What to expect when a tree surgeon turns up at your house.

Why we wrote this

Most people have never had a tree surgeon round the house before. The job costs a fair bit, there’s a stranger on the property for half a day with chainsaws, and nobody tells you what’s going to happen. You’re picturing the worst.

So here it is, in order. From the first phone call to the invoice landing in your inbox. This is what we actually do, on every job, around Hastings, Battle, Bexhill, Rye and the villages between. If anything below isn’t what you want, tell us at the quote stage and we’ll work to your preference.

The first phone call, or the quote form

When you ring us, or fill in the quote form, we’ll ask the same handful of things. Not because we’re being awkward, but because they change the quote.

• What’s the tree, roughly? Species if you know it. Oak, ash, beech, sycamore, conifer. A photo over text helps more than any description.
• How big is it, roughly? Taller than the house, twice as tall, smaller than the shed. Rough numbers are fine.
• What’s the access? Can a chipper get within thirty metres of the tree, or are we wheelbarrowing arisings up a side passage. Side gates, low arches, sloped lawns all matter.
• The postcode. That’s so we can check the council’s planning map for a TPO or a conservation area before we come out. Saves a second visit if paperwork is needed.
• Rough timing. Are you flexible, or is there a planning deadline, a builder coming in, a sale on the house.

That call takes about five minutes. We’ll book a site visit at the end of it.

The site visit

The site visit is free and there’s no hard sell! I’ll turn up when I said, and walk the job with you.

What I’m doing while we walk round:

• Looking at the tree from a few angles. The lean, the canopy shape, the obvious dead wood, the targets underneath (shed, conservatory, fence, neighbour’s car).
• Checking the trunk for fungal brackets, included bark, splits at unions, recent ground movement at the base.
• Working out the access for the chipper, the climb anchors, where the rope drops go, where we’ll stack the logs.
• Asking you what you want. Sometimes that’s a full reduction. Sometimes it’s “the limb over the conservatory and nothing else”. Both are valid.

We don’t price on the doorstep. The quote comes in writing. If you want a rough number to know whether you’re in the right ballpark, ask and I’ll tell you straight. If the answer is “you’re nowhere near the right ballpark”, I’d rather say it on the day than waste two days writing a quote you’ll bin.

A site visit takes twenty minutes for most jobs. An hour if there’s TPO paperwork involved.

The written quote, within two working days

The quote lands in your inbox within two working days. It’s plain English, on one page where possible. It covers:

• The method. What we’ll do to the tree, in the words an arborist would use, with a sentence underneath in plain English. So “20% crown reduction with deadwooding, working to BS 3998” with “we’ll bring the height and spread down by about a fifth, take out the dead branches, and shape it back to its natural form”.
• The timing. How long we’ll be on site. Half a day, a day, a day and a half. With the date we can do it.
• The waste plan. Chipped on site and away, logs stacked where you want them, or a mix.
• The paperwork. If there’s a TPO or a Section 211 notice needed, we file it. We say so on the quote and the timeline allows the six weeks the council needs.
• The price. One number, with a payment terms line. No hidden extras, and nothing added on at the end that wasn’t on the quote.

If you want to talk it through, ring back. Most quotes need one phone call to finalise.

The day before the job

The day before, I ring or text to confirm. Usually mid-afternoon.

I’ll ask:

• Where to park. On the road, on the drive, or somewhere specific. If we need cones out before we arrive, I’ll say so.
• Where the access is. Side gate, garage, through the house if there’s no other route.
• Whether to move the car. Arisings dropping from height go a long way sideways. If your car is under the tree, it goes somewhere else for the day.
• Whether you’ll be in. You don’t need to be. We can work to a key safe or an open side gate, ring you with anything we find, and walk you through it on a video at the end.

If the weather’s wrong, this is the call where we move the job. Heavy rain doesn’t stop us. Sustained winds over about 25 mph do. We don’t climb in lightning. If we’re moving the date, we move it to the next workable day in your diary, not ours.

