Tree Location

Locating a tree is one thing.?ÿ Properly identifying some species could take a while...particularly in winter.?ÿ I'd estimate and average of about 4 trees per hour for the locating and sizing with a healthy bump on the CAD charges for properly IDing them.?ÿ When the client howls at the bill tell 'em to talk to the city about their requirements.

I once did a 2 acre topo for an architect with a similar request (I think the criteria was 4" and larger).?ÿ I spent three days.?ÿ The owner was angry because I left a pin-flag at the base of every tree I located.?ÿ I really don't remember how many there were, but I had to plot the drawing at 1"=20'.?ÿ It was a mess.?ÿ?ÿ

yikes

At the CU Campus in Boulder, all engineering topos must show each tree canopy outline. The CU "tree committee" wields great power. No new waterline or any structure gets built that would disturb the branches. This pretty much doubles the survey time. The trees often prohibit using GPS. Cost is no issue

I have had others (architect, botanist, self proclaimed tree lover) put a numbered ribbon on each tree and give me a list, then I locate the ribbons and make a table. Same as wetlands location. I'm not qualified for these things and I'm glad I'm not.?ÿ

I would try to provide a flat rate for each. Some will be costlier for you but some will be easy and hopefully you will balance out.?ÿ

A production builder client developed a moderately wooded 160 lot (1/4 ac.) subdivision in a municipality that required a tree survey for each lot prior to issuance of the building permit. We charged an additional $195/lot. It worked out well for us because we performed the tree survey in 3 full field days and showed the results individually on each plot plan.

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this is old hat here.

here's how i do it, and have never been bitten by it.

per tree.

"clean" site (underbrushed or a manicured lawn, for instance): $10/tree

overgrown site: $13-15/tree

jungle: $18/tree

now, that said, i'm used to 6" and up.?ÿ 1.75" is awfully small.?ÿ and i'm not familiar with your particular smorgasboard of required trees.?ÿ here it's not that big in terms of species- usually only have to hit from a list of 8-10.?ÿ and the smaller they are the harder they can be to ID properly, generally speaking.?ÿ

(for reference, local 2 man crew rates are in the 150-180/hr range, these numbers basically get you to that)

So my wife & I visited Asheville last year. I hope some people with some business sense & with more middle of the road morals start to change things or that place will eventually kill the tourism industry it has always had due to skyrocketing development costs & very questionable policies thanks to todayƒ??s culture.?ÿ

I remember growing up as an NC native & my parents taking us up there as well as to Boone & Blowing Rock on multiple trips. Granted the culture has always been slightly different in Asheville (even back in the early 90ƒ??s as a kid I would notice things) but these days thereƒ??s accepted practices going on up there I sure donƒ??t want my son to see. Maybe Iƒ??m just too traditional but I was raised different & even my parents noted a change when they went up there a couple years back to see the Biltmore & the other sights?ÿ

Did lots of tree surveys in The Woodlands, TX, which had some strict requirements about not knocking out trees of certain species and size. I believe we had a rate based on acreage, but it reflected the assumption that it was going to be dense.

I didn't mind doing them too much because it was usually cooler in the woods in summertime, and it was pretty low-pressure work. Drop a nail in the center of the trees from an exterior traverse line, set up and start observing. Tag as many as possible, set another nail, repeat.

We would actually tie flagging around each tree as it was observed so we could keep track. Probably wasn't the best way to do it, but for us it was the easiest, and we did have a small fee rolled into the rate to account for the several rolls used in the process.

As a side note, when I worked in the EagleFord shale play, operators would pay a pretty penny if their pads, facilities or trenches took out oak trees. They made every effort not to, but sometimes there was no other way. I'm pretty sure I saw figures well over $10K+, per tree. Added up fast.

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I don't mind tree preservation for certain types and sizes. I grew up in Houston, and really loved the older neighborhoods, with oaks whose branches could stretch over the street centerline. But the McMansion trend hit, and buyers started to turn beautiful ranch style homes with plenty of shade into a monstrosity of fake stucco and Spanish tile, with palm trees replacing fifty-year old oaks.

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@rover83

i did a project about 10 years ago where these big $ cats came in and bought up a MASSIVE section 8 apartment complex.?ÿ first they paid like 20 or 30 million penalty that was contigent to the financing to take it out of section 8, then the site had a couple dozen BIG live oaks on it (36"+).?ÿ at the time (might still be the same, idk) it was $10K per caliper inch to buy a tree.?ÿ they paid something on the order of another 4 million to cut down half those trees.?ÿ now there are luxury apartments on site, with mixed use first floor boutique retail.?ÿ the rent on a 1 bedroom is bigger than my mortgage.

Chainsaws are a wonderful invention.?ÿ More people need to use them more frequently.

The alternative is to catch them when they are very young and euthanize them.

@ncsudirtman

We visited Asheville one night a few years ago while staying near Brevard. I thought it was interesting. My son was young at the time and he enjoyed the street mimes and such. A few months ago, we ventured into Asheville one late afternoon. We ate at Moe's BBQ and then got the heck out of there. Reminds me of Carrboro x10.?ÿ

Buy a forestry tape. Download Virginia Tech's dendrology app. Go through and measure Dia., and mark it and the specie on flagging roll then tie around tree.?ÿ Being liberal with offsets, locate each tree and remove flagging as you go. Leave some flagged and labeled near where you would expect the architect or code enforcement officer to pull in and "check on you".?ÿ I learned that trick after nearly strangling an architect who claimed I didn't actually measure the diameter of the trees.

My tree location story concerns a, maybe, ten acre parcel being dedicated as a park to a city.?ÿ An arborist had tagged and numbered every single tree with an aluminium tag.?ÿ We had to locate every tree by number.?ÿ So i set up under the big (48") pine on the perimeter and located almost all of the several dozen trees.

Guess which tree I forgot to include in the inventory?

It's a very simple formula for tasks that the average surveyor does not want to do.

Calculate your normal fee based on an estimation of time required then multiply by 2. I often get away with x3.

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