Arborist Reports
A tree report is a written assessment from a qualified arborist, covering the condition of a tree, the risks we can see and what we'd recommend doing about it.
Tree reports, and why someone has asked you for one
A tree report is a written assessment of a tree by a qualified arborist. It sets out what the tree is, what condition it's in, what we think could fail and what we'd do about it. Most people don't go looking for one. They get told to get one.
The request usually comes from one of four places. Council, when you apply to prune or remove protected vegetation. A body corporate or strata committee, before they spend owners' money on a tree over the car park. A builder or certifier, when a slab, driveway or service trench lands inside a tree's root zone. An insurer, after a limb has already come through the patio roof.
Whoever asked, they all want the same thing. An independent set of eyes on the tree, and a document they can file. Our job is to write it clearly enough that a council officer, a strata manager or a claims assessor can read it without ringing us for a translation.
The reports we get asked for most:
- Arborist report for a council application to prune or remove protected vegetation
- Tree risk assessment for a body corporate, strata committee or property manager
- Arboricultural impact assessment and tree protection plan for a development or new build
- Post-storm or insurance report on a tree or limb that has already failed
- Pre-works inspection before a pool, shed, extension or driveway goes in
- Health and condition report on a tree that's declining and nobody knows why
A few things a report won't do. It won't approve your application, because council does that. It won't force a neighbour to act. And no arborist can promise a tree will never fail, since trees are living things in a storm zone. What a proper report gives you is a qualified opinion on condition and risk, with the reasoning shown and photos to back it.
We cover properties across Greater Brisbane, so a Kenmore job and a Carindale job are both a normal run for the crew. Brisbane's older suburbs are full of trees that are older than the houses around them. Blocks get split, houses get raised, pools go in, and a 25 metre gum that was fine in 1978 now sits three metres off a new deck. That's most of this work.
One thing worth saying early. A report is not a quote. We write the assessment on its own. If it recommends pruning or removal, we quote that separately and you're free to take the document to another crew. It keeps everyone honest.
What people notice, and what's actually going on
Most calls start with something visible. Dead wood sitting in the top of a gum. A bracket fungus at the base of a fig. A lean that looks worse than it did last winter. Soil lifting on one side after a wet week. A crack in a fork you can now get a finger into. Sometimes it's a neighbour's tree hanging over the fence and nobody can agree who's responsible for it.
Some of that is serious. Some of it is normal for the species. Deadwood in a mature eucalypt is part of how the tree works. A hollow is not automatically a hazard. The inspection exists to tell the difference and put a reason in writing.
Here's what we most often find sitting behind the symptoms.
Old lopping. Trees that were topped years ago push fast regrowth out of the cut face. That regrowth attaches to the outside of the old wood, not through the middle of it. Twenty years on, those limbs are heavy and poorly joined. It's the most common structural problem we write up on suburban blocks.
Construction damage. Root damage shows up years after the builder has gone. Trenching for stormwater, a new retaining wall, a pool dig, a driveway widened to fit a second car. Cut enough roots off one side of a tree and it either declines slowly or lets go in a storm. Reports on development sites exist mainly to stop this happening in the first place.
Compaction and changed drainage. Parking on the root zone, laying pavers over it, filling a low spot with soil. Roots need air. Cover them and the canopy thins from the top down, usually across several seasons.
Decay. Old pruning wounds, mower damage around the base, termites in the heartwood. We sound the trunk and probe cavities to work out how much sound wood is left around the outside. That shell is what holds the tree up.
Storms and wet ground. Brisbane storm season does the rest. Saturated soil plus a 90km/h gust is how big trees come over roots and all, even healthy ones. After a decent cell goes through we get a run of insurance report calls around Camp Hill and Holland Park.
Species behaviour. Jacarandas and poincianas hold weak unions. Camphor laurels get big and brittle. Cocos palms drop fronds and nuts onto paths. Big figs on the older blocks out at Fig Tree Pocket and Chapel Hill lift paving and block drains long before they ever threaten a house. We name the species in the report, because the species drives the recommendation.
Then there are the disputes. Overhanging limbs, leaf litter in a pool, roots under a shared fence line. Queensland has a process for neighbour tree disputes, and both sides tend to calm down once there's an independent assessment on the table instead of two opinions over the fence. We write up the tree, not the argument.
