Copyright: / 123RF Stock Photo
I've been on the receiving end of a falling tree. It was a dark and stormy night on the Central California coast. Around 11 p.m. an oddball 70-mile-an-hour southeast wind was blowing and we had no power. As we lay in bed listening to the wind scream, what sounded like a freight train suddenly roared our way. Something punched through the bedroom roof and my wife and I were spitting out pieces of insulation, tree bark, and rainwater, trying to figure out what happened as we scrambled for flashlights in the darkness.
A 100-foot Monterey Pine had seen fit to drop lengthwise through the house, including our recently completed addition. A thick branch had stabbed through the high ceiling and missed spearing me by a scant five feet, which it probably would have if it had not broken off on its way.
It took six months and fifty thousand dollars to repair the damage, and longer than that to get over the anxiety of what all those Monterey Pines around me were capable of doing.
That experience is far behind me, but I've maintained an ongoing interest in tree removal ever since.
Uprooted
Most people don't think much about removing trees; it's one of those businesses that blend into the background unless someone downs a tree in your neighborhood and you get to watch the process, which is usually an attention-grabber.
There are plenty of reasons for wanting a tree downed, not all related to fearing for one's life. A tree may be dead and attracting unwanted flora and fauna, from mushrooms to bugs to rats. Branches can do damage by banging against the house. Roots can destroy foundations, yards and driveways. Or, the tree simply may not fit its surroundings from an aesthetic point of view.
"Spring is a good time to get your trees assessed, and it shouldn't cost anything to do that," says Ryan Nadeau, owner of Nadeau Tree Service in Swansea as he prepares to remove an attractive 60-foot Norway Spruce from the front yard of a home in Somerset. It's a clear, cool spring day with little wind.
"Over the winter, the biggest concern and one of the most important things for a homeowner to check is for water collecting in the leaders," Nadeau says, pointing to a maple across the street with a short section of thick trunk that splits into two smaller trunks – the leaders.
Multiple leaders like this collect water at their base. The water freezes and expands, and over the winter can melt and freeze repeatedly. If the expanding water cracks the trunk between the leaders, melting water will sink deeper into the trunk, cracking the tree even more when it freezes again.
It's not the heavy wind or the amount of snow, it's the freezing, Nadeau elaborates.
Because many people aren't very aware of tree removal services, they're often not sure what to look for when they do need a tree removed. They may figure they can do it themselves. Or they get estimates and go with the least expensive.
If they do get multiple estimates to remove a tree, they often get an astonishingly wide range of quotes, which adds to the confusion and mistrust.
"There's not a lot of value put on what we do; people think that anyone can take down a tree," Nadeau says.
We've all heard secondhand tales about overconfident, untrained homeowners dropping trees through their houses; I witnessed this in California as one homeowner nailed his small cottage with a Monterey Pine, which dropped about 90 degrees from the direction he had intended.
What factors into the cost calculation for the tree removal service are the shape of the tree, how tightly it's wedged among houses, garages, overhead wires, gardens, and yard furnishings, and whether the tree is dead or dying. A huge, healthy tree with nothing around it to damage may cost less to remove than a smaller, dying tree tucked into a tight space.
Staying Safe
Beyond that, Nadeau calculates how quickly the job can be done without doing any damage to people or property. "There's a safety culture that exists in our company," he explains, pointing out the chaps, gloves, and eye and ear protection he and his crew wear.
Basic safety is a big part of the calculation. "Stuff goes wrong: you're working with big, heavy stuff, and there's wind," Nadeau says. "When something goes wrong, it's catastrophic. If an employee takes a chainsaw to a leg, it's $40,000." Which is why Nadeau employs qualified people and carries appropriate insurance. "Ask for proof of insurance," he recommends.
Nadeau doesn't say it, but that culture extends beyond the equipment. While tree removal is a business that attracts a certain percentage of cowboys, most homeowners, if they think about it, don't want someone working fast and loose while cutting and dropping heavy pieces of tree around their prized possessions.
One sign of a problem with a prospective tree removal service might be ragtag equipment. Combined with other observations, you might conclude that attention to detail isn't one of the outfit's strong suits. Does the crew act professionally? Are they yelling and swearing and treating the site like a party scene? This doesn't sit well with many paying customers.
The company culture is the x factor, hard to judge from what a prospective arborist is telling you face to face, but rather something that you discover by asking around beforehand. If you see a tree being removed, ask the homeowner later if they'd recommend the service.
Many people conclude they're getting their money's worth by paying more for the insured, safety-conscious service, because there's a big downside if things go sideways. "We get a lot of repeat customers," Nadeau says.
Each job requires different gear and different techniques. He looks around, calculating, then estimates the three large trucks and wood chipper he brought along for this job represent about $200,000 in equipment costs.
Nadeau's pricey tools mean his crew can work efficiently as well as safely. For example, big branches as thick as 15 inches can be winched into the $40,000 chipper rather than requiring further cutting in order for his employees to be able to move them. Not only does that mean the work gets done faster, but employees get less tired and are less prone to accidents.
"Every tree cuts differently, Oak trees are difficult to cut because the wood is so hard, and they produce a lot of fine dust, " Nadeau says. "This tree is no fun because of the sap." Later I see gooey pine sap running out of the stump in a steady stream. Not dripping. Running.
Nadeau has been in business for 20 years. His company also does cabling and bracing, crown redirection and thinning the canopy, but most of its work comes from tree removal.
Today he climbs into a bucket and begins working his way up the tree trunk, cutting and carefully dropping the branches. As Nadeau adjusts his bucket to make more cuts, his employees, John Gillet and Jason Burkett, haul the branches to the chipper. The smell of pine travels on the wind along with the small clouds of dust coming off each burst of cutting. The shredder bellows as it chews up another thick branch.
The tree is reduced to a three-foot stump in two hours. The stump puts up an unexpected fight, but Nadeau finally subdues it with repeated assaults with a chainsaw. A big claw grabs 10-foot sections of thick trunk as if they were #2 pencils and loads them into one of the trucks.
Gillet and Burkett return the next day to grind the final bit of stump until it's below grade. "Now comes the hard part," says Gillet. He begins raking up the remaining tree debris from the lawn.