Cut down two cedars

This is my second time hiring Alpine. I need to cut two cedar trees this time. Both are quite big and tall, one with 24.5" diameter, the other with 40" diameter. As we are planning to hire a landscaping company to clean the yard, I ask Chris to only cut down the trees, leaving everything on the yard. To my surprise, he gave me a quote of only $700 in total. Based on my experience, this is the best price I can get, so I hired them without asking quotes from other companies.

On the day of the appointment, they did the job as required, laying the trees down to a safe direction.

I posted the cedar logs online to give out for free. Several people were interested, and finally one of them came to cut out the limbs and cut the logs into the lengths that fit his truck, and haul them away.

When I made the appointment, Chris said they would come between 10am to 1pm. I thought they would come at 10am, and took half day working for home, but they didn't come until 1pm. So I wasn't home at when they came.

I told Chris I would pay cash like last time. Two days after the tree removal at 5:20pm, Chris called me that he wanted to come and pick up the cash without advance notice. So I had to rush to Bank Of America, which closes at 6pm. However, it turned out that BOA doesn't allow withdrawal with ID only, and I didn't have a debit card with me. Luckily I had a credit card from that BOA, and they allow me to make withdrawal with their credit card and ID. Otherwise I won't be able to get the cash that day. ATMs limit the daily withdrawal to $500.

Chris took the envelop of cash without even opening it. He said he trusted me.

Cutting down two firs

The City of Kirkland allows us to remove two significant trees--any tree bigger than 6" dbh--from our property every year. The paper work is simple: download the notification form from the city's website, fill the form, draw a site map of all significant trees on the property, and then take it to the city hall. The government worker will review the form, sign it immediately, and give you a copy of it. Then it's done. There is extra space on the notification form for dead trees and hazardous trees, which are not counted toward the 2-tree limit. The whole process is free of charge.

If you want to cut more than 2 trees in a year, you would need a permit, which would cost money to obtain, and a lot of paper work too.

The cost of tree removal generally consists of the following parts:

A. Cutting the branches and the trunks down
B. Removing the branches from the ground, chipping them and haul them away
C. Cutting the trunks into 14" to 16" rounds, that could be used as firewood
D. Hauling away the firewood

A standard tree removal job often has A, B and C, while it's really a waste of money to have tree service guys do D, because one can post the firewood on Craigslist and give the firewood out for free, or one could make artistic stools or night stand out of them.

However, we don't need to do C either, because our neighbor just cut down several big trees and he is planning to hire a truck and haul the logs to mills. So he suggested that if I was able to cut my trees at the same time, he would take away the logs for free.

So I called Chris to come and estimate the cost for A and B for two firs. He gave $1100. If I wanted to do C as well, that would add another $150. That's the best price I got after consulting 3 tree service providers.

After talking with my neighbor, he suggested that if I only do A, and leave the branches on my yard, it would save me even more money. Since we are planning to do a landscaping project on the yard later, which will fill the area with dirt, it's OK to leave the branches on the yard. So I called Chris again, and he agreed to reduce the price by $250 if I only do A.

So I decided to hire them. They came on time, and did what I needed. The trees are very tall, one is 27" diameter at breast height, the other has double leaders, with the thinnest point below the fork 21" diameter. So they still have to cut the trunks into 2 or 3 pieces for each tree, and laid them down on the opposite direction of my house. It took 4 people 2.5 hours to get the job done.

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remove 1 cedar tree

Alpine Tree Service worked for my neighbor I had a first hand observation their works removing 1 huge tree like 4 stories high and it really closed to the house. They approached to me and gave a quote to me.The price was really good compared to the other quote I had and they were on time and super efficient and quick.

So pleased.

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