The trees that need to come out around here are rarely the easy ones. It's the 80-foot loblolly pine planted too close to the house forty years ago, now leaning toward the garage. It's the water oak with a soft, hollow base that drops a limb every time a front comes through. It's the laurel oak in a Fairhope backyard with a fence on one side, a pool on the other and no clear place to put it down. Out on bigger lots it might be a whole row of pines along a property line, half of them dead from beetles after a dry summer. We take trees like that down every week, usually in sections, and we leave the yard raked and clear when we go. The estimate is free, and the price you get covers the cutting, the cleanup and the hauling.
Below, you'll find the warning signs that a tree should come down, the three ways we actually remove one, what a removal day looks like, and whether you need a permit. Most people find the first section answers the question they called about. If the tree has already come down on something, our storm tree removal page covers what to do first.
Signs a Tree Should Come Down
A tree that's about to fail usually tells you. A lean that's getting worse, or soil that has cracked and lifted on the side opposite the lean, means the roots are letting go. Mushrooms or shelf-like fungus at the base mean rot inside the trunk. Deep vertical cracks, bark falling off in sheets, or a canopy that's more bare each spring point the same way.
Pines give different signals. When the needles turn brown from the top down, or you see small pitch tubes and sawdust on the bark, beetles have usually moved in, and a pine in that state can kill its neighbors in a summer. Trees that grew up crowded in the woods and are suddenly standing alone after nearby clearing, a common sight in Spanish Fort subdivisions, also catch more wind than they're built for.
Three Ways a Tree Comes Down
Felling: in an open yard with room to drop the whole tree, we cut a notch on the side it should fall toward and bring it down in one piece. It's the fastest and the cheapest method, but it needs a clear landing zone roughly as long as the tree is tall.
Sectional removal: when there's a roof, a fence or a power line in the way, a climber works from the top down, cutting the tree into short pieces and lowering each one on ropes. Arborists call this rigging. It takes longer but nothing swings loose.
Crane removal: for the biggest trees hanging over a house, a crane holds each section before it's cut and sets it down in the driveway or the street. It costs more for the crane, but it's often the safest way and sometimes the fastest. All three follow the ANSI Z133 safety standard for tree work.
What Removal Day Looks Like
- We walk the job with you and mark anything that needs protecting: sprinkler heads, a septic lid, flower beds, the pool.
- We set up the truck and chipper, block off the drop zone, and lay down mats where heavy equipment crosses the lawn.
- The tree comes down by whichever method fits, limbs first, then the trunk.
- Brush goes through the chipper. The trunk gets cut to length and hauled off, or stacked for you as firewood if you asked for it.
- We rake and blow off the driveway and the yard. If you added stump grinding, it's done the same day.
Most single-tree removals take a few hours. A big crane job or several trees can take a full day. You don't need to be home for the whole thing, just at the start so we can go over the plan together.
Do You Need a Permit?
For most homeowners, no. Unincorporated Baldwin County doesn't require a permit to remove a tree on your own residential lot. In Fairhope, the city's Public Works department says private residential trees can come down without city approval, but any tree on the city right-of-way (usually the grass along the curb in front of your house) needs the city's OK first, and commercial lots have their own rules for large trees. Other towns and many HOAs, especially in newer Daphne and Gulf Shores subdivisions, have their own rules, so check your HOA covenants before work starts. We'll tell you at the estimate if anything on your property looks like it needs approval.
If you'd rather keep the tree and take the risk out of it, start with tree trimming and pruning to see whether removing a few heavy limbs is enough.
Frequently Asked Questions
Not the part touching the line. Only Alabama Power or Baldwin EMC crews, or contractors they send, can work on or right next to energized lines, so call the utility first and stay well clear. Once they've made it safe or dropped the line, we take the rest of the tree down. If the line running to your house is involved, the utility handles that too. Never try to pull a tree or a limb off a line yourself, even with a rope.
A big pine with room to fall can be down and cleaned up in two or three hours. The same tree over a roof, taken down piece by piece, can take most of a day. Crane jobs move faster once the crane is set up, but they need the driveway or street clear for a few hours. You'll get the timing along with the price when we look at the tree, so you know whether to plan around it.
We do everything we can to keep them off it. The bucket truck and chipper usually stay on the driveway or the street, and when a machine has to cross grass, we lay down ground mats first to spread the weight. Sandy soil around here takes tire tracks better than clay does, but a wet lawn still ruts, so after heavy rain we may wait a day. Any ruts we do leave get raked and smoothed before we go.