The five gates
Every clearing quote answers five questions, whether or not anyone asked them aloud. When two quotes differ by a factor of four, it is almost always because the contractors assumed different answers.
These are not our questions. They are the questions a contractor is answering while they walk your property, whether or not they say them out loud. A quote is the sum of their five answers — so if you have not supplied them, you are buying somebody’s defaults.
Work through all five before you request quotes. Write the answers down. Give the same document to every contractor. That single hour is worth more than any negotiation.
Gate five is drawn feeding back into the start because it usually decides the earlier answers: what the land is for determines how deep removal has to reach and whether residue may stay.
Gate 1
What is actually growing on the land?
Method follows material. A machine that eats six-inch saplings all day stalls on a stand of mature hardwood, and a crew equipped for mature hardwood is expensive overkill on a field of briars. Nothing else about the project can be priced until the stand is described.
What a contractor is really asking
How many acres, how thick, and what is the biggest thing on it. The largest-diameter trunk usually sets the equipment class for the whole job, even if there are only a few of them.
What resolves it
- Total area to clear, in acres or approximate dimensions
- Dominant growth: grass and briars, brush, saplings, mixed woods, mature timber
- Largest trunk diameter, measured at roughly chest height
- How many of those largest trunks there are
- Standing dead material and leaning trees
- Vines, invasive thickets, and dense understory
- Whether anything is being kept — specimen trees, screening, a buffer strip
The options, and what each one commits you to
| If the answer is | What follows |
|---|---|
| Grass, briars, and light brush | The widest range of methods applies, including the fastest and cheapest. Small machines reach places large ones cannot, which matters more here than raw power. |
| Heavy brush and saplings under about six inches | Squarely inside the range where cutting in place and leaving the residue on the ground is usually both fastest and cheapest. |
| Mixed woods with trunks up to roughly twelve to fourteen inches | The upper edge of what one machine handles economically. Above it, production rates fall sharply and per-acre pricing stops being a useful way to think about the job. |
| Mature timber, large-diameter trunks, or merchantable wood | A different trade. Felling, and possibly the value of the wood itself, now drive the project. Quotes that price this per acre are usually quotes for a different job. |
| Storm-damaged, leaning, or hung-up material | Assess separately. Stored energy in a bent or hung trunk is a safety question, not a production question, and it belongs with people who do that work daily. |
Gate 2
Where does everything you cut end up?
This is the single largest fork in the cost of a clearing project, and the one most often left unstated. Cut material that stays on site is a one-pass operation. Cut material that leaves the site is a second operation with its own equipment, its own labour hours, its own road miles, and a disposal fee at the other end.
What a contractor is really asking
Whether the residue stays where it falls. If a quote does not say, the safe assumption is that it stays — and that assumption is the source of a great many disputes at the end of a job.
What resolves it
- What the land is for afterwards, which usually decides this
- Tolerance for a layer of chipped residue across the surface
- Whether machinery or livestock will work the ground soon after
- Distance to a legal disposal site, and its tipping fee
- Whether burning is legally available and professionally managed at this location and season
- Erosion exposure on slopes and near water
The options, and what each one commits you to
| If the answer is | What follows |
|---|---|
| Cut it and leave it on the ground | Lowest cost and fastest. Leaves a residue layer that suppresses regrowth for a while and holds soil on a slope, but which sits between you and bare ground. |
| Chip it | Adds a machine and a feeding crew. Produces a more uniform, more usable product than residue left where it falls, and the chips can be piled rather than spread. |
| Pile it and leave the piles | Cheaper than hauling, but the piles are now a feature of the property and someone has to deal with them eventually. Piles also occupy usable ground. |
| Haul it away | The most expensive option, and sometimes the only one. Loading, trucking, and disposal are three separate costs; ask which of them a quote includes. |
| Burn it, where lawful and professionally managed | Availability depends on jurisdiction, season, permit conditions, and weather, and it can be withdrawn between the quote and the work. Never plan a project on the assumption that burning will be available. |
| Not sure yet | Then ask for the quote both ways. The difference between the two numbers is the real price of the decision, and it is worth knowing before you make it. |
Gate 3
How far below the surface does removal have to go?
Depth decides the trade. Surface work and below-grade work use different machines, different skills, and often different companies. A project that stops at the ground line and a project that reaches the root plate are not the same project, and a contractor equipped for one may not be equipped for the other.
What a contractor is really asking
What happens to the stumps, and whether anything will be built, ploughed, or driven over the ground afterwards. Their answer determines whether the job stays in their category at all.
What resolves it
- Whether stumps may remain visible
- Whether the ground must be mowable, ploughable, or drivable
- Whether a foundation, slab, driveway, or utility trench is planned
- Whether the surface has to be graded to a specification
- Soil type, rock, and how wet the ground gets
The options, and what each one commits you to
| If the answer is | What follows |
|---|---|
| Surface growth only — stumps stay | The cheapest and fastest finish. Suits access, screening, sightlines, and habitat work. Does not suit anything that has to be driven over, ploughed, or built on. |
| Grind the stumps below grade | A separate operation, usually priced per stump by diameter rather than per acre. Removes the visible stump and the top of the root plate; the wider root system stays in the soil. |
| Pull the stumps out | Excavation. Leaves a hole that has to be backfilled and compacted, and produces a stump and root ball that has to go somewhere. Different equipment, different contractor category. |
| Grub the roots out of the soil | The deepest and most disruptive option, and the one construction usually requires. Moves a great deal of soil, exposes bare ground to erosion, and is priced as earthwork. |
| Grub, then grade the surface | Now a site preparation project. Ask what the finished surface is specified to — "smooth" is not a specification, and a slope tolerance is. |
| Not sure yet | Answer gate five first. What the land is for almost always settles how deep removal has to reach. |
Gate 4
Can the equipment get in, work, and get back out?
