A Bit of Excitement !

The high winds recently made us realise that the diseased oak tree at the front was rather vulnerable and so on Friday we decide to get some quotes to see how much it would cost to have it taken down in a planned way rather than have it fall down !

Now is the ideal time to have some tree work done as the leaves are all down and the tree surgeons are quite quiet for work. However, we were not expecting that the four we telephoned on Friday would all be able to come and give a quote that afternoon !

The quotes varied a lot, with the most expensive being twice the price of the one we decide to accept. The cheapest firm would also let us keep all the logs for free and was able to come and do the work the next day ! It was still expensive and our bank account looks several hundred pounds poorer because of it, but after they started to cut down the tree we realised that it had been a good decision as nearly all the parts of the tree were diseased in the middle. It was also very exciting watching them roping up, climbing into the tree and then planning how to cut it all down safely !

There were three men in the crew and it took them just over three and half hours to cut it all down, chip the smaller branches and leave us a huge pile of logs.

Once the logs are seasoned they will certainly go a long way to meeting one Winter's firewood needs so that will be a little bit of a saving ! The other big saving we realised was that we have been able to do this work in a planned way and shop around for a good price. If we had waited until the tree possibly came down in a storm we might have been looking a lot of inconvenience, as it would certainly have blocked the drive and it was also tall enough, that depending on how it fell, it could have damaged the house. Since we don't own a chain saw we would a have had to pay whatever a tree surgeon would have been asking, at a time when there would have been lots of other people looking for help.

So all in all we are glad that we made the call on Friday to have the tree down and are equally glad that savings can pay for it !