Licensed tree removal service in San Antonio

The trunk’s size and height, what’s under the canopy and how the crew gets in all set the price. A crane or a climber, stump grinding and haul-off change it too. A hackberry in an open backyard comes down very differently than a big oak leaning over a two-story roof. Send photos for a free estimate, and you’ll get a firm number before work starts.

Sometimes. In San Antonio, a resident of a finished home usually doesn’t need a tree permit, but removal tied to construction or development does. Nearby cities, villages and HOAs write their own rules, and addresses in Comal or Guadalupe County fall outside San Antonio’s ordinance. Hill Country Oaks Tree Service runs a permit check on your address before a saw starts.

A crane makes sense when the tree hangs over a house, a pool or a service line and there’s no safe place to drop wood. The crew cuts the tree into sections, and the crane lifts each one clear and sets it down in the drive or the street. Crane-capable crews also bring one in on greenbelt lots where there’s simply no room to lower limbs by rope.

Watch for a lean that’s getting worse, soil cracking on one side of the trunk or a deep crack where two big stems meet. Hollow spots, mushrooms or conks on the bark and a thin, dying crown are warnings too. If you see any of these near your house, send photos and we’ll tell you whether it’s a hazard tree.

Not automatically, so ask for it in the estimate. The stump can be ground below grade on the same visit, and you’ll choose whether the grindings stay in the hole or get raked out.

Limbs get chipped, and the trunk is cut into pieces small enough to load. Everything leaves on our dump trailers unless you’d like to keep the wood chips for your beds. The crew rakes and blows the yard before they go, so the cleanup is part of the job.

Yes. A dead queen palm or fan palm comes down like any other tree, in pieces from the top when it’s near the house or the pool. Dead fronds and a rotting top can drop on their own, so it’s better gone before the next big wind.

If the trunk’s sound and the problem is limbs over the roof, a good trim usually fixes it. Removal makes sense when the tree leans toward the house, the roots are lifting the slab or the trunk has decay you can see. Photos of the trunk and the roofline are enough for a free estimate on either job.

Not when the job’s planned right. Crews pick a drop zone, lower big pieces with rigging lines instead of free-falling them, and lay mats where heavy loads cross the driveway or lawn. On tight lots, a crane pick keeps the heavy wood off the ground entirely.

Yes, but dead wood is brittle and snaps without warning, so it’s handled differently than a live tree. Dead red oaks and drought-killed hardwoods are often taken down from a bucket truck or with a crane instead of by a climber. Pieces are lowered on ropes, and the sooner a dead tree comes down, the simpler the job is.