The Tree Service Process, Start to Finish

Sizing up the tree

We walk the tree and the property before anything is cut. The questions are how tall it is, what it could hit, and whether it can be felled whole or has to come down in pieces. Anything near the house, the garage, or wires usually means rigging it down in sections, and we plan the cuts around that.

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Setting up the work area

Before the first cut we pick a retreat path for the ground crew, a clear route away from the tree if it moves the wrong way. Ground workers stay at least twice the tree's height away from felling operations. If we are felling with a rope, the distance is at least one-and-a-half times the tree's height. A tall tree therefore needs a lot of open ground, and that space often decides whether we can fell it or have to dismantle it piece by piece.

Taking it down

Small limbs and finish cuts get a hand saw. The larger sections are cut and lowered on rigging, working from the top of the tree down to the trunk.

So we don't stage limbs or chips near a storm drain or in a drainage path. The St.

Cleanup and stumps

We haul off the branches, logs, and sawdust, and rake the area so nothing is left to wash toward a drain. If you want the stump gone, we grind it as a separate step. Before grinding, tell us where any buried lines run. Soils with moderate shrink-swell potential sit near Visalia's western and northwest edges and north of the St. Johns River. Seasonal wetting and drying there can damage underground utilities, so we don't want to add to that by hitting a line.

What it costs

Stump grinding typically runs $175 to $625. Emergency tree removal, such as a tree down on a structure or across a driveway, typically runs $1,100 to $7,500. The spread comes from the size of the tree, what it landed on, and how much rigging the job takes.

We can give you a typical range on the call, and we confirm the exact number once we've seen the job. The written quote lists removal, cleanup, and stump grinding as separate lines.