Tree trimming
 

I had several Elm tree branches growing over the roof of my lawn equipment shed and shop pole barn roofs. I had contracted with a tree service back in May to do this, but they kept putting me off, as it was a fill-in job when they were in the area and we have had several storms that knocked down many trees and limbs in the area. This is exactly why I hired the contractor in the first place, so these limbs wouldn't come down and my roofs get damaged.... sigh. So what does a DIY guy do ? Go rent a 45' boomlift and git-r-done myself. Not the first time I've done this, but it's always spooky swaying around in a basket up this high. Last pic is the saw I used. I bought this Milwaukee 8" "Axe" battery powered saw and man does that cut. I did the whole job with just this saw and only went thru 2 batteries. Amazing little saw.
Had it home and set up by 8 am, cut nearly none stop until 12:15 pm, had a 45 minute lunch break and finished cutting at 2:30 pm. Cleaned it off, took it back and when I got home my wife was knocking down the brushy limbs and loading the 2 place snowmobile trailer to haul it to recycling on Wednesday, so jumped in with her and we had 90% of it loaded by 4:30.

What did it cost to rent the lift? It is not good to have any trees near a building they will come down someday.

Yep, been there done that. We lose on average about 3 trees a year and this is MUCH cheaper than hiring a tree trimmer as long as you don't mind the clean up. I just had a branch go thru my garage roof due to me delaying cutting off a dead limb. My rental was $430 for 24 hours.

My rental was for 24 hours too, but I didn't want to have to take it back at 7:30 this morning so returned it yesterday. I did all I wanted by 2:30, but had missed the 4 hour window by quite a bit by then.
Rental was $409.
We pile it all on the "brush trailer" as we have called the sled trailer for years and take it to a recycling place. Wednesday is old farts day and I can usually get by for $5-10 to drop it off.

Make sure you guys or anyone that uses these are tied off with a harness in that basket - if it starts bouncing it will toss you out like a trampoline......

And they "All lived happily ever after"!!!!

$409.00/24 hrs.is very reasonable.

Especially when compared to the cost of a tree trimmer.

Tree Trimming...
 

I'm getting vertigo just looking at the photos :tongue:

I get the vertigo from a crystal floating around once in a while and I had small episodes for a couple days before I rented this and yeah, especially when I looked up and then back down, it got a little woozy a few times. Just hold onto the basket and close my eyes for a minute for it to get better and then keep going.

I’ve been doing that for 43 years as I’m an arborist.

Pre-Covid I had 4 50’ tall pine trees dropped on my property and cut up in 18” pieces for $900 cash. I had same company come back early spring to quote taking 2 more down and trimming a huge maple on my property quote came in at $7200. I went to Home Depot and for $422 and a days work i took care of it all myself or atleast I got everything on the ground!

tree business is a high overhead business new bucket is $250,000 new chipper $130,000 chip truck 125,000 stump grinder 100,000 insrance payroll repairs taxes yada yada yada going rate where i live we try to get 2,500-3,000 a day with 3-4 man crew not alot left on the bone at the end of the day my blue cross health insurance just went up 11,000 for the year 61,000 for me ,my wife, my son, and 2 employees so you can understand the high prices.