D & C Tree Services

D & C Tree Services is a Muswellbrook outfit with more than thirty years in the industry behind it, working across the Hunter Region. The credentials are unusually deep for a regional operator: fourteen years of membership with the Tree Contractors Association of Australia, three of those on its committee, alongside membership of the National Arborist Association of Australia, the International Society of Arboriculture Australian Chapter and the Timber Trade Industrial Association.

The core services are tree removal, tree pruning, stump grinding and land clearing. What separates this business from a two-blokes-and-a-ute operation is the plant behind it. Access is handled by a 23 metre elevated work platform rated to 66kv with 12 metres of side reach, which means the crew can work near live powerlines rather than waiting on an outage. Chipping runs through dual 20 inch Vermeer machines feeding 15,000kg and 13,500kg chipper trucks.

For clearing work the yard runs 25 tonne and 30 tonne excavators fitted with hydraulic saws and felling heads, plus S770 and S250 Bobcats with log grab, mulcher and grinder attachments, and an ST30XP stump grinder. There is an 800 horsepower hammer mill on site. Very little of what comes off a job is wasted: a firewood processor and a Lucas Mill turn usable timber into firewood and milled product rather than landfill. A full-time mechanic keeps the fleet and the 4x4 service vehicles going.

The 24 hour emergency arborist service is a genuine call-out rather than a line on a page. The business responds to storm damaged, fractured and fallen trees that pose immediate danger, and it names Muswellbrook, Denman and Scone as the towns where round-the-clock response is available. In the Upper Hunter, where a summer storm can drop a mature gum across a road or a roof without warning, that matters.

Regular trading hours are Monday to Friday, 7am to 7pm, closed at weekends. Beyond the emergency towns the business services Singleton, Merriwa and Murrurundi as well, with separate landlines for the Singleton and Muswellbrook ends of the operation on 02 6571 2877 and 02 6541 3303, or the office mobile on 0418 685 373.