What happens at the site walk

Most land-clearing quotes are made from the truck window. That's fast, and it's why so many of them change once the machine is in the woods. An ELS proposal is a fixed price — the number doesn't move once it's signed — and a price can only honestly be fixed if it's built from what's actually on the ground. The site walk is where that happens.

What happens before the walk?

After you send the inquiry form, Chris calls — a person, not a menu — to talk through the property and set a time to walk it. One thing that won't happen on that call is a quote; nobody has seen the ground yet. What helps is a sense of what you want the land to become (a view corridor, a walking woods, and a building lot are three different projects on the same acre), the trees you already know you want kept, and whatever you know about where your lines run.

Do I need to be there?

For the walk, ideally yes. Walking the ground together is how your goals and the flagged boundary end up describing the same thing. The work itself doesn't need you — once the zones are flagged and traced, the machine runs without you, and we walk the finished result together at the end.

What gets done on the ground?

• The boundary is flagged and GPS-traced. The finished edge is held to within about three feet of that line — it's a written line in the finish specification.
• The trees you're keeping are marked. Retention trees are flagged individually and protected under a written guarantee.
• Density is counted on foot. Stems are counted in the stand, not estimated from the road or a satellite photo — density is the biggest driver of how long the work takes.
• The six-inch line is checked. Anything over six inches in diameter at breast height is flagged and left standing, and you'll know which stems those are before any number exists.
• The water is checked. Within 250 feet of protected waters, New Hampshire's Shoreland Water Quality Protection Act applies. Regulated zones are identified on the walk and scoped around.

What gets rated?

Every property is rated on three factors, each on the same three-point scale — easy, moderate, or difficult:

• Access — getting the machine to the work: a direct pull-in, a narrow or gated entry, or a long carry-in.
• Slope — the grade of the ground itself, assessed on foot. Ground too steep to work safely is flagged and excluded, in writing.
• Vegetation density — what's actually growing there, from scattered saplings and light brush to an established, closed-in thicket.

Those three ratings shape your fixed price. We don't publish the math behind them — the same reason there's no published rate — but you should know exactly what we're looking at while we're standing on your ground.

What if my project needs more than mulching?

Then you'll hear it on the walk, not after a deposit. Stumps pulled for a foundation, a driveway cut, grading, or mature timber taken down are all outside what we do, and a pointer to the kind of operator who does that work well is part of the answer. Saying so early is part of the job.

What do I get afterward?

One document: the mapped work zones, fixed-price scope options, the finish specification the work will be walked against, and the guarantee. Every option carries the same finish and the same guarantee — they differ only in how much ground gets opened. There's no pressure to sign on the spot; the number is fixed today and tomorrow. When you're ready, a 50% deposit holds your dates, and the balance isn't due until the finished ground matches the written spec.