Firewood and Wood Chips in Greenville, SC

The default: chipped or hauled, and it's already in the price

Every removal and every trim requested through Greenville Tree Pros includes cleanup and haul-away. Limbs and brush go through the chipper as they come down, the trunk comes down in sections and leaves on the truck, and the yard is raked before anyone packs up. That is the standard quote, because it is what most people want: the tree gone and nothing to deal with afterwards. It is also why a quote that comes in dramatically cheaper deserves one question — what happens to the wood and the brush? A price that quietly leaves everything stacked where it fell has not saved you anything; it is a smaller job with the hauling taken out.

Keeping the firewood rounds: how to ask, and what you actually get

If you want the wood, it is yours. Say so when the estimate is written, so the company working the job plans around leaving it rather than loading it. Keeping the rounds on site can shave a little off the price, because there is less to haul — the exact amount is on the written estimate, not on this page. What you get is rounds: the trunk and the big limbs cut into short sections you can roll or lift. Most people, offered the wood, say no, and that is fine; a mature Greenville oak is a great deal of wood, and green oak is heavy.

Wood splitting: the part between rounds and firewood

Rounds are not firewood yet, and splitting is not part of a removal on this site — the rounds are the deal. Oak and hickory split cleanly once they have dried a while and burn long and hot; sweetgum twists and fights the maul; pine splits easily and burns quick and sooty, which is why most people keep it for the fire pit. Whatever the species, green wood needs a long season stacked off the ground and under cover before it burns well — oak longer than most. If what you want is someone to split a pile you already have, say that on the call and you will get a straight answer.

Wood chips: what chipping is, and whether you can keep them

The chipper is how the small stuff leaves: limbs, brush and trimmings go in one end and come out as chips, which is faster than dragging brush to a pile and cheaper than hauling it whole. On a stump grind the chips are what the grinder leaves in the hole, and there they can either backfill it — they settle over a season — or be hauled off and replaced with soil so the spot is ready for sod straight away. Chips from a removal or a trim can be left for you too; say so at the estimate, the same as the firewood. They are good on paths and in beds, kept off the trunks of living trees. The one place not to use them is the hole for a new tree — chip-heavy soil and decaying roots starve a new tree of nitrogen, which is why the stump page says to plant a few feet over from the old one.

Tree chipping, tree shredding, a wood chipper service — what people mean

People search all three and usually mean one of two things. The first is what this page describes: the chipper that comes with a removal or a trim, turning the day's brush into chips as part of the job. The second is a chipper for a brush pile of their own, with no tree work attached. If you have the second, say so on the call, so the answer fits the job you have. Either way, every size band on the Greenville tree removal price list already includes the chipping and the haul-away — nothing on it is priced with the debris left behind.

Deciding about the wood before the saws start

Three choices, all made at the estimate: all of it gone, which is the standard job; the rounds left and the brush chipped and hauled; or the rounds and the chips both left. Brush to a curb pile you will deal with yourself is a fourth, and it also trims the price. None is wrong. The only version that goes badly is the one nobody mentioned until the truck was half loaded.