Frequently Asked Questions

Published cost guides for the Spokane market put small ornamental trees in the low hundreds, most average-size removals somewhere between roughly $500 and $1,500, and large ponderosas over houses or lines — the jobs that need serious rigging or crane work — from $2,000 up into the mid four figures. Those are market ranges, not a quote: every tree prices on its height, trunk diameter, condition, access, and what sits underneath it, which is why every job here starts with a free written estimate instead of a number guessed over the phone. Two things worth knowing: dead, beetle-killed pines often cost more than live trees the same size because brittle wood is slower to rig safely, and a bid far below the market range usually means the crew carries no insurance — ask any bidder for proof.

Call (509) 215-2692 any hour or request an estimate online and describe the tree — what it's doing, where it stands, what's underneath it. Estimates are free and carry no obligation: the tree gets looked at in person, and you get one written price for the complete job, cutting, hauling, and cleanup included, before anything goes on the calendar. Routine work is scheduled at a time that suits you; storm damage and fallen trees are dispatched around the clock and move ahead of everything else. There is never a fee for the estimate itself, and if the honest answer is that the tree only needs a trim — or can safely wait a season — that is the answer you'll get.

Yes — the line is answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and storm damage and fallen tree response runs around the clock, weekends and holidays included. That schedule exists because Spokane's worst tree weather keeps its own hours: the November 2015 windstorm put roughly 1,900 trees down inside city limits in a single afternoon and evening, and heavy snow load snaps limbs all winter long. One hard exception: if a tree or limb is touching a power line, or a line is down, call Avista first and keep everyone away — energized lines are the utility's job, and no reputable tree crew works a tree that's in contact with one. For everything else, call any hour, describe what happened, and the response gets moving.

First, get everyone out from under and away from the tree — a trunk resting on a structure can shift without warning. If a power line is involved in any way, call Avista before anyone else and treat the whole area as dangerous. Once people are safe, call (509) 215-2692; storm damage and fallen tree response runs 24/7, and a tree on a house is exactly the kind of call that gets dispatched first. Photograph the damage before cleanup starts if you plan to file an insurance claim — adjusters want to see the tree where it landed. From there the work is methodical: stabilize what's hazardous, rig the tree off the structure without adding damage, and clear the debris so tarping and repairs can begin. Estimates are free, including for emergency work.

For most trees on your own private property in Spokane, no city permit is required to remove them. The rules change at the street: trees in the public right-of-way — the planting strip between sidewalk and curb — and park trees are regulated by City of Spokane Urban Forestry, and work on them requires the city's involvement, so check with Urban Forestry before touching a street tree. Outlying towns like Cheney, Liberty Lake, and Deer Park each set their own municipal rules, and homeowners associations can add requirements on top. The practical path is simple: mention exactly where the tree stands when you call for your free estimate, and if it looks like a right-of-way or city-regulated tree, you'll be told so plainly before any work is scheduled.

Look at the crown first: a ponderosa fading from green to dull yellow-red, dropping needles out of season, or thinning from the top down is in trouble. Then check the trunk for pitch tubes — popcorn-sized blobs of resin where bark beetles have bored in. Spokane is in the middle of a documented beetle die-off in drought-stressed pines: the city has issued homeowner advisories, and Spokane Parks has been removing 200-plus beetle-killed ponderosas, including around fifty at Manito Park alone. A beetle-killed pine doesn't recover — it becomes a failure hazard and fire fuel, and it's best removed before beetles fly again in spring and spread to neighboring trees. If your pine is showing these signs, a free estimate gets you a straight answer on whether it's dead, dying, or salvageable.

If the lean is new, yes — treat it as urgent, and keep people, pets, and cars out from under it before you decide anything else. A tree that suddenly leans after wind has usually had its root plate move; look for cracked, humped, or mounded soil on the side away from the lean. Trees that start going over this way rarely re-anchor, and Spokane's shallow gravelly soils over basalt bedrock make whole-tree windthrow the region's signature failure — that's how most of the roughly 1,900 trees went down in the 2015 windstorm, root plates and all. Call (509) 215-2692 any hour; a new lean toward a house, driveway, or play area is dispatched as an emergency. A lean the tree has carried for years is a calmer conversation — worth an estimate, not a midnight call.

Trim when the tree is healthy and the problem is where it's growing: limbs over the roof, branches reaching into the service drop, a crown too dense for wind to pass through. Remove when the tree's structure is failing — a dead or reddening crown, fungus at the base, large vertical cracks, hollow trunk wood, or a new lean. The line between the two is honest arithmetic: pruning solves placement problems, but nothing prunes a tree back to structural soundness. In Spokane there's one more factor — a beetle-killed pine is a removal, full stop, because it will not recover and standing dead pines fail unpredictably. If you're not sure which side your tree falls on, that's exactly what the free estimate is for, and if a trim genuinely solves it, a trim is what gets quoted.

Grinding cuts the stump into chips several inches below grade — enough to seed grass, lay sod, or mulch over the spot — and the hole is backfilled with the grindings. It's fast, far cheaper, and it stops the sucker shoots that keep sprouting from a live stump. Full stump removal digs out the entire root ball, costs several times more, and tears up a wide circle of yard; it's usually only worth it when something is being built or poured in that exact footprint. For nearly every Spokane yard, grinding is the right answer. One local note: in this area's gravelly, fast-draining soils, grindings break down slowly, so plan on topping up soil where the stump was before replanting. Ask for stump grinding in the same free estimate as a removal and the two get priced together.

The service area is Spokane and roughly a 30-mile radius across Spokane County: Spokane Valley, Liberty Lake, Cheney, Mead, and Deer Park, plus the neighborhoods and rural roads between them. That covers the South Hill's dense pine canopy and Browne's Addition's century-old street trees, the Valley's mature pines on fast-draining gravel, Liberty Lake's lakefront conifers, Cheney's wind-exposed West Plains lots, the shallow-rooted ponderosas of Mead and Fairwood, and Deer Park's timbered acreage. The footprint is kept deliberately tight so a storm call anywhere inside it can be reached at any hour of the night. If you're near the edge of that radius and not sure whether your address is covered, call (509) 215-2692 — the fastest answer is to ask. Estimates are free everywhere in the service area.

Yes — the work covers both residential and commercial properties across the same footprint. On the commercial side that means parking-lot and frontage trees trimmed for clearance over drives and signage, hazard removals on multi-unit grounds, lot and land clearing for building sites, and storm response when a downed tree blocks an entrance or lands on a structure — the 24/7 line covers commercial calls the same as residential ones. On the residential side it's the classic Spokane inventory: mature pines and maples planted decades ago over mid-century roofs, and century-old trees in the pre-war neighborhoods. Pricing works the same way for both — a free written estimate covering the complete job before any work is scheduled, with cleanup and haul-off included in the number.