There is no standard gate width, so measure yours
Homeowners say "it's a standard gate" the way they say a room is a normal size. Look for the standard and it is not there.
American building codes set minimum widths for doors along an exit path and for openings on an accessible route. The U.S. Access Board standards even name gates directly: "Doors, doorways, and gates that are part of an accessible route shall comply with 404." Section 404.2.3 puts that clear width at "32 inches (815 mm) minimum."
A private side yard is not an accessible route. Nothing in that book reaches the fence at your house.
The number in your fence line is whatever the builder had on the trailer that week. It still decides which machine can reach the back yard, which decides how the crew works, which decides how long the day runs.
Ten minutes and a tape measure settle it before anyone quotes the job.
What the gate number rules in and out
Equipment manufacturers build to an assumed gate that no code defines, and their published widths cluster tight around it.
Toro publishes 34.6 inches of overall width for its Dingo TX 1000 TURBO Track Loader, Narrow. It markets the machine on exactly that basis: "Compact footprint easily clears standard 36" gates."
Ditch Witch publishes a range for its SK800 mini skid steer, because the tracks change the number. Machine width runs 36 inches on 7-inch tracks and 42 inches on 9-inch tracks. Two inches of extra track on each side is the difference between fitting and not.
A full-size machine is in another class entirely. Bobcat lists overall width for the S76 Skid-Steer Loader at 72 inches. That machine reaches a back yard through a driveway or through a panel of fence taken down for the day.
So the tape reading sorts the job into three answers. A gap over six feet takes anything. A gap in the mid thirties takes a mini skid steer and nothing larger. A gap under thirty inches means the wood comes out by hand, and the estimate reflects the hours that takes. The skid steer page covers what the larger machine does once it gets there.
A bucket truck never uses the gate
This is where homeowners guess wrong most often. Bucket truck tree service works from the street or the driveway, and the bucket truck needs three conditions that have nothing to do with the fence.
The first is footing. OSHA sets it out at 29 CFR 1910.67: "The brakes shall be set and outriggers, when used, shall be positioned on pads or a solid surface. Wheel chocks shall be installed before using an aerial lift on an incline." Soft shoulder, fresh sod over loose fill, a driveway on a grade: each one changes where the truck can legally sit.
The second is clear air. ANSI Z133 is the safety standard for arboricultural work. The Tree Care Industry Association quotes its instruction on setup: "Before the aerial device is set up for use, the work site shall be surveyed for hazards, including overhead obstructions and electrical conductors." A service drop crossing the driveway can take the best setup position off the board before the boom leaves its cradle.
Power lines carry a hard number for anyone without line-clearance training. OSHA's 29 CFR 1910.333 requires that an unqualified person working in an elevated position stay far enough back that "the person and the longest conductive object he or she may contact" cannot come within 10 feet of an unguarded line energized at 50 kV or below.
The third is reach. A boom has a working envelope, and a tree sixty feet behind the house may sit outside it from every legal parking spot on the property. Clower Tree Service describes what the truck does inside that envelope on its page for safe and efficient bucket truck tree services.
OSHA also governs how the work happens once the basket is up. The same standard requires a personal fall arrest or travel restraint system "worn and attached to the boom or basket," and it rules out the shortcut people expect: "Employees shall always stand firmly on the floor of the basket, and shall not sit or climb on the edge of the basket or use planks, ladders, or other devices for a work position."
When a climber replaces the bucket
Take away the parking, the footing or the reach and the method changes to rope and saddle.
A climber gets to any tree a bucket cannot, and the tradeoff is time. Setting a line, ascending, and working out each limb on rope takes longer than driving a basket to the same spot. The chainsaw page covers the cutting side of that work.
Access decided that. Nobody chose to climb.
Where the chipper sits decides how far the wood is dragged
Brush has to reach the chipper, and it gets there because somebody carries it.
A chipper parked twenty feet from the drop zone and a chipper parked at the curb a hundred feet away run the same machine at the same rate. The second one adds a hundred feet to every armload, all day, for one crew member or two.
The equipment trailer has the same problem in a different form. It needs somewhere legal and level to sit, and a cul-de-sac with cars on both sides can push the whole staging area a lot further from the tree than the driveway would have.
What the machines do to the trees you are keeping
There is a cost to driving equipment across a yard, and it lands on the trees nobody is removing.
University of Maryland Extension states the outcome: "Compacted soil can lead to tree and shrub decline or death, of even older well-established plants."
Colorado State University Extension explains the mechanism. "Compaction affects tree roots in several negative ways. It can lower soil oxygen levels which adversely affect root and tree health. Compaction also increases the strength of soil making it physically harder for roots to grow through it."
The Texas A&M Forest Service names the usual culprit: "Construction equipment and vehicles are a common cause of soil compaction." It also gives the rule of thumb for how much ground around a keeper tree deserves protection: "The fence should be approximately one foot from the trunk for each inch of trunk diameter."
Run that on a twenty-inch oak and the protected circle has a twenty-foot radius. On a Hot Springs lot, the machine route and that circle often want the same ground. Naming the conflict at the estimate is how a crew works around it, with mats, a different approach, or a smaller machine.
When the only route runs through the neighbor's yard
Corner lots and narrow city lots in Hot Springs sometimes leave one workable approach, and it belongs to somebody else.
That is a conversation to have before the day, in writing, with the neighbor named on the deed. A text message saying yes to a crew crossing the side yard on Thursday is enough to keep the morning moving.
Two details are worth settling in the same message. Say which vehicles cross and roughly how heavy they are, and agree on what happens to any ruts. A crew that knows the answer before it arrives can lay mats over the route and leave the grass alone.
Ten minutes with a tape measure
Take these numbers before the estimator arrives and the quote gets sharper.
- The gate opening at its narrowest point. Put a tape on it post to post, because a latch-to-latch guess usually runs an inch or two wide.
- Whether the gate leaf comes off its hinges, and whether a fence panel can come out for a day.
- The narrowest pinch anywhere along the route. An air conditioner pad or a downspout sets it more often than the gate does.
- Overhead clearance across the driveway, including branches, a service drop and a carport roofline.
- How firm that route stays two days after rain.
- The rise or fall between the street and the tree.
- Turning room at the end of the route, because a machine has to get out again.
Photograph each one. A crew that sees the route in advance brings the machine that fits it.
Free estimates in Hot Springs and Garland County
Clower Tree Service owns its bucket truck, chipper, skid steer, mini skid steer and equipment trailer. Owning all five is what makes the access answer honest. The crew picks the machine that suits the yard, and nobody has to force one machine to work everywhere.
Paul Clower has worked trees in Garland County for ten years and runs a five-person crew from 363 Kaufman Rd, Hot Springs, AR 71913. The experienced team is bonded and insured, holds a 5.0-star rating on 23 reviews, and brings in outside specialists when a job calls for it. Working tight to a structure has its own methods. The guide to tree removal near a house covers them.
Call 501.538.1606, email info@clowertrees.com, or request a free estimate. Have the gate measurement ready. It answers half the questions before anyone walks the yard.