Do you grind the stump when you remove a tree?

Not automatically. Cutting the tree as close to the ground as we can is the floor of the service. Grinding the stump out below grade is past that floor, and so is treating the stump with herbicide to kill the remaining roots. Both are worth doing in plenty of situations — tell your arborist while the removal is being scoped, so the stump and whatever goes back in its place are part of one plan instead of two separate visits. When the grinding is booked with the removal we normally do both on the same visit.

Do you haul everything away?

A removal typically includes full cleanup and haul-away. If you would rather handle the wood yourself to save money, we will cut the tree and leave the debris where it lands. What we will talk you out of is the middle option: once our crew is handling the wood at all, the remaining distance to full haul-away is small enough that the partial version is poor value for you.

Is a permit needed before a tree can be removed here?

Often, yes. Most Central Texas jurisdictions protect trees by trunk diameter and species, the thresholds are not the same from one city to the next, and several of the smaller communities here have no tree ordinance at all — so the answer depends on your address and your tree. Check it against our tree ordinance guide, which carries the ordinance detail and the permit contacts. If a permit is required, we file the application on your behalf.

Can a declining tree be saved instead of removed?

Sometimes. A tree that looks rough can respond to a care program — how a tree looks and what its prognosis is are two different questions. That is the part worth getting right before anything irreversible happens. If there is a reasonable chance of keeping the tree, we will say so.

How do you remove a large tree in a tight space?

With machines rather than with more chainsaw hours. Loaders and excavators move logs and debris to the street; the grapple truck picks up large pieces without cutting them smaller first; and for the parts of a tree hanging over a house or a pool, the bucket truck and the tracked spider lift do the work a climber would otherwise do. On the removals that are past all of that, a partner brings in a crane or a grapple saw truck.

What happens to the wood after the tree comes down?

It goes back to our yard and becomes mulch — the same material we sell. Ours is not double-ground, screened or dyed, so the fines stay in it. It looks less uniform than a bagged product and it is better for trees. If you would rather keep the logs, or have them milled, say so while the job is being scoped and they stay with you instead.

Can you plant a new tree where the old one was?

Yes, once the stump is out. Whether you plan to replant is worth saying up front, because it changes how far down the stump needs to be ground. And it is the faster route back to the thing you actually wanted, which was never a stump-free yard — it was canopy.

Tree Removal in Austin, TX

Tree removal in Austin starts with one question: is this tree a good candidate for preservation? When it isn’t — or when a defect sits over something you can’t afford to lose — removal is the honest answer. A removal means cutting the tree as close to the ground as possible; cleanup is typically included and the stump is a separate decision.

The rest of this page is the long version: when removal is genuinely the right call, what the job includes and what sits past it, and how a large tree comes out of a Central Texas backyard without taking the fence, the patio, or a crew member with it.

When removal is the right call

The asset you own is not a trunk. It is the canopy over your property, and you manage it across decades. Keith’s position, from a career in Central Texas trees that started in 1993:

The goal is a good healthy canopy covering the yard — not saving every tree. Don’t let emotions make you try to save every single tree. If it’s not a good candidate for preservation, tear it off like a Band-Aid. The sooner you get a new tree in the ground, the sooner you’re going to get where you want to be.

That cuts both directions, and we mean both. If the tree is a poor preservation candidate, drawing the decision out costs you years of canopy you could have been growing — and removal is the answer we will give you plainly. If the tree is salvageable, removal is the wrong answer and we will tell you that too: a care program can bring back a tree that looks far worse than it is.

The question underneath a hazard call

When a tree has a real structural defect, the useful question is not how bad the defect is. It is what is underneath it:

At what point is the consequence of the tree failing outweighed by the value of the tree?

Hardware is the reason this matters. We install cabling and bracing, so the honest version of this page is that a company which could sell you hardware is telling you that if the consequences of a failure are not acceptable, the tree should come down instead. Mechanically supporting a defective tree does not remove the risk, it changes it — the hardware isn’t fail safe — and a client is entitled to know that before anything gets installed in a tree standing over their house. Keith’s rule today is that a tree being supported rather than removed needs no significant targets within the fall zone, and in urban and suburban Austin there is usually a significant target nearby. Where that condition genuinely is met, the same logic runs the other way, and it is how he handled the trees left standing after the freeze:

If there wasn’t a hazardous target underneath them, we let it be the client’s choice.

When the tree is healthy and simply in the way

We are advisers, not gatekeepers:

I’m here to provide good advice and help people get the best version of what they want. … I don’t view that as my responsibility. I’m here to give people information and lead them on the path they want to go down.

The city ordinances are the gatekeeper here — that is their job, not ours. What we will do is make sure you have seen the third option before you commit, because there usually is one. A pool and a special tree are not always mutually exclusive; sometimes the design moves and you get both.

