Who cuts trees near power lines in East Tennessee

If a tree is growing into the wire that runs from the pole to your house, that wire is your side of the fence, and your utility will not trim it for you. What your utility may be willing to do is take that wire out of the way while the work is done. Knowing which of those two things you are asking for is most of the phone call.

Two things before the rules. We are a tree crew, not the power company, and we do not cut a tree that is on a live line. And a rule from one utility is not a rule on another one’s system, so find the name on your power bill first. Everything below is quoted from the utility that wrote it.

Two kinds of wire, and only one is theirs

The heavy lines running pole to pole along the road belong to the utility, along with the poles and the hardware holding them up.

The thinner wire that leaves the last pole or the transformer and ends at the meter on your wall is the service line, also called the service drop. It crosses your yard, usually at the height of exactly one tree nobody got around to trimming. That wire is the one we get called about.

What KUB does, and where it stops

Knoxville Utilities Board draws the line at its own equipment. KUB does not prune trees interfering with the service lines connected to homes, and it states the other side of that just as plainly: KUB only prunes trees in the utility maintenance zone and that are threatening power lines.

Where KUB does prune, the distances are set. Its crews work to a minimum 10-foot clearance around distribution lines and a minimum 25-foot clearance from high-voltage transmission lines. If you hire your own crew instead, KUB holds that crew to the same numbers: the contractor must prune to meet KUB’s minimum clearance requirements.

Then the part worth the call. KUB says that where a tree threatens a homeowner’s service line, the homeowner can call KUB to lower the line temporarily so a professional tree service can safely prune the tree, and KUB reconnects the line when the work is done. If you are a KUB customer with a limb in the drop, ask KUB about that before you ask anyone for a price.

What LCUB says, in plainer terms

Lenoir City Utilities Board states the split and the consequence. Customers are responsible for trimming trees around low voltage service wires that are on the customer’s property, and LCUB does not trim trees for service wires crossing a customer’s property or those that connect the meter to the pole transformer.

LCUB also writes down who pays when that goes wrong: if a customer fails to adequately trim these trees and damage occurs, the customer is responsible for all financial costs associated with the damages. That is worth reading twice if you have been leaving a leaning tree over a service wire. Confirm the detail with LCUB for your own property.

What Clinton Utilities Board will and will not come out for

Clinton Utilities Board sets a bar before it touches anything: it will not trim or remove any tree unless it poses a threat to either public safety or electric service reliability. A limb that bothers your view, your roof or your gutters, and bothers nothing on CUB’s system, is not going to bring a CUB crew out. Ask CUB which side of that line your own tree sits on.

What we do when the drop is in the way

We do not start a tree that is in a live service drop. The homeowner calls the provider and books the drop, and the saw does not come out until that is arranged. It has to be the property owner who calls, because the utility will not take the request from us.

Book it early. The date the utility gives you is the date the tree comes down, and that date sets our schedule rather than the other way round.

In Karns we took four trees out over two days, and the larger of two silver maples set the whole order of the job because it stood in the service drop. No part of that tree was coming down safely with the line live. Work started on it only after the homeowner had called the service provider and had the line dropped for the duration. The front yard was worked off the lift, with the roof the other thing to stay clear of. More of our Karns work is on file if you want to see the rest.

In Powell, eight trees came off a hillside property in two parts, and the first part was four trees pinched between two separate service drops running to two different houses. There is no version of that job that gets done with the lines hot. The homeowners arranged service drops for the days we were working, nothing was cut until that was in place, and the four trees then came out off the lift. That job is one of several in Powell.

Sometimes the answer is not a line drop at all, it is a different method. On a job in Andersonville with a woodshop and a septic line, a large dead oak stood beside the woodshop, midway up the drive. The building on one side and the power lines on the other left nowhere to fell it, so it came apart on the lift.

All work near power lines has inherent risk, which is frequently reflected in a quote from any tree service. Since the challenges of each job are different, it’s always best to reach out to us for a free estimate so that we can give you a concrete number for your tree job.

What to do, in order

1. Read the name on your power bill. The rules above belong to three different utilities, and only one of them is yours.
2. Call them. Say there is a tree in or near the service line to your house, and ask whether they will drop the line for the work and what the lead time is.
3. Take the date they give you, then call us with it. Removal and pruning both get planned around that date.
4. If the tree is already down on a line, this is not a trimming question. Call the utility, then us for storm work once the line is dead or clear.

Quick questions

Will the power company take my tree down for free?

Around their own lines they prune on their own schedule and at their own cost. The tree over the wire to your house is a different tree, and all three utilities above say so in their own words.

Can you work around the live wire instead?

No. We will tell you to ring the utility first, and the clearances are theirs to set, not ours.

Who do I call first, the utility or you?

The utility, if the drop needs to come down. Call us first if you would rather we looked at it and told you which calls to make. Either way, 865-360-6685 gets you one of us, and we will come and stand under the tree with you. Feel free to reach out for a free estimate!