Tree Surgeon Cost

FreeBear

Eldi_Dos said: If you are concerned about the tree stumps drill some holes in them and hammer in offcuts of copper pipe, this will help speed up the breakdown of the stumps although I would be inclined to see if the holly regenerated and prune it into a bush.

Old wives tail - Copper nails, pipes, etc will not kill a tree or speed up the rotting process. Holly will  sprout quite nicely from a stump (have had several do that on me). One way to kill the stump would be to drill a hole in vertically and fill with something like SBK. Or if it is a reasonable distance from a building/boundary, have a bonfire on it.

Ebe_Scrooge

So 2 men for 2.5 hours - that's 5 man-hours, so £100 an hour.

Except it's not only that.  How long did it take them to travel to and from your house?  How long did it take them to travel to the disposal site and dispose of the waste?  Let's take a wild guess and say there's another 2 hours in total.  So straight away you're up to 9 man-hours, which is roughly £55 an hour for labour.  Then you've got the cost of fuel for the van (and chainsaws and shredders and whatever).  They may have to pay a fee to dispose of the waste.  Factor in the cost of buying the kit in the first place, and maintaining it.  And their training.  Then they have to make a profit on top of all that.

Does it still sound such a bad price?

Eldi_Dos

FreeBear said:

Eldi_Dos said: If you are concerned about the tree stumps drill some holes in them and hammer in offcuts of copper pipe, this will help speed up the breakdown of the stumps although I would be inclined to see if the holly regenerated and prune it into a bush.

Old wives tail - Copper nails, pipes, etc will not kill a tree or speed up the rotting process. Holly will  sprout quite nicely from a stump (have had several do that on me). One way to kill the stump would be to drill a hole in vertically and fill with something like SBK. Or if it is a reasonable distance from a building/boundary, have a bonfire on it.

Old wives tail or not it has worked for me on more than one occasion, found it especially useful on ivy stumps or buddleia roots which you can't get out of masonry.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

We had a large tree taken down a while back, it was close to the house so most of it was lowered down on ropes. 

2 guys started at 9, worked nonstop, finished at 5 and it cost £400. They were insured, carried out a risk assessment and had the required certificates for working with chainsaws, etc.

They said it would have been an extra £60 for a chipper but every scrap was saved for firewood, no discussion on disposal costs as it wasn't required. 

JGB1955

We recently had 3 fruit trees removed - one large apple and two smaller plum & pear.  It cost £150.  Three people.  Here less than an hour.  Quite happy with that.  They used a chipper and managed to get the roots out of the larger tree with a pick axe.

FreeBear

Eldi_Dos said:

FreeBear said:

Eldi_Dos said: If you are concerned about the tree stumps drill some holes in them and hammer in offcuts of copper pipe, this will help speed up the breakdown of the stumps although I would be inclined to see if the holly regenerated and prune it into a bush.

Old wives tail - Copper nails, pipes, etc will not kill a tree or speed up the rotting process. Holly will  sprout quite nicely from a stump (have had several do that on me). One way to kill the stump would be to drill a hole in vertically and fill with something like SBK. Or if it is a reasonable distance from a building/boundary, have a bonfire on it.

Old wives tail or not it has worked for me on more than one occasion, found it especially useful on ivy stumps or buddleia roots which you can't get out of masonry.

More likely the hole stored water which helped to accelerate the rotting process.

pollypenny

Our tree surgeon charges £150 daily rate to us. However, he's maintaining large trees, rather tan removing them. 

Slinky

I had a quote for removing a 30+ year old cherry tree, including grinding the stump, of £355 inc VAT. My builder has said he'll get it out free and have it for the logs.

Did your chaps charge VAT? That'll be nearly £100 of it.

andre_xs

I don't know, but doesn't it make quite a difference where these jobs are done? Within London or the posh outskirts vs some rural area in North England - couldn't that explain the reported differences here to a good part?

koalakoala

I would say that’s very cheap