What land clearing actually costs in New Brunswick

Because an honest per-acre number doesn't exist, and the ones you'll find online are from Texas and Tennessee where the ground, the growth and the season are nothing like here.

Two properties in Salisbury, both listed as one acre, can differ by a factor of five in what they cost to clear — one is open hardwood on flat, dry ground with a gate off the road; the other is fifteen-year-old spruce and alder regeneration on a slope with 300 metres of soft approach. Same acre on paper. Completely different job.

A contractor who quotes per acre sight unseen is doing one of two things: padding the number so the bad cases don't hurt him, or planning to revise it once he's on site. Neither helps you.

It ranges more than any other number in this trade. Rather than guess, use the seven factors on this page to work out which end of the range your property sits at — the guide is built so you can walk your own land and place it fairly accurately before you call anyone.

Then get it quoted on site. Ours is free, and you'll get a fixed price for a defined scope, in writing.

On most properties, meaningfully so — but the savings aren't in the hourly rate. They're in what mulching deletes: no piling, no burning permit, no trucking, no disposal fees, no site repair afterward.

On conventional clearing, disposal alone often runs a third of the total. Mulching removes that line entirely because the material never leaves the property.

Where the gap narrows is a job that needs the roots out anyway. There you're paying for excavation regardless of how the vegetation came off.

For anything larger than a big yard, mechanical mulching in one pass, done in a good season, with everything cleared in a single mobilization.

The genuinely cheap moves are: clear in winter or fall when conditions are good; do the whole job at once instead of in phases; only grub where you actually need roots out; and be honest with yourself about how much you really need cleared. The most common way to overspend is clearing area you'll never use.

The false economies: hiring the lowest hourly rate without a defined scope; clearing in the spring mud; and skipping the driveway so nothing can get in when you need it.

Half a day to three days, driven mostly by stem density. Counterintuitively, an acre of small dense regrowth often takes longer than an acre of big open trees — there are simply far more stems to cut.

Since equipment work is priced on time, that day count is the cost, which is why density matters more to your bill than anything except access.

No. We'll come out, walk the property with you, and give you a fixed written price for a defined scope. There's no charge and no obligation, and you'll get useful information out of the visit even if you go with someone else.

Fixed, for a scope written down in advance. Hourly quoting moves all the risk onto the customer — if the ground is worse than expected, you pay for it.

We look at the property first specifically so we can take that risk ourselves. If it takes longer than we judged, that's our problem.

Usually, and sometimes dramatically — but not linearly. Making a property usable and viewable is where the value is: a buyer who can drive in, walk the land and see its shape will pay more than one squinting at a wall of alders from the road.

Clearing every last tree, on the other hand, can reduce value. Mature trees and privacy screening are worth real money on a residential property and take decades to replace. Selective clearing usually beats total clearing on both cost and resale.