Let’s talk about the expenditure that is an enormous burden on homeowners – tree removal or maintenance. What is the average cost for tree service? On what basis do a tree removal service calculate the estimated cost? What are the factors that affect the overall cost? What can you do to minimize the cost?
Looking for a tree service is an inevitable job for trying to prune, cut or haul away the trees is an extremely dangerous task and without proper equipment, you’re most likely to injure yourself and pay a much higher amount for medical expenses. But only if you know how much is it going to take for this task, you can plan and execute this in a better way. If that’s what you think, keep reading.
Average Cost of Tree Removal
The usual price of tree service lies between $150 – $1500. The average price is $500-$1000. The cost varies with some factors that we will discuss below.
What’s included in a typical tree service estimate?
- For Tree Removal: Two things – chopping down the tree and hauling it away. Typically, the contractor would need to climb the tree and cut it into manageable pieces. Then it can be hauled away at no extra cost.
- For Tree Trimming: If you’re going only for trimming, the estimate would include just trimming down the trees. It depends upon the contractor whether he will clean up after that at no cost or will charge extra for that.
The charges for other tree services like stump removal, trunk removal, log chipping and limb chipping would be extra.
Factors Affecting the Tree service
Danger Level:
This is the first most important factor affecting the cost. Obviously, an extremely dangerous task requires an expert who charges more than a new, inexperienced serviceman. Also, the complexity of task increases with the danger level. The workman’s compensation liability for such tasks also rises which makes the process more costly for service companies. All of these increase the overall cost.
The factors that might increase the danger level of the task are dead trees, hollow trees, trees around cable lines, work at night, gigantic trees and work on a busy road.
Time taken for the job:
This is quite an obvious but crucial factor that affects the overall cost of tree service. You will be wondering what are the things that can add up to the total time taken for job completion.
- Accessibility: A lot of times access to trees gets limited due to fences, narrow spaces, septic tanks and soft landscape. That makes it difficult to get the big equipment close to the tree. The servicemen would have to do lots of dragging and hauling by themselves which would make them get more tired and take more time to finish the job.
- Proximity to important structures: If the tree that needs to be removed or pruned is very close to your house, extra care would be required while working on it. It means the workers would have to be slow and execute the work in a planned way. This apparently raises the overall time taken for the job.
- The size of the tree: Obviously, the bigger the tree is, more the cost to get it removed or pruned. Oak trees are so far the most costly ones. The cost of removing the large trees can be to $1500. Also, tree’s condition makes a lot of difference in the value. As already mentioned, dead and fallen trees mean extra tree service cost.
- Other operational costs: There are several other reasons that can affect the price and which are usually beyond customer’s understanding. Those are the operational costs tree service providers have to bear. Maybe the diameter of the tree is too big and require extra labor for chopping down, maybe the tree is heavily entangled and tough to remove or perhaps the job requires additional equipment. Also, you might not realize the cost a company needs to bear to have proper insurance in place. This might sound unnecessary but considering the number of accidents that happen during tree removal tasks, proper insurance is there to save you from legal trouble.
Additional Tree Services
Apart from the usual tree removal service, you can opt for some other services like stump removal, limb chipping, log splitting and tree trunk removal. The cost of these varies between $75- $350 depending upon the task and the contractor you’re hiring.
We hope we have given you a pretty good idea of how much tree service costs. If you’re still unsure, it would be good to call up a tree removal service and ask for an estimate. You can find a lot of local tree service providers on Same Day Pros. Give it a try!
