Got a quote today here in Connecticut USA to remove 120' row of arbs. Includes root removal, wood chipping (we keep mulch), clean up and topsoil replacement. Guy is an arborist with 40 years experience and employee crew, not subs.
Says it'll take an A300 (?) Bobcat to pull the roots and a bucket to cut through the vines.
He's licensed and insured, both liability and worker's comp.
What do you all think of the price?
edit: The local electric company has been called for the encroaching vines on the transformer. Thank you for all of the expertise shared here, I really appreciate it. We're going to look into some additional quotes and possibly going with cedar fencing rather than forever chemical fencing 🙂
by 1AdultMostOfTheTime
22 Comments
why don’t you just do it yourself. can rent the equipment for the day and dig it all up.
How much do you care about the stumps and roots? Id imagine a company with a stump grinder would be able to get those ground down good enough without ripping out the roots tbh
An electric chainsaw will make short work of them, even for a lazy person. Just 15 minutes at a time and it will be done in no time.
But id get other quotes if your wealthy and have money to waste. 6k is crazy.
Easy work
6k seems pretty fair to leave a clean slate once he’s done.
That would be quite expensive for where I live imo, it costs me about $1,100 per day for a skid steer and operator, and he can clear anywhere from .5-1 acre of trees in a day (although that varies wildly by tree type, size and density). For these I would expect maybe 3 hours of skid steer work just to get the roots out and the ground leveled. Then whatever cleanup entails after that.
Cleanup of the trees is a different story though, and can change the price a lot. With mine I just had them make neat piles that I could burn later which cost me almost nothing extra (just a bit more skid steer time). If they were to chop them up and haul them off or chip them, that starts getting expensive fast and I can’t comment on that. Being extra generous though, I’d expect maybe 1100 for the skid steer/dirt work (basically assuming a minimum of a day), plus whatever the labor and cost of renting a big wood chipper would be which I would be surprised if that were more than 2000. So I think half that price is more reasonable, but I’m also about 1600 miles southwest of you too, and location makes a lot of difference,
In my state, you need to be certified to work near power lines—I can’t imagine any other state just letting any yahoo mess around utility lines.
That said—the cost isn’t that bad considering he has to haul his equipment and pay folks to work for him, chip this stuff, grind the stumps, etc. That is a ton of work. We paid more than that to clear the area around our building site and the guy sold the wood!
Thats pretty reasonable. Less than half the work is cutting the trees. The big part is grinding down all the stumps, raking it all out, amending with topsoil, and restoring it to become lawn again.
This seems high even for Connecticut. I would call around and get a couple other quotes. In PA this would be $3k. This is an easy job for someone, no climbing, no buckets.
Bobcat and a chain are the right answer. Not sure why you would want a crap-ton of stumps and stump grinder when you could get the roots, too.
Seems somewhat high, but a) I do not do this for a living, b) you are in Connecticut whereas I live in a low-cost state. 2 guys, big bobcat, truck, tools, gas/diesel, *disposal*, finishing, etc., probably figure $200/hour in the Midwest, so probably closer to $300/hr. in Connecticut dollars. If it is a 1-day job, probably too high, 2-day job, probably not unreasonable.
For 120 feet of shrubs? Yeah, $6k isn’t far off. He’s probably spending nearly $1,000 on dump fees and fuel to get the stuff off your property.
Is he bringing dirt on-site to fill the trench that will potentially be left?
I don’t know your area but if it’s 120 feet of 12 foot high trees, that might be a cheap price.
I just paid 2500 to trim about 50’ of giant arborvitae and remove 5 trees and grind stumps. Jersey shore area. You’re paying for the convenience of them chipping it all up and removing. If you cut them down yourself you have to get rid of all that mess yourself.
Worth it.
I’m in related business, that job in CA where I live would probably be at least 8-9k, just saying
id just have them trimmed and cleaned. make a natural type of fencing. it takes ages to get them that big. plant some flowering bushes or wildflower garden down the row base.
Yeah seems reasonable they probably have 1k+ in dump fees, fuel, and topsoil. This looks like a job they don’t want to retire from they just want to keep their workers catching a paycheck tbh. It’s light work for them but fills a small void in the schedule. The comment of it is a 3 day job tells me that the boss is gonna let them work as hard and long as they want but their pay isn’t gonna change.
If I was your neighbor, I’ll do it for half. I’ve been itching to use my chainsaw. The hard part is those stumps/roots.
Get more bids. Maybe from someone with less overhead. This is demo work not landscape design.
What’s your other quotes coming in at?
For a very similar number of arbor vitae I paid a crew $500 to cut them down about 18 months ago.
The power company you have might clear X amount of feet away from that pole for free just call and ask.
Reasonable. I pay $3000 every 4 yrs to trim one all all sides – its 25ft tall and at least 20ft deep.