leylandi

Father in law has about 9 of these massive trees in his back garden. They are a bit taller than his 2 storey house and sit at the back of the garden... there is a lane behind his garden about a cars width wide. There is a greenhouse in front of the trees. You know whats coming next, dont you! He had a quote from a tree surgeon to remove these trees, the price was about 1k. Quite a lot of cash. The question is, is it a diy'able job to take these down? The fears that i have are in their rough order...

  1. The height, how do you get 'up' high enough to lop the tops off?
  2. Confined space to fell them. Should you rope them into the garden or the lane... what about the greenhouse!
  3. I dont think i would be comfortable with a chainsaw at height. Would a bow saw or similar be ok?

All comments welcome please!!

TIA Gerry

Reply to
Cuprager
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Not really a DIY job unless you happen to be fully qualified. He needs to shop around and specify exactly what he wants done. For example does it include removal of all the debris and is the firm fully insured?

Peter Crosland

Reply to
Peter Crosland

Took one of similar size down with just a bowasaw. They are not hard wood.

If you can fell in one go, thats the easiest.

Fosrt thing to do is make up a cride protractor at 4 degrees and use that to estimate where you can get it to fall.

Then yoo need a pair of ropes tied off to something that will make sure it goes that way. These do not need to be that high up teh tree - a ladder will do to get sya 10ft up.

Cut a wedge ouit exactly in the direction you want it to fall. Tesnion the ropes a bit - a mate standing BEYOND where you are CERTAIN the tree will go is ideal.

Then start your main cut a little above where the notch on the other side is.

Stop as SOON as there is any sound of cracking and splitting or the cut opening up. If a good tug on the main rope doesn't bring it down, cut a bit more and try again. The important thing is no to be near the bole when it goes. And to constrain it so it cannot fall anywhere else.

We pulled down a couple of 10 meter sycamores like this a few months back. Leylandii are nothing like as bad. They don't have such hard branches, the weight or the crown spread.

Neverteheless, be sensible. Its not hard to do, but its easy to make a mistake if you just go at it gung ho.

Careful approach, attention to detail making sure everything is utterly correct before you cut, and accurate cutting will do what you want.

There are no tree felling 'accidents' - just stupidities, mistakes, taking of chances etc.

Oh - with my one I then leveled the stump as besst I could and lit a fire on top.

Enough of it burned for me to safely put a load of hardcore on top and make a drive.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Cuprager wrote in news:d3ddp6$34d$1 @dennis.cc.strath.ac.uk:

The question is, is it a

IMO no, get quotes and pay the money

Any tree is about a tenth the bulk looking at it from the ground as when you get up close and personal - they are **** dangerous, even with only a bow saw.

Even if you had unlimited space, I'd say have a care and be very careful.

In your situation......!!

mike

Reply to
mike ring

Forget it. Get a few more quotes. I chopped down a few trees in my garden (it was getting on to be a copse, a tiny garden with about 8 trees in it). The really tall one (i.e. above house height) was definitely going to be beyond my capability. I think I paid around 100, so 1K is the same ballpark, but you might find cheaper with the "bulk" discount, although my quote was for felling only.

Christian.

Reply to
Christian McArdle

Hire a cherry picker for a day, take them down a foot at a time with a good sharp bow-saw. Hard work, but do-able. Then dispose of the mountains of green wood... (could hire a chipper too).

Phil

Reply to
Phil

Does it also include removal of stumps (to at least below ground level)?

Reply to
Bob Mannix

[snip]

Don't even think about it, pay the money.

Check how professional the 'professional' is by asking to see his insurance certificate.

Reply to
Tony Williams

That doesn't sound too bad to me. 110 quid a tree sounds pretty fair.

I'll have a go at many things diy but I don't think I'd fancy this one :)

Darren

Reply to
dmc

Reply to
BTMOD

We took down eight trees, bit smaller as they were only up to gutter height.

My advice would be: Do NOT underestimate the scale of the job.

We lopped the top 50% off the trees, then went about disposing of the bits (Due to a small garden). We were quoted £220 to dispose of these cuttings alone, so we hired a hi-top transit for the weekend.

Using a B&Q chipper we chipped the small branches and after about two journeys to the tip we'd got rid of it.

The following year we set about the remaining 50%. Another three trips to the tip and the cuttings were gone.

I now need someone with a chainsaw to remove the remaining trunks as they are 10-12" diameter.

s
Reply to
s--p--o--n--i--x

Sounds a bit cheap - is this guy kosher ? Leylandii are a git to fell - thick enough to be a problem to shift, too thin to climb, usually in too confined a space to fell in one drop. if you're working near houses, particularly neighbour's houses, then you want to see their insurance signed in blood before they begin.

