Tree trimming in Pasadena

Precise Junk Removal hauls off what a tree trimming job leaves behind, in Pasadena and across the San Gabriel Valley. Text a photo to (626) 590-3118. The crew loads the pile left on the lawn. Branches, limbs, trunk rounds, and the leaves and small debris raked into a corner. Palm fronds, hedge clippings and shrubs pulled out at the root ball go too. That pile is bulkier than it looks. Branches cage air instead of stacking flat, so one afternoon of trimming can take up more room on a truck than a couch and a dresser would.

A weekend with a chainsaw is a normal call on this one, and so is a trim another crew already finished. The team gets the green waste off the lawn and the driveway clear. The same crew that prices the job is the one loading it. If the whole yard is getting cleared rather than one pile hauled, the crew's yard clearing and hauling covers that side of it.

Precise Junk Removal has been running since 2009, out of Pasadena, and the price on a green waste load comes off a photo. Send one that shows the whole pile, not just the biggest limb, and the crew reads the footprint it will take up on the bed. Two photos help if the pile wraps around the side of the house. A single limb pile and a whole yard's worth of cuttings are two different numbers. The photo is what tells them which one they are looking at.

What goes on the truck

• Trimmed branches and limbs
• Trunk rounds and short logs
• Hedge and shrub clippings
• Palm fronds
• Bagged leaves and twigs
• Pulled shrubs with root balls
• Raked yard debris

Text a photo of yours to (626) 590-3118.

From the full list of what goes on the truck: yard waste after the project.

What a trimming pile actually adds up to

A trim leaves a bigger pile than anybody figures on. Limbs run every direction, so a stack of them is mostly empty space. Trunk rounds are dense and they roll. Leaves and twigs look like nothing on the grass and then fill bag after bag.

A mattress or a washer is one shape through one door. A trim leaves fifty shapes and no two of them load the same way, which is why a photo beats a description over the phone. The rundown of what the crew hauls besides yard waste covers the rest.

The calls that come after the cutting is done

The yards look different from one call to the next. A homeowner who spent Saturday with a pole saw and now has a pile taller than the fence. A tree crew that did the cutting and left the debris behind, because hauling was not what they were hired for. A landlord getting a yard presentable between tenants. And somebody listing a house who needs the front looking cared for by the weekend.

None of them want to make eight trips in a sedan with the seats down. Precise Junk Removal loads the whole pile at once when the bed has room for it, and the photo is how that gets worked out ahead of time. Get the limbs, the bags and the rounds in one frame and the job gets priced before the truck pulls out.

Where the pile goes after it leaves the yard

Nothing heads to one place by default. The crew sorts the load first. Usable stuff gets dropped at a donation center. About 75 percent of the total they haul gets recycled. Real trash ends at the landfill. "Recycling is his love language" is the owner's own line for it, and that is the order a load gets handled in.

Mixed piles are normal on this work. Cuttings get stacked on top of old fence boards and bags from the garage, and all of it leaves in the same load. The team separates what can be given away or recycled from what cannot, which takes longer than backing up to a dumpster and tipping the whole bed in. A planter that still holds together or a tool somebody can use comes off at a donation center. The photo gives them a head start on that.

How a yard of green waste gets loaded

This is hand work. The crew carries the pile armload by armload and packs it into the white Isuzu NPR heavy duty with a 24 cubic yard dump bed, working the limbs together so the air comes out and the load sits flat. Rounds go in first, on the floor of the bed.

Access sets the pace more than the size of the pile does. A side gate wide enough to walk a limb through is quick work. A back yard at the top of a staircase is slower. On a rental or a complex, the Precise crew settles with the property manager where the truck can sit while they load.

Pasadena is the home base, so a green waste run stays short. South Pasadena, San Marino, Sierra Madre and Monrovia sit inside that loop, and so do Temple City, Altadena and La Cañada Flintridge. Every town the truck pulls into is listed, Mount Washington and Marina del Rey included.

What it costs to clear the cuttings

Pricing starts at a $50 minimum, and that is where the smallest green waste jobs land. The number comes off the photo you send, and it covers the whole job. The quote itself is free. Text a photo to (626) 590-3118.

Two add-ons can apply to a yard job like this one. Stairs add about $50 a staircase, so a lower yard with steps up to the driveway shows up in the figure. A slope steep enough to make the carry hard adds at least that much, and the exact amount depends on the carry itself, so it comes back with the rest of the quote. Payment is cash, a check, or an online payment. The cost page goes through how a photo becomes a number.

How the price works

Text a photo of what needs to go to (626) 590-3118. Precise looks at how much room it takes on the truck and texts back one number for the whole job. No hourly rate. Jobs start at $50. The only add-ons: stairs +$50, steep slope +$50. More on how pricing works.

Where Precise does this

All of the San Gabriel Valley. In Alhambra, the green container takes branches 4 feet or less in length, and the crew hauls the larger cuttings. Monrovia's green barrel takes branches less than 3 inches thick or 3 feet long, so thicker limbs need a haul. In Temple City, the green container does not take trimmings larger than four inches across, and the crew takes what will not fit. See every town Precise covers for tree trimming.