When we first moved into our house, our neighbor across the street mentioned that the tree in her front yard would soon need to come down.
It turns out that the top ~15' of the tree had died, leaving the lower branches exposed. When the tree's crown dies or is chopped off, the remainder is left susceptible to damage and can become unhealthy really quickly. Unhealthy trees tend to fall over fairly quickly, so once a tree has gone this route, it unfortunately has to come down gracefully lest it topple over onto a house during a wind storm.
So in preparation for dismantling the tree, it's had all of its limbs removed.
It's sortof weird being outside without the cover from this tree. But better than it coming down on our roof.
Sad. It is quite a bit larger than the others. Must have cost a bundle to take it down.
That's partly forced perspective—it's a little taller than the ones behind it, but only by 10% or so.
Estimates for taking the tree down were in the $3,000–$5,000 range. I don't know how much it actually cost, though.
--D
Yikes!
$3,000-5,000 to take a tree down, does that include some sort of permit that you have to have to cut it down?
Perhaps its more along the lines of paying for the equipment to dismantle and dispose of the tree.
I hear they have a burn ban in California.
I suspect the money goes to:
* The utility company to get the power lines out of the way
* An arborist to climb up and cut all the branches down
* A crane, to lower each section down slowly
* Insurance to cover the workers, equipment, utilities, and nearby houses.
This is a hell of a lot simpler when the tree is in the middle of a forest--all you need is some dude with a chainsaw.
Or in the case where I live, they would do it just for fun.
Well, of course. Trees are assholes.
After all, if that durned tree hadn't jumped into Leroy's way last year, he would have been able to drive drunk all the way through that rest area playground without hurtin' nobody.