And for a tree with a memory attached to it, the gentle version is also the honest one. A memorial tree does not have to be that particular trunk. It has to be something in your yard that makes you think of the person.

What to watch for when a removal gets recommended to you

The failure mode in this trade is not bad cutting. It is bad diagnosis — because the diagnosis is what authorizes the work. Cutting is only where the consequence shows up. A convenient diagnosis is how a healthy tree becomes a removal, and it is the practice we would most like readers to be able to spot.

The useful screen is not a question you ask. It is what the person bidding volunteers:

Is he just a tree pruner? To a hammer, everything’s a nail. He’s just looking at your trees trying to figure out what he could trim.

A competent bidder remarks on the condition of your trees without being asked — foliage density, leaf size, foliage color, root growing conditions. You do not need to know anything about trees to notice whether condition came up at all. Someone who cannot assess a tree can memorize an answer to a question, but cannot spontaneously produce an assessment.

Where the answer genuinely isn’t readable from the ground, the right move is an arborist consultation before anything irreversible happens. Measure twice, cut once — on removal work that proverb is close to literal.

What a removal includes, and what sits past it

We would rather be specific than sound generous, because “full service” means nothing until you know where the floor is.

The floor. We cut the tree as close to the ground as possible, with chainsaws. That is the starting point of every removal we quote.

Past the floor, and scoped as their own work:

Stump grinding — grinding the stump out below grade. Not automatic.
Herbicide treatment to kill the remaining roots, where killing the root system matters.
A replacement planting in or near the same spot once the stump is out.

None of those is hidden and none is assumed. They are decisions, and the time to make them is while the removal is being scoped — so what happens to the stump and what goes back in its place are part of one plan instead of three unrelated visits. Booked together, the removal and the grinding normally happen on the same visit.

Cleanup is all-or-nothing, and the reason is yours

A removal typically includes full cleanup and haul-away. If you would rather do it yourself, we will cut the tree and leave the debris where it lands, and that is a legitimate way to buy the job.

What we will talk you out of is the middle. Keith’s reasoning, and note who it is for:

As soon as we handle it at all (cut up, move to the street, etc) the cost dictates they should just let us do full clean up.

Once a crew is handling wood at all, the expensive part has already happened. The remaining distance to full haul-away is cheap by comparison, which makes the partial version the one option that is bad value for you. We are arguing you out of a smaller job, not into a bigger one.

The wood goes back to our yard and becomes mulch — our own material, not double-ground, not screened, not dyed, with all the fines still in it. It looks less tidy than a bagged product and it is better for trees.

Where the wood ends up is not fixed. If you want the logs — to keep, or to have milled — say so while the job is being scoped and they stay with you.

How a large tree comes out of a Central Texas backyard

Three things make a removal slow, expensive and dangerous. Each one has a machine that answers it, and that is most of what our fleet is for.

What makes a removal hard	What answers it
Chainsaw time spent cutting large logs down to movable pieces	Loaders and excavators — less chainsawing, and less time under a running saw
Moving debris to the truck	Loaders, excavators, and the grapple truck, which picks up large pieces without cutting them smaller first
Access to the parts of a tree hanging over something that matters — the house, the pool, the landscape	Bucket truck and tracked spider lift

What we own to do it: two Boxer 320 mini skid steers, compact enough to fit through a 36-inch gate; a Giant G1200 articulating tele-loader; a Caterpillar IT14 full-size wheel loader; Yanmar Vio55 and SV100 excavators with log grapples; a Peterbilt 340 knuckleboom grapple truck; an International Versalift bucket truck; and a Platform Basket 18.6M tracked spider lift, which drives through the gate and into a backyard the bucket truck cannot get to.

Past all three of those — the removals that are genuinely at the edge — a partner brings in a crane or a grapple saw truck. We do not own a crane and we are not going to imply otherwise. Knowing when a job needs one, and having the relationship to get one on site, is the part that matters.

Trailers and chippers are deliberately not on that list. Keith’s read on his own fleet:

All that doesn’t even get to the trailers and wood chippers we have (most tree companies have those). It’s the other bits that set us apart.

And the equipment argument is really a safety argument. Every machine above takes work away from a person holding a saw or hanging in a tree. Less chainsawing, less manual dragging, fewer hours in the canopy over a target. That shows up as speed on the invoice, but it shows up first as reduced fatigue on the crew. Efficient and safe are the same argument here, not a trade between them.

Our crews work to ANSI A300 and ANSI Z133 standards. We carry CDL drivers and run a DOT program, which is a direct consequence of moving equipment this heavy on public roads.

Removals that need a permit

Whether your tree is protected depends on its trunk diameter and on which jurisdiction you are in, and the thresholds are not the same from one city to the next. Check your address against our Austin tree ordinance guide, which carries the ordinance detail and the permit contacts. If a permit is required, we file the application on your behalf.

