The Forestry Forum

Hello.  First post. I have about 10-12 tall pines that I am considering cutting down due to their proximity to our house.  If they were to fall in a storm they would certainly do significant damage.  I had always assumed that I would have to pay tooth and nail to get them removed, but have been told that some will pay to cut and keep the timber.  I don't need to reap a benefit from it but would certainly love to break even or keep the costs to a minimum.  My question is this: Do you think anyone would be willing to take on this kind of job from this angle?  It's not acres of forest, the trees are all on less than 1/4 acre or so. Thanks for any advice!

You were told wrong.  Hire a reputable and insured tree service to have the trees removed. This is not cheap for many many reasons.  Believe this before you beleive someone does it for the wood. If there is a concern that the trees falling can do significant damage, then there is risk.

X2  Without insurance you would be held liable if anyone is hurt or killed. And who would clean up the mess left behind when he leaves what he doesn't want?

X3  not enough land to do it safely by logging..

X4 on the arborist. If you have a need or market for the lumber and they are not full of nails you might have the tree service buck the downed tree into logs, if they don't have to take them down in very short sections, and you might hire a portable mill to come in after they are down and saw them up for you and you could use or market the lumber and recover some of you costs.

  Before you turn the project over to Joe Shoot The Ragman, an unlicensed knucklehead with a 14" length bar pawn shop chainsaw and 50' of spliced together 1/4" jute "rope", you might want to surf the net and see the videos of trees landing on houses.

Real arborists carry expensive insurance because basically it's considered a 100% risk policy - sooner or later even the pros have something go wrong, be it an injury or damage, so yes - you NEED to hire a professional and it will cost money.  I have a red oak log that weighs over 15,000 lbs that was given to me after it fell onto a brick house and broke the house in half during a storm, yes it literally broke the house in half.  Luckily for the owner she had decided to stay at a hotel during the storm for fear of loosing power.