Large Tree Removal · Waterloo

Large Tree Removal in Waterloo

Waterloo lots are wide enough that a tree can sometimes be felled in one piece, which is the cheapest way to remove anything. Whether yours is one of those, or a dismantle over the roof, is decided standing under it.

The trees that come down in Waterloo are mostly the ones planted in the sixties, seventies and eighties on the generous lots of Colonial Acres, Lakeshore, Beechwood and the streets off Westmount Road: Colorado and Norway spruce in rows for privacy, silver maples and lindens for shade, white birch clumps that have mostly died, and ash. Fifty years later the spruce are 20 to 25 metres, the maples have 80-centimetre trunks and double leaders, and the yards have filled up with pools, cabanas, decks and additions. The generous lot is still the defining feature, and it is what gives Waterloo tree work options that a Kitchener or Cambridge back yard does not have.

Three ways a big tree comes down

• Felling whole. Where there is a clear lane of lawn as long as the tree is tall, a spruce or a straight maple can be dropped in one piece with a directional notch, wedges and a pull line, then bucked up on the ground. It is quick and it is the least expensive method by a wide margin. Wide, deep Waterloo lots make it possible more often than anywhere else in the region.
• Climbing and rigging. Where the drop zone is a roof, a pool, a fence or the neighbour's garden, a climber works up the tree and lowers each section on a rigging line through a block to the ground crew. Nothing free-falls over a target.
• Crane or bucket. A bucket truck from the drive handles trees it can reach. A crane on the street lifts whole sections over the house for trees with no yard access, dead ash that cannot be climbed, or anything leaning over a structure after a storm.

The spruce problem

Spruce deserves its own paragraph in Waterloo. Planted close in rows for screening, the trees grow tall and thin, lose their lower branches, and develop root plates that are wide but shallow. They are the trees that go over whole in a summer thunderstorm when the ground is saturated, often taking a fence or a shed with them, and a row that has lost one is a row where the others have lost their shelter. Removing one spruce from a row, thinning the row, or replacing the whole screen is a decision worth making deliberately rather than one storm at a time.

No permit, but still some rules

The City of Waterloo has no by-law covering trees on private land, so the decision is yours and nothing has to be filed. A heritage tree by-law has been proposed in the City's draft urban forest strategy and we check the position at the time of the quote. What does apply: boulevard trees and anything on park land are the City's and are left alone; Enova Power's three-metre clearance from lines, with the utility involved where the tree cannot be worked around them; the Region's woodland by-law if the trees form part of a woodland of a hectare or more; and the GRCA's regulated area along Laurel Creek and the other watercourses, where grading or equipment on a slope can need permission.

Protection and clean-up

A big lawn is an asset to protect, not just a landing zone. Plywood goes down where the chipper and the logs travel, beds are boarded, the pool is covered, and the yard is left as it was minus the tree. The written quote says the method, the equipment, whether the stump is included, where the wood goes and what is protected.

Frequently asked questions

Serving Waterloo and surrounding areas. Contact us for a no-obligation quote specific to your property.