Good luck, I was quoted minimum 2 grand to remove a silver maple from my property. I moved.

LOL that is so encouraging!

LOL, yeah sorry. Sometimes I should just keep my trap shut ;-)

Are the branches in the power lines at all? If they are, call the power company and perhaps they will remove the tree. That is how I got my 50+ year old maple taken down... for free.

Thanks Janet I've thought of that, they are close but not quite to the lines by the street and over the line to our house. I may still call to see what could be the harm, right?

Sometimes the tree cutters are also in the firewood business, in which case they want the wood. But otherwise they may give you a price break if you tell them they can leave the wood in your yard. Then you just post "free firewood" on freecycle or craigslist, and people who heat with wood will be scrambling to pick up the free wood. The important part is to have the wood cut into sizes that ordinary people can handle. Also you could offer to clean up the branches and brush and stuff, that takes time but isn't very dangerous or complicated like cutting down a big tree. You could also get a price break if you just have some crew take the tree down and you do the rest of the work. That is if you find a tree cutter willing to negotiate. Good luck whichever way you go!

Marcia

carriedaway,

The power company is the first thing I'd try. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. :-) One slight problem is they leave you with all the mess. In our case, some guy stopped by and said that he'd cut up the wood for $50. The cost was to cover chain saw blades because that amount of tree is rough on blades. He was a very nice guy, and did it all in a week. He also brought over his wood chipper and I was able to chip the smaller branches and had a decent pile. If you have the space to let a pile sit, you can always rent a chipper.

Marcia's idea of Craigs list is a good one.

Carriedaway,

Hamm's ArborCare out of Poynette are excellent...but not cheap. I'd say you'd be over a grand anyway, not counting stump removal. (Just a guess)

You can try calling Alliant Energy. I did it last year because a dead (also very large) tree was threatening to fall on my utility boxes (including theirs). All our utilities are underground. They were very unsympathetic and said if it fell on the boxes they'd deal with it at that point. They only deal with trees interferring with overhead wires. So you might have a chance...what do you have to lose?

Our next door neighbor finally got Conservancy Place to come out and cut it down. It was actually just over the back property line on their property. They even cut it to fireplace size logs for us. Although we still have several large stumps to deal with, it gives my hubby something to do. He actually enjoys it!

Good luck,

Char

carriedaway, where are you located? Your page doesn't say--around here it's around $700/tree, but we had several to remove and found a small-time logger who did the work in return for the wood. He even cleaned up :)

I'm in Sun Prairie (near Madison) the lowest quote I got was about 1100. which I guess isn't bad, just not what I was expecting.

Give Boley's Tree Removal a try; I think they are in Middleton. I suspect the $1100 is probably pretty fair. I have an old sugar pine that MG&E topped off a few years ago when it got in the lines. Next time it happens, I want to speak to them about taking the whole tree.