii that has swallowed the garden, a beech that is too close to the house: felled in one where there is room and dismantled in sections on ropes where there is not, the chip taken away and the logs stacked or taken. Priced by the size of the tree and the access, with a band on the estimator before you ring.
Most of the trees we take down are either dead, dying or in the wrong place: ash dieback has reached every lane in the valley, the leylandii planted in the eighties are now twenty metres tall, and a lot of Victorian gardens have a tree that was a sapling when the house was built. A straight fell needs a clear drop zone the length of the tree. In a garden that almost never exists, so the climber goes up, takes the crown off in pieces and lowers each one on a rigging rope to the groundsman, who feeds it through the chipper as it comes down.
The quote is fixed after a site visit, because the price is about the size of the tree, what is underneath it and how far the chipper can get to it, none of which we can see from a phone. A medium tree with the truck on the drive is a morning for three of us; the same tree over a conservatory with the chipper two gardens away is a day, which is what the access uplift on the estimator is for. We bring the rigging kit, a 7.5-tonne chipper, and the stump grinder on the same day if you want the stump out.
Before any felling we check the tree against the council map for a Tree Preservation Order or a conservation area, which in Monmouth, Ross and Chepstow is roughly a third of all trees. If it is protected we fill in the application for £90 and wait for the decision, usually six to eight weeks; a dead or dangerous tree can be dealt with on five days' notice and we handle the notice. The logs are yours if you want them, cut to stove length and stacked; otherwise they come back to the yard and go into the log bags.
What is included
- A site visit and a fixed quote in writing
- The TPO and conservation area check, free
- Sectional dismantling on ropes where there is no drop zone
- A 7.5-tonne chipper and the chip taken away, or left for you
- Logs cut to stove length and stacked, or removed
- The garden raked, the drive swept, the gate shut
What it costs
A small tree under 6 metres £220 to £380, a medium tree £450 to £850, a large tree dismantled in sections £900 to £1,800, including VAT and taking the arisings away. Tight access adds 20 per cent. Including VAT and £5 million of public liability cover. The estimator turns your job into a band in ten seconds; the areas page says whether your postcode carries a travel charge.
Questions about felling
Can you take a tree down between two houses?
Yes; that is most of what we do. The climber dismantles it from the top down and every piece comes down on a rope to a groundsman, so nothing lands where we did not put it. The quote says how we will do it.
Do I need permission to fell a tree in my garden?
Only if it is under a Tree Preservation Order or in a conservation area, which we check for every quote. Monmouth, Chepstow, Usk, Ross and Tintern all have conservation areas covering most of the older streets. Outside those, a garden tree is yours to fell.
A band from the estimator. A fixed quote after we have looked.
The estimator turns the job, the size of the tree and the access into a price band before you ring. The quote form takes two minutes; Owen or Ffion replies within two working days with a visit that week, and the quote after it is the figure on the invoice. A tree down right now: the storm line, any hour.