Where a city wants supporting documentation first — an advanced condition assessment, a canopy impact assessment, a mitigation plan, or an audit of an existing tree survey — that work comes from our consulting arborists, led by an ISA Board Certified Master Arborist (#TX-0985B). That is a paid engagement, scoped and quoted per request.

One distinction worth being precise about, because the industry is sloppy with it: a tree survey is produced by a state registered surveyor, not by an arborist. We do not originate one. What we do is audit it — correct the tree measurements and the species identification, and add the condition information that isn’t on the drawing at all. That is what makes a survey usable for a tree decision. Identifying and assessing trees simply isn’t what a surveyor is for; this is a boundary between two trades, not a complaint about one.

If the removal is part of a development or a build, construction site services is the page you want — permitted removals there run alongside tree protection work, and the sequencing matters.

Before you hire anyone, including us

Two pieces of buyer education we would rather you had than not, even if you use them on somebody else’s bid.

The labor is commoditized. The judgment is not. Crew size is going to be about the same, and even some of the non-professionals have decent equipment — which is exactly the half of the equipment argument that is table stakes. The material-handling and access fleet above is the half that isn’t, and it only matters on the jobs that need it. What you are actually buying is the scope decision: is this tree a removal at all, and if it is, what is the right way to take it out? That is where the money either works for you or doesn’t, and it is invisible on a one-line bid.

What that costs, in this market. These are not our rates and nothing here is a quote — it is a description of what tree work goes for around Austin, and the point of publishing it is that it tells you where the risk actually sits. (2026 figures, reviewed annually.)

Job size	What Keith has seen
Small jobs — shaping a small tree, minor roof clearance	The small operators genuinely are cheaper, and hiring cheap here is a reasonable call. “They don’t have much expense in getting equipment and a crew out to the site.”
$1,000–$3,000	The danger zone. “That’s a sweet spot where the smaller guys, the nonprofessionals, know they can get away with it. If the market determines it’s a twenty-five-hundred-dollar job, they’re gonna charge the twenty-five hundred dollars.” You pay professional money either way — so hire a professional.
Above $3,000, and large hazardous removals	“A lot of times they’ll walk away from those removals. Anything above that, you’d be crazy to hire anything other than a recognized expert.”

The counterintuitive part: the cheap bid is not reliably cheaper. People assume the garage operator is half price. Often it is the same number or more, and they never find out they could have had professional service for the same money.

Note where that leaves this page. We are telling you the bottom band is a fine place to hire somebody else.

On insurance, both halves, because half of it is misleading on its own. Certificates and certifications do not function as a screen in this market — it is saturated with certified arborists and with companies that either carry insurance or say they do. In Texas there is really no requirement to carry workers’ compensation. Keith’s read, from watching it since 1993, is that the public is not educated on that and it does not tend to be a real blocker when somebody is selling work.

So be the one who checks. Ask for the ACORD certificate, then call the carrier listed on it and confirm the policy covers tree work specifically — pruning, removal, arborist practices, working at heights. Workers’ comp in particular is worth understanding as your own exposure and not only theirs: in Keith’s experience, when an uninsured worker is hurt in a homeowner’s tree, the homeowner’s insurance is ultimately the carrier that picks up the bill. Confirm how that works with your own carrier — policies differ and yours is the one that matters.

Apply all of that to us too. We carry both general liability and workers’ compensation, and the way to confirm it is the way described above: ask us for the ACORD and call the carrier. We would rather you checked than took our word for it.

Get a free estimate

An arborist comes out, looks at the tree, and looks at everything around it — what is under the canopy, what the access is, what has to be protected, and whether removal is the right call at all.

You get that in writing, and it is two documents rather than a number on a card. The first is a written site inspection and work plan from the arborist who walked your property: photos of the trees, which parts of the property we are working and which trees we are not touching, the crew and equipment it takes, and the obstacles — traffic control, ground protection, whether a permit is needed, landscaping or pavers at risk. The second is the priced proposal. Both come to you.

Call (512) 996-9100 or request an estimate online, and tell us if you want the stump handled at the same time.

We remove trees across Austin and the surrounding Central Texas metro. The cities we cover are listed on tree service by city.

Talk to an arborist

Request an estimate (512) 996-9100

4.3of 5 from 29 Google reviews

Sarah

July 2026

5.0of 5

These guys are great. So knowledgable, friendly and generous with their time. I'm so glad I found them, just wish I'd found them years ago.

Paul

It has been a pleasure having Keith and his staff at Austin Tree Experts care for my trees over the last decade. Their service goes beyond what the customer pays to receive by often recommending tree care the home owner can preform themselves at no cost. I recommend Austin Tree Experts for anyone who values the tree canopy on their property.