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Land Clearing
From overgrown to usable - lots, lines, and building sites
Fully Insured·★ 4.8 - 110 Google reviews·24/7 Emergency
Overgrown land doesn't fix itself - buckthorn and box elder fill in every year you wait. Whether it's a building site that needs to be bare dirt, a fence line the brush has swallowed, a view corridor to the water, or field edges creeping into tillable acres, clearing is about doing it once, completely, and hauling everything away.
The scope is yours to set: full clearing to grade, selective clearing that keeps the good hardwoods and takes everything else, or just pushing back the line to where it belongs. Trees are dropped or sectioned, brush is chipped, and the wood leaves the property - you're left with ground you can actually use, not windrows of slash.
We clear for homeowners, farms, and builders across all five counties. Walk the ground with us - the estimate is free and the plan is written down before the first cut.
“Wow! There's a reason Tree Guy Ry has nothing but 5-star reviews - the service is outstanding! Quick, clear, and professional.”
- Kathleen · Google review
How a clearing job runs
Clearing starts with a walk-through, because 'clear this' means five different things to five owners. We flag what stays - the good oaks and maples usually earn their keep - agree on the finish spec, and write it into the estimate: rough-cleared with stumps left low, or ground-out and grade-ready for a builder.
Then it's systematic: brush and saplings first, then the takedown trees, everything chipped or bucked as it comes down so the site never becomes an impassable slash pile. Fence lines get walked back to the actual line, view corridors get opened without scalping the buffer, and field edges get pushed back to tillable.
Material leaves the property by default - chips hauled or left as mulch on request, log wood hauled or bucked to firewood length and stacked. What you're left with is ground you can mow, build on, or plant.
Wisconsin ground rules
On ordinary private upland, routine clearing is your call. The exceptions worth knowing: mapped wetlands, shoreland zones near lakes and rivers, and some municipal tree ordinances have their own rules, and those need checking before the saws start. If your parcel touches water or looks marginal, a call to county zoning settles it - and we'll flag anything on the walk-through that looks like it needs that call.
What affects the price
- Density and tree size - brush mows fast; mature timber is a removal job multiplied
- Terrain - flat and dry runs quicker than slopes and soft ground
- Finish spec - stumps-left versus ground-out versus excavation-ready
- Keep-trees - selective clearing around flagged trees takes more care than a clean sweep
- Material handling - haul-away versus chips-on-site versus firewood staging
Every job gets a firm number up front from a free on-site (or photo) estimate - no hourly meter, no surprise add-ons.
Get a free estimate
Common questions
How much does land clearing cost?
It depends on density, tree size, terrain, and how you want it finished, which is why we quote after walking the ground with you. The walk-through and estimate are free. The spread is genuinely wide - a brushy half-acre and a wooded building site are different orders of magnitude - which is why the walk-through matters. What stays constant: the number is fixed before work starts, and the finish spec is written down.
Can you keep certain trees?
Absolutely - selective clearing is common. Flag or walk us past what stays and we work around it; the good oaks and maples are usually worth keeping. Surveyor's tape on a trunk is all it takes, or walk the ground with us and point. Keep-trees get a protection buffer worked around them - the point of selective clearing is that they're still standing, unscarred, when the brush is gone.
Do you take out the stumps too?
We grind them. For build sites that need clean excavation-ready ground, tell us - the finish spec changes the plan, so it should be in the estimate. For lots that will be built on, tell us early: 'grade-ready' grinding goes deeper and includes the major laterals, and the estimate should say so. For field edges and fence lines, low-cut stumps are often fine and cheaper.
Do I need a permit to clear my land in Wisconsin?
On private upland, usually not for routine clearing - but wetlands, shoreland zones, and some municipal ordinances have rules. If your parcel touches water or looks marginal, check with your county zoning office first; we'll flag anything that looks like a question mark. The three flags worth knowing by name: mapped wetlands (state jurisdiction), shoreland zoning within roughly 300 feet of navigable water (county), and municipal tree or grading ordinances in some cities. None of them apply to most upland parcels - but five minutes with county zoning beats undoing work.
What happens to all the material?
Chipped and hauled by default. Usable firewood can be bucked and left, and on bigger jobs chips can be left on site as mulch if you want them. Chips can stay on site as mulch or trail base if you want them - on big clearings that's a lot of useful material. Log wood hauls by default, or gets bucked and stacked as firewood on request.
Serving: Green Bay · Sturgeon Bay · Door County · Manitowoc County · Sheboygan County · all of Northeast Wisconsin