How the job runs, from your first call to the finished report
The phone call. Ring 0421 484 940 and tell us who asked for the report. That one answer changes the whole document. A council vegetation application, a strata committee decision, a building certifier, an insurance claim and a neighbour dispute all need different content. If you've got a council form, an application number or a letter from your insurer, email it through. Bianca in the office will ask for the address, how many trees are involved, and your deadline.
The quote. We price the report on the number of trees, what it has to cover and how far out you are. One backyard gum is a different job to a twelve tree development site. Some council forms specify a minimum arborist qualification. Tell us what yours says and we'll confirm we meet it before you book, not after.
The site inspection. A qualified arborist comes out and looks at the tree properly. We identify the species, measure trunk diameter at breast height, record height and canopy spread, and walk the root zone. We check the base for fungal fruiting bodies, cavities and root damage. We sound the trunk with a mallet and probe anywhere the sound comes back wrong. We look through the canopy with binoculars for deadwood, cracks, included bark and old failures.
You don't have to be home, as long as we can get through the gate. Leave a code, or unlock it on the day. If the tree needs a closer look up top we'll climb it, or bring the elevating work platform, which is the truck mounted lift the crew calls an EWP. Most reports don't need one. We'll tell you in the quote if yours does.
The measurements councils ask for. On development and building work we set out the tree protection zone and the structural root zone using the method in AS 4970-2009. That gives the builder a radius to keep machinery, fill and trenching out of, and it's what a certifier looks for. We mark it up on a site plan.
The write-up. Species, dimensions, condition, defects, a photo of each defect, a hazard rating where it's called for, and recommendations in plain English with a timeframe attached. If we recommend pruning, it's specified to AS 4373-2007 so whoever does the work has a standard to follow. You get a PDF you can forward straight to council, your body corporate or your insurer.
Turnaround. We book the inspection first, then write the report after it. How fast depends on the size of the job and how the crew's diary looks that fortnight. Tell us your deadline on the first call. If you're up against a council lodgement date, say so and we'll work to it or tell you honestly that we can't.
The works, if you want them. Plenty of clients get the report, get the approval, then book the pruning or removal with us. Separate quote, separate job. The crew turns up when we said, protects the garden beds and the neighbour's fence, chips branches on site and rakes up before we leave.
Gear, qualifications and the standards we write to
A report is only as good as the inspection behind it. What the arborist carries:
- Diameter tape, for trunk measurement at 1.4 metres
- Clinometer or laser rangefinder, for height and canopy spread
- Sounding mallet and probe, for decay and cavity checks
- Binoculars, for reading the upper canopy from ground level
- Camera, so every defect in the report has a photo beside it
- Soil probe, for compaction and root zone checks
- Climbing kit, or the EWP, when an aerial inspection is warranted
We pull the desktop information before we come out too. Aerial imagery, council mapping and the planning overlays that sit on your address. Half an hour at a computer beats arguing about whether the tree is protected while we're standing under it.
If a tree needs more than a visual assessment, say a decay check on a big fig beside a childcare playground, we'll explain what the extra step involves and what it actually tells you before you commit to it.
The standards behind our reports:
AS 4970-2009, Protection of trees on development sites. The one builders, certifiers and council planners reference. It sets out how the tree protection zone and structural root zone are calculated, and what protection goes up on site before machinery arrives.
AS 4373-2007, Pruning of amenity trees. The pruning specification. If our report recommends a crown lift, a deadwood clean or a crown reduction, it's written in the terms of this standard rather than "take a bit off the top".
Brisbane City Council's vegetation rules. Protected vegetation and vegetation protection orders each have their own process, and council generally wants an arborist report lodged with the application. We write to what the form asks for. If your block sits under a planning overlay, the report says so.
Safe work practice. Tree work is high risk and the crew is trained for it. Anything inside the exclusion zones around powerlines gets referred to an authorised line crew, and we flag that in the report rather than halfway through the job.
We don't pad reports out. No twenty page template with two paragraphs about your tree buried in the middle of it.
When it's urgent
Storm damage doesn't line up with office hours.
