Hivemind

I have a tree in my back yard that needs to be topped and to have a limb removed. The tree is leaning towards my house and there is a limb over the house too.

We had a guy com out and look at it. He said could do it for $800.00. He would chip the limbs and leave it in the yard.

We found him in the telephone book. It says that he is state certified and insured for 1 million dollars.

What else should I look for when hiring someone to do this? How do I know that he is nto bullshitting me about the insurance?

Is that price too low?

Unless you want the tree to eventually fall on your house I recommend that you don't have it topped.  Topping a tree will all most always cause rot to enter the tree, weakening the trunk.  Removing limbs is fine but topping is bad.

Quoted: Unless you want the tree to eventually fall on your house I recommend that you don't have it topped.  Topping a tree will all most always cause rot to enter the tree, weakening the trunk.  Removing limbs is fine but topping is bad.

So topping the tree will kill it?

How much experience with trees do you have?

Is it an excepted practice that topping the tree will kill it?

The tree is growing at a 45 degree leaning up hill towards my house.

I know that there is a wide disparity in estimates for this kind of work. Just today, I had a large maple in our back yard trimmed to remove large (12-18" diameter) branches over the house and garage, a lot of dead and dying stuff and add cables to shore up a couple of other places. Estimates ran from $2,000 for just removing the 2 branches that I wanted gone to $700 for the complete work package described above. The estimate included my choice of the wood sawed into 18" lengths and stacked for my fireplace, or completely removed from my premises.

I don't know how to answer your insurance question, but my advise is get plenty of estimates and talk to the people while they are estimating. Talk to enough of them and you can get a feel for who is BSing and who is not.

Quoted: Quoted: Unless you want the tree to eventually fall on your house I recommend that you don't have it topped.  Topping a tree will all most always cause rot to enter the tree, weakening the trunk.  Removing limbs is fine but topping is bad. So topping the tree will kill it? Not immediately, and it might heal ok, but topping a tree creates undo stress and allows pathagens to enter and cause rot. Link  2nd Link How much experience with trees do you have? I have a BS in Industrial Forestry from Virginia Tech Is it an excepted practice that topping the tree will kill it? Like I said, it might not kill it, but why risk it? The tree is growing at a 45 degree leaning up hill towards my house.

call a certified arborist to do it and not some hack with a saw

I think Arbor day is pretty soon.  Those guys should be out in droves.