The day itself: morning arrival

I park where we agreed. I walk in first with a kit bag, not a chainsaw, and we go round the job one more time together. This is the version of the site visit with the tree right in front of us, ten minutes from the first cut.

Then the kit comes off the truck:

• Ground mats roll out across the lawn under the drop zone. They’re a heavy synthetic mesh and they stop the lawn getting cut up by feet, arisings and the chipper hose.
• The chipper goes on the road behind the truck if there’s room, or at the closest access point we can manage.
• Climbing kit comes out. Rope, harness, helmet, lanyard. It’s checked before it’s trusted, and anything that doesn’t pass gets retired, not patched.

Before we start, between March and August we look up. Properly. Nesting birds are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and we don’t disturb active nests. If we find one, we stop, ring you, and replan. Most years on a handful of jobs this comes up. We’d rather lose a day than lose a brood.

The work itself

I climb, on ropes. Everything that comes off the tree is rigged and lowered under control, not dropped.

What you’ll hear from the house:

• The first ten minutes is climbing and rope setting. No saw noise.
• Then the saw work, in passes. Two or three minutes of saw, a minute of rigging the cut piece down, two or three minutes of saw, repeat.
• The chipper runs in batches. It’s the loud part. Twenty-minute bursts as the pile builds up, then silence.
• Tea breaks happen. We don’t run the saw through them.

Across a job, the saw is running for a fraction of the time we are on site. The rest is climbing, rigging, chipping and clearing.

The neighbours

If we’re working near a boundary, I’ll have knocked on the neighbour’s door at the site-visit stage and told them what’s coming. A polite heads-up the day before goes a long way to keeping the street happy.

If a neighbour comes out to talk while we’re on site, I’ll come down off the tree and talk to them. It’s their fence too, often enough. Most of the time they want to ask whether we’d quote on their oak too.

Chip and leave

Arisings don’t sit on your lawn waiting for a separate trip. The chipper runs through the day, the chip goes on the back of the truck, and it goes when we go.

Logs are different. If you’ve asked for logs stacked, we cut them to length you want, stack them where you want, and leave them. Standard length is a foot, give or take. If you want longer for a fire pit, or shorter for a wood burner, tell us at the quote stage.

The site at the end of a job looks like a tree was there yesterday and isn’t there today, with a stack of logs and a clean lawn. That’s the standard.

The walk-through at the end

This is the bit that matters. When the truck is loaded and the saws are away, you and I do one more lap.

We look at:

• The tree. From the angles you see it from most. The kitchen window, the back step, over the fence from the patio. Does it look right.
• The lawn. We lift the ground mats off, brush off the bits the chipper missed, and the grass is normally untouched. People comment on this more than anything else.
• The drive. Blown clear with the leaf blower. No sawdust trail to the road.
• The logs. Stacked where we agreed.

This walk-through takes five minutes. It’s the difference between a job that’s done and a job you’ll talk about.

The invoice

The invoice lands within two working days of the work being finished, to the address you gave us for the quote. Cash or bank transfer, and the terms are on the invoice.

The short version

• Phone call: five minutes, species, size, access, postcode, timing.
• Site visit: free, twenty minutes, no doorstep pricing.
• Written quote: in your inbox within two working days, plain English, one page where possible, all-in price.
• Day before: confirm by phone or text, parking, access, car off the drive if it’s under the tree.
• Morning: kit out, ground mats down, climbing kit on, everything rigged down under control.
• Through the day: saw work in passes, chipper in batches, tea breaks, nesting bird check between March and August.
• End of day: logs stacked, lawn brushed, drive blown clear, walk-through with you.
• Invoice: two working days after the job.

If you’ve got a job coming up around Hastings, Battle, Bexhill, Rye, Heathfield or anywhere within twenty miles of Heathfield, and any of the above isn’t how you want it, tell us before the quote. We’ll work to what suits you. Send us a note about the job or give us a call.

There’s a growing set of guides on the technical side of tree work. The crown reduction guides are the most useful starting point for anyone wondering what’s actually going to happen to a particular tree.