Tips To Help You Remove A Dead Tree And Its Stump From Your Yard
A dead tree in your yard can pose a risk to yourself, your family, and any structures built around it if part or all of it were to collapse and fall. In a situation, such as this, removing the tree is the best option, whether you hire a professional tree service or have the equipment and skills to do the work yourself. Here are some tips to help you complete a tree and stump removal from your yard.
Decide When to Hire a Professional
When you have a large-sized dead tree in your yard that needs to be cut down, it may be a good idea to hire a professional tree service to safely cut down and remove the tree. This is especially true if the tree is next to overhead power lines, your home, or other structure in your yard. But, if the tree is in the middle of a clearing or at the edge of your property and not near any buildings, you can do most or all the removal yourself.
Protect Yourself
When you choose to do the work yourself, be sure to wear steel-toed boots, heavy duty work gloves, eye protection, a hard hat, and Kevlar leg coverings to protect your legs from the chainsaw or other cutting tools. Also wear a safety harness attached to a 1,000 lb strength minimum rope, tied to a main tree branch positioned above the tree's halfway height if you plan to climb into the tree. The safety harness will stop you from falling if you do lose your grip while working on cutting branches from the tree.
Determine the Tree Height
It is also a good idea to determine how tall the tree is before felling it into your yard, as trees can be taller than you think just by looking at them. Use an ax-measuring technique to estimate how much space the tree will need when it falls.
To use this test, hold the handle of an ax in front of you so the ax lines up with the tree. Close one eye and move forward or back until the top of the ax visually sits at the top of the tree and the bottom of the ax visually sits in front of the bottom of the tree. Where you are standing is an estimate of where the top of the tree will reach when you fell it.
Dismantle the Tree
With a chainsaw, begin cutting smaller branches from the large-sized tree, followed by cutting larger branches. Make sure you are not holding onto or attached to with your safety harness any branches you plan to cut down.
Remove all the branches from the tree until only the tree's main trunk structure remains. Then, you can cut down the tree from its base trunk. A tree usually has a natural line of fall, which is the direction is naturally leans, so inspect the tree before cutting it down to determine which way it will fall.
Use Excavation Equipment and Attachments
It can be helpful to rent a skid steer with a tree shear attachment that can saw down the tree at its base trunk for you. A similar skid steer attachment will cut down a tree with a maximum base diameter of 14 inches, so anything larger than that you will need to cut manually.
Then, you can use the skid steer to carry the tree branches from the site to cut up into firewood. There is also an attachment for a skid steer or similar machinery that processes the tree limbs into firewood. It can carry, cut into lengths, and split the lengths into firewood for you.
Grind the Stump
After the tree has been cut down and you're left with a stump, you can use the skid steer to help you remove the stump. Unless you want to turn the stump into a decorative bird house, tree house, or a picnic table, you don't need to live with a dead tree stump in your yard.
If you have hired a professional tree service like Hudson Tree Service, they can grind the stump out of the soil for you, adding beneficial wood chip mulch into your soil. Or, you can do the work yourself with your rented skid steer, which has an available attachment that you can use to grind the stump from the soil.
Use these tips to help you remove a tree and its stump from your yard.