If a limb is down, hung up in the canopy or sitting on a roof, the hazard comes first and the paperwork second. Ring us, describe what you can see from the ground, and stay out from under it. We'll make the tree safe, and we photograph and document the failure while we're there. That way the insurance report has real evidence in it instead of a reconstruction from memory weeks later.
What we treat as urgent: a limb hung up over a walkway, a trunk split open after a storm, a tree leaning into powerlines, a failure blocking a driveway or a common property path. What can usually wait a few days: deadwood high in a gum that's been sitting there for years, or a report for a sale that settles next month.
We're a local crew, not a 24 hour call centre. Calls outside office hours go to message and we get back to you first thing. During storm season the phone runs hot, so leave plenty of detail. It helps us sort the genuine emergencies from the jobs that can safely wait.
Council lodgement dates are the other kind of urgent. Tell us the date when you ring. We'd rather knock a job back than take your money and miss your cut-off.
A word for strata managers and body corporates. If a resident has reported a tree as unsafe, get the inspection booked and documented. A written assessment on file is what protects the committee if something does come down later. We do this regularly for buildings around Indooroopilly and Taringa, and we can set up repeat inspections so it stops falling off the agenda.
Why people use our crew for reports
Acclaim Tree Care started out of Kenmore and grew on body corporate and strata work, which is why our reports are laid out for committees and managers to actually use, with the findings up front and the detail behind them.
Our Google reviews say the same thing again and again. The word that comes up most is professional. After that it's careful and upfront. That's the whole job here. Turn up when we said, look at the tree properly, write down what we found, charge what we quoted.
Acclaim Tree Care is family-run. Troy Moncur owns the business and runs the crews. Bianca looks after the office and is usually who you'll speak to first. Qualified arborists, trained staff, ongoing training.
Three things worth knowing before you ring:
- The report and any works are quoted separately, so we're not writing recommendations to win ourselves a job
- The document is yours. Take it to council, your insurer, your committee or a different contractor
- We cover Greater Brisbane, and we'll say straight away if your address falls outside it
Ring 0421 484 940 and tell us who's asking for the report and when you need it by. We'll book the inspection and get you a document you can lodge.
Frequently asked questions
When do I actually need a tree report?
Usually when someone else asks for one. Council development or vegetation applications, a strata committee deciding on a big tree, an insurance claim after a storm, or a neighbour dispute. Builders need them when work happens inside a tree's root zone. If you're not sure, ring 0421 484 940 and describe the situation and we'll tell you whether you need one.
What's included in the report?
Species identification, the tree's size and condition, photos of every defect we find, and our recommendations with timeframes. Where it's needed we include tree protection zone measurements and a hazard rating. We write it so a council officer or strata manager can read it without needing an arborist to explain it.
How much does a tree report cost?
It depends on how many trees, what the report has to cover and how far out you are. A single backyard gum is a different job to a development site with twelve trees. Call 0421 484 940 and we'll give you a price over the phone.
How long until I get the report?
We book the site inspection first, then write the report after it. Turnaround depends on the size of the job and how busy the crew is. Tell us your deadline when you call. If you're up against a council lodgement date, say so and we'll work to it or tell you honestly if we can't.
Do I need a report to remove a tree in Brisbane?
It depends on the tree and the property. Brisbane City Council protects a lot of vegetation, and an arborist report generally goes in with the application to prune or remove it. Some trees aren't covered at all. We check the mapping and overlays on your address before we come out, so you're not paying for a report you don't need.
Can you do the work in the report too?
Yes. Plenty of clients get the report, get the approval, then book the pruning or removal with us. The report and the works are quoted separately, so there's no question of us recommending work to win a job. You're free to take the report to another contractor.
Do you write reports for builders and development sites?
We do. That includes arboricultural impact assessments and tree protection plans, with the tree protection zone and structural root zone set out to AS 4970-2009 and marked on a site plan. Send us the plans when you call so we can quote it properly.
Do I need to be home for the inspection?
Not usually. We just need access to the tree and the ground around it, so leave the gate unlocked or give us a code. If the tree is on common property or behind a locked building, let your strata manager or caretaker know we're coming.
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