Access constraints do not add a line item; they change which machine can be used at all. A narrow gate, a soft crossing, a steep face, or a low span can move a job from a large machine that clears an acre in hours to a small one that takes days. That is a production-rate change, and it shows up in the price as one.
What a contractor is really asking
How wide the entrance is, what the ground does when it rains, whether anything crosses overhead, and where a machine can turn around. They are sizing equipment, not making conversation.
What resolves it
- Width of the narrowest point on the route in, including gates and between structures
- Overhead clearance: lines, spans, branches, and any low bridge
- Slope, and whether it is worked across or up and down
- How wet the ground stays, and whether there are seasonal soft spots
- Any bridge or culvert crossing, and whether its load rating is known
- Rock at or near the surface
- Buried utilities, septic fields, wells, and irrigation
- Distance from a paved road, and whether a lowboy can turn around
- Structures, fences, and neighbouring property within reach of flying debris
The options, and what each one commits you to
| If the answer is | What follows |
|---|---|
| Open access, dry ground, nothing overhead | The best case. Equipment choice is driven by the material rather than by the site, which is where per-acre pricing is at its most meaningful. |
| Narrow entry or a gate that cannot be widened | Machine width is now capped by the gate. Measure it before anyone quotes, because the measurement changes the price. |
| Wet or seasonally soft ground | Adds scheduling risk and rutting risk. Ask what happens if the ground is unworkable on the scheduled day, and who carries the cost of the delay. |
| Meaningful slope | Reduces which machines can work safely, slows production, and raises the erosion stakes of removing ground cover. |
| Overhead or buried utilities in the work area | Clearance and locating are not optional and are not the contractor’s call alone. Call 811 before below-grade work; contact the utility about overhead lines. |
| Structures, fences, or occupied property nearby | Changes the method near the boundary regardless of what is used in the middle of the parcel, and may require a different trade entirely along that edge. |
Gate 5
What is the land for once the work is finished?
End use defines "finished". Without it, "cleared" means whatever the contractor assumed it meant, and you find out which on the last day. With it, every other gate has an answer: end use decides how deep removal goes, whether residue may stay, and what the surface has to tolerate.
What a contractor is really asking
What you are going to do with it. A contractor who does not ask this is quoting their standard finish, not your project.
What resolves it
- The intended use, and roughly when it starts
- Whether anything will be built, and whether a designer or engineer is involved
- Whether machinery, livestock, or vehicles will use the ground
- Whether the surface must drain, or shed water in a particular direction
- Whether appearance matters, or only function
The options, and what each one commits you to
| If the answer is | What follows |
|---|---|
| Building on it | The most demanding finish. Below-grade removal and graded surface are usually required, and the work is coordinated with whoever is designing the structure. |
| Pasture or hay ground | Has to be mowable and safe for equipment, which usually means stumps at or below grade. Regrowth management matters more here than surface finish. |
| Hunting, habitat, or recreation | Often the least invasive brief on the list. Stumps and residue are frequently acceptable or even wanted, and partial clearing usually beats total clearing. |
| A trail, driveway, or access road | A corridor project, priced by length and width rather than by area. Below-grade removal is needed in the running surface but often not beside it. |
| A fence line | Another corridor, and one where the post line has to be workable. Stumps in the line are a problem; stumps two feet off it usually are not. |
| Reducing wildfire exposure around structures | Follow the program guidance for your area rather than a general clearing spec, and expect the treatment to vary by distance from the building. |
| Selling the land | The brief is legibility — a buyer has to be able to see the parcel and walk it. Total clearing is rarely the best return. |
| Reclaiming ground that got away from you | Plan for a second visit. One pass on land that has gone unmanaged for years is the start of the work, not the end of it. |
Putting the five answers to work
Once you have all five, three things become possible that were not before. You can identify which contractor category should be quoting, because gates two and three decide the trade. You can compare quotes meaningfully, because you know what each one is silently assuming. And you can tell whether a price is high for the work or high because it includes work the cheaper quotes left out.
- Contractor-type selector — turns the five answers into a trade
- Mulch-or-haul tool — resolves gate two against your end use
- Cost complexity estimator — shows what each answer does to the price
- Site access checker — turns gate four into measurements a contractor can quote from
- Quote comparison — checks the quotes you already hold against all five
Work out the scope before you ask for prices
Answer the five questions every quote depends on — what is growing, where the material goes, how deep removal has to reach, whether equipment can get in, and what the land is for afterwards. Then send one properly described project to the right kind of contractor.
Nothing on this site is a recommendation of a specific company. The guidance describes categories of work and the questions worth asking. If you decide to request quotes, the introduction is free to you, contractors may pay to receive it, and you are under no obligation to hire anyone.