Follow these tree trimming safety tips so you and your landscaping stay safe
Safety is crucial when trimming trees.
DIY tree trimming is possible but carries risks, including injuries and structural damage.
Make sure you understand how to use tree trimming equipment safely before getting started.
Follow safety guidelines and tips like avoiding power lines and using protective equipment.
Tree trimming removes or thins out unhealthy or overgrown branches, leaving behind beautiful and well-kept foliage. While trimming, you may also need to cut back upper limbs, letting more sunshine reach the lower ones.
Keeping your tree neatly trimmed adds to its overall beauty and health. However, tree trimming comes with risks. If you're going to do the work yourself instead of hiring a tree service, there are safety rules that you must follow to keep yourself and others safe from injury.
Tree trimming is typically less involved than cutting down a tree altogether. However, the safety techniques are virtually indistinguishable from each other. Tree trimming safety guidelines will help keep you safer around falling branches and limbs.
No matter if you’re trimming a mighty oak or sprucing up a spruce, you should follow these general safety guidelines for trimming trees:
Make and follow a plan when removing limbs from a tree.
Use appropriate tree-trimming tools and make sure you know how to use them.
Use proper tree safety equipment. (More on this in a second)
Avoid falling limbs and debris by making an escape plan and working slowly.
Avoid electrocution from power lines by working at least 10 feet or more away from them.
Avoid damaging property by only trimming trees that are far away from your home and personal items.
We’ll go into more detail about each of these safety basics below.
The tools you use to trim your tree have two jobs. The job we think of first is to effectively cut the tree where and when it’s necessary. However, the more critical function these tools must perform is to act as integral parts of your tree safety equipment. Using sharp and well-maintained tools that you know how to wield safely can help protect you from injury.
Tree trimming may require the following tools:
Loppers and shears to cut small branches
A pole saw of one variety or another
A hand saw or two
A chainsaw
Ladders
Ropes
Personal protective equipment (PPE)
Chainsaws have several safety features, such as a brake that’s activated if your hand slips and anti-kickback teeth. However, you’ll want to ensure that you understand the operation of each tool, the safety devices, and its limitations before using any on the list above.
In addition to learning about the tools above, you’ll also want to don the following PPE before trimming any trees:
Protective eyewear, full face shield with safety glasses, or protective face shield
Hearing protection
Fall protection harness and ropes
Heavy-duty gloves
Appropriate footwear, such as work boots or steel-toe boots
Protective leg chaps when using a chainsaw
Hardhat
Bright or reflective, high-visibility clothing if working with or near others
Depending on the size of your tree-trimming project, our best tip is to hire a tree service to perform anything more than basic ground-level tree pruning. However, if we can’t talk you out of doing the job yourself, follow these tree-trimming safety tips to help keep you and others safe from injury or worse.
Before starting work, you’ll need a plan. Local arborists spend their careers learning the inner and outer workings of trees. While you don’t quite need to go that far, you do need to know where the limbs will fall when you cut them and how to avoid harming people and structures below.
Make a plan for gaining access to the branches you need to reach and cut them safely. Will you need a ladder or climbing equipment, or do you need to rent personal lift equipment? Also, create a plan for how you’ll use ropes and the assistance of a helper to ease down branches that will cause harm if they come down hard.
If there are power lines anywhere within 10 feet or less of where you’re working or if there’s any chance that a branch, a tool, clothing, or a body part will come in contact with a power line, whether active or not, please call a local tree trimming company to do the job.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) notes that those caring for trees can be electrocuted if the worker, their tools, or their equipment touch or make contact in any way with an overhead electrical power line. (This also applies to underground utility lines during tree removal.) You can also be electrocuted if the tree itself touches these lines.
For these reasons and many more, you should consider hiring a pro for tree trimming generally, but again, we’d strongly recommend hiring a pro if any power lines are around.
PPE’s only job is to keep you safe. Even for small jobs, wear eye protection, heavy-duty gloves, a hard hat, and appropriate footwear. Wear protective cut-resistant chaps and hearing protection if you're using a chainsaw.
If you need to climb a tree to trim it, we’d strongly recommend hiring a pro for the job, especially if the height is more than you can reach on a ladder. Pros use fall protection, including an industry-approved harness and rope system, to reach the branches that need trimming.
Hazards while trimming your tree come in many forms. Identify dangerous conditions and obstacles and remove anything on the ground that may impede a quick getaway should something unexpected happen.
Remove items like rocks, children's toys, lawn equipment, or even bird feeders or baths from an area that’s at least twice the size of the tree. You just don’t know which way you may have to run.
To ensure that you or others stay safe while on the ground, use marking paint, flags, or another identifier to draw a circle around the tree base that extends at least one and half times as large as the tree. Ensure the entire area remains clear of people and pets while you’re actively working on the tree.
If you have an assistant working with you on the ground, make a plan to know which is the fastest and clearest direction to run away should things start to go wrong. Although humans can’t outrun a falling tree branch, if they notice signs that it’s about to fall where it shouldn’t, the farther away they can get, the better.
Tools that don’t receive proper maintenance can be dangerous. Ensure that your saws are sharp and oiled, if necessary, and that your ladder is operable and easy to use. Anything rusty or damaged needs to go.
If you’d like to avoid the risks associated with working on your own trees, hiring a professional to trim your tree costs between $200 and $760.
And let us say one more time that we strongly recommend hiring a nearby tree trimming service anytime your tree needs cutting work. It’s a dangerous task, especially near power lines, structures, or other trees. However, if you take the time to learn the process, follow the safety requirements, and work carefully and patiently, DIY tree-trimming work can run smoothly.
Generally speaking, you’ll want to avoid flush cuts, which are cuts made as extremely close to the trunk or main branch. These cuts can weaken your tree, lower its natural defense mechanisms, and even cause decay. You’ll also want to avoid tree topping, which is the total removal of the leader and upper main branches of a tree.
Most pros will advise against either of these methods, which is why hiring a pro is often the best choice when it comes to tree trimming.
Generally, you’ll want to avoid pruning more than 25% of the tree’s canopy at one time. While pruning your tree is important, it’s possible to do it too often or to go too far. Again, this is why hiring a tree trimming pro to do the work is wise. However, if you do decide to DIY, going slow and trimming gradually is the name of the game.
Pruning trees during the summer can be a bad idea because the new growth will take place during the hottest months of the year, which can stress your tree out. Similarly, pruning during the early fall can be a bad idea, too, because you’d be stimulating new growth when most trees are aiming to go dormant.
Pruning recommendations will vary by the type of tree, but generally, waiting until winter to prune your trees is a good idea.
You can trim just one side of the tree, especially when that side is growing near something like a power line or a home. Pros will carefully trim the tree back until it is safe from that structure. While this is common, it also needs to be done with the utmost care, as pruning or trimming away at one side of the tree may make it structurally unsound. This instance is yet another where hiring a pro is wise, especially if power lines are involved.