BTW - Anyone want a burned out E-type Jag ? A guy just up the road from me decided to remove a couple of Thrower's Dooms and rejected the quote he had from my friend the tree feller. So he set to and felled them himself - without injury. Patting himself on the back for his economy he then decided to dispose of the wreckage with a bonfire.

Those of you who've burned Leylandii before will know what a safe distance is between fresh boughs thrown on a hot bonfire and a garage. He didn't...

Reply to
Andy Dingley

Thanks for all of the help so far. You lot really are tearing me in two completely opposite directions! I think that i might be swayed towards letting the tree surgeon do it, but you never know!

To clarify a couple of questions that have been asked...

AFAIK the quote is for removal as well as felling. (would need to clarify with FIL)

It does not include removal of stumps, but we can handle that ourselves.

We would need to clarify that the firm has adequate insurance as the trees could indeed wreck lots of things if felled incorrectly (hence my worry about diying it)

Reply to
Cuprager

A friend removed about 7 house tall leylandi, with my help. We managed to cut them inititally at about half way point, pulling the top over using a rope. Then halved again and finally cutting at the bottom. Didn't take long at all and all sheds, fences and nearby house were neatly avoided. Oh if you trim away the area where you are going to cut its a lot easier.

He then spent a week chopping the bits up with two visits per night to local top in his car, before hiring a van for the day at the weekend and completing the job.

Some roots he was able to dig up on one peice leaving a monster hole and others he drilled holes and filled with weed killer crystals for a month or two, then replaced with more holes and some substance to cause wood to rot. After a year or two just dug root up with a spade.

Reply to
Ian_m

No need for weed killer, the stumps won't regrow, so they will die soon enough of their own accord

Reply to
chris French

Yes, we did that with ours a few years ago. It wasn't difficult. The top half was dropped with a rope onto the roof of the neighbour's long garage, dragged into his drive (all with his permission) and taken down to the church at the bottom of the street to use as a Christmas tree.

Indeed it is and it's not too difficult if you start at the bottom.

We let ours grow up again, I don't want to lose it because it's a nesting site to very many different birds and such places are becoming rarer. If we ever did we'd start by taking off the lowest branches until there's only the trunk then cut it into handy lengths and drop them vertically, the rope over a higher branch stump to aid control, one by one. It's what we've done with other trees.

Disposal would be the most difficult part. We'd use a shredder for smaller parts, that would be used on the garden. Thicker branches would be dried and stored for fuel in a few years.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

There was a row of leylandi-like trees belonging to my neighbour along our boundary. House changed hands, and I asked if they could be pruned or taken down. It turned out that new neighbour's son is a tree surgeon (or at least something related to forestry). He did pretty much what you said, except having got them cut to about 1/2 height and removed all the substantial foliage, he then used a rope from the top to a digger, and pulled the trunks over sideways to remove the stumps. They did leave big holes in the ground though, which I've been emptying my garden waste into ever since.

BTW, it is very important the rope used for this has virtually no elasticity, or imagine what happens when you get pinged with a 50' heavy elastic band. I saw this happen when some tree felling was going on in the grounds of a former workplace. The rope snapped, and the loose end shot across the road and smacked into a building on the other side with a very loud crack, fortunately high enough up that it was above the roofs of the cars driving past. There was someone from the council parks department on scene to inspect the work, and he had it stopped instantly and the contractors removed from site.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Definitely diyable, I took down two of similar size to your Father in Law's. A bow saw is perfectly adequate - I took of branches from the bottom until I reached full ladder height then lopped the tops off.

Reasons I wouldn't do it again:

- despite securely tying the ladder, it still swayed about a lot and scared the pants off me.

- difficult to get it to fall the direction I wanted - fortunately my neighbour was just as keen to see them felled as I and didn;t mind it landing in his garden (nothing would grow near the damend things anyway!)

- there was so much rubbish left over that I had to pay someone to take it away and it cost me nearly as much as he would have charged for felling them anyway.

I would gladly have paid 110 quid per tree, so provided insurance cover is up to scratch, I would have thought 1K for all 9 trees to be well worth it.

David

Reply to
David Shepherd

Oh! There's a large rose and a gooseberry bush (which fruits) within two feet of the trunk of ours, I grow rhubarb, potatoes and redcurrants only another yard away.

We used a bow saw too.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

They don't call 'em tree surgeons for nothing.

There's a definite skill to felling large trees and chipping them. It's also very dangerous. Just ask the now one legged landscaper round our way who had a flash of genius (not) deciding to push the cuttings through the chipper with his leg.

Lucky for him he had the good sense not to nudge them through with his head.

If you're not suitabley qualified and careful there's many a potential disaster looming. Get the pro's in. In this rip-off world you should find that most tree surgeons still charge a fair and reasonable price.

Reply to
RedOnRed

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