Lot clearing

Three jobs that look the same and are not

A building lot is cleared to a specification: everything down, stumps out or ground, because footings and driveways cannot sit over rotting root. What the excavator finds later is decided by how well this stage was done, so it is worth agreeing in writing exactly what “cleared” means before anyone starts: to the ground, below it, or to rough grade.

A fence line is precision work in a narrow strip. Around here the strip is usually a hedge of honeysuckle and wild grape wrapped around volunteer trees that have grown up through the wire, often with a neighbor’s yard on the other side. We take the growth out without taking the fence with it, and where trunks have grown through or around the wire, we cut so the fence stays standing until you are ready to replace it. Whose tree the boundary volunteers are is worth a conversation with the neighbor before the saw settles it.

An overgrown back section is somewhere in between: reclaiming ground rather than sterilising it. Most people want the brush and the junk trees gone, the good trees kept and pruned up so you can walk and mow under them. We walk it with you first and mark keepers, because once a forty-year oak is on the ground there is no changing your mind.

Brush is one problem, logs are another

Everything on a lot sorts into two streams, and they drive the effort. Brush, meaning the honeysuckle, saplings and limbs, is bulky but light: it goes straight through the chipper, and the chips either leave on the truck or stay as free mulch cover on the cleared ground. Logs, the trunks and heavy wood, is the opposite: dense, heavy, and worth something as firewood. It gets bucked into rounds and stacked on site for you, or hauled away; stacking is the cheaper choice because hauling heavy wood is what costs. A lot that is nine tenths honeysuckle clears faster than its size suggests. A lot with a dozen mature trunks on it is a run of removals wearing one name, and is priced accordingly.

How a clearing job runs

1. Walk the boundary, mark the keepers Property lines confirmed, good trees marked to stay, and the finished standard agreed: to the ground, stumps ground, or rough grade.
2. Plan the access Where the chipper and truck sit, which way the material flows out, what the ground will carry. Wet ground can move a job to a drier week rather than leave ruts you pay to repair.
3. Brush first The understory comes out and through the chipper, so there is room to see and drop what is left safely.
4. Logs down and sorted Trunks felled or sectioned depending on room, then bucked and stacked, or loaded and hauled. Anything near the fence or the keepers comes down in pieces.
5. Stumps and finish Stumps ground below grade where the plan calls for it, chips spread or removed, and the ground left ready for the mower, the seed or the builder.