Emergency tree felling from Tree Felling Guys gets a fallen or dangerous tree off your house, car or driveway, any hour of the day or night. We make the site safe, remove every piece of the tree and leave your property clean.
If a storm has dropped a tree on your roof, split a trunk across your driveway or left a tree leaning towards your house, we can help. Our teams work out of Cosmo City and cover all of Gauteng, from Roodepoort and Randburg to Pretoria, the East Rand and the Vaal.
We reach most emergencies in northwest Johannesburg within 60 minutes, and the rest of Gauteng the same day. We rig and lower dangerous trees piece by piece, clean up everything, and send you photos, an itemised invoice and a short job report for your insurance claim within 2 days.
We handle dangerous tree felling and fallen tree removal in every situation below. If yours is not on the list, call us anyway.
Keep everyone out of the rooms underneath. We take the weight off the roof first with controlled cuts and rigging, then lift the sections away so the roof does not take a second hit. Once the tree is off, your roofer can assess the damage properly.
Photograph the car and the tree from every side before we touch anything. We cut the tree off the car in sections and lift the weight away instead of dragging it. Your photos and our invoice go with your motor insurance claim.
This is the one emergency where we are not your first call. Your electricity supplier must make the line safe before anyone cuts. Once they have, we remove the tree and clear the branches around the line.
A tree that starts leaning after rain has usually lost its grip in waterlogged soil. Look for cracked or lifted soil on the side away from the lean. That tree can go over in the next wind, so call us before it moves further.
A split at the fork, or a branch hanging by a strip of bark, can drop without warning. Keep clear of everything underneath it, including where you park.
We clear an access route first so you can get in and out, then finish the full removal. If the tree came down from the pavement, it belongs to the municipality. See the section on permits below.
A dead tree, or one riddled with shot hole borer, drops branches without warning, even on a calm day. If it stands over your house, carport or a play area, treat it as urgent.
We reach most emergencies in northwest Johannesburg, including Cosmo City, Roodepoort, Randburg and Northcliff, within 60 minutes. Our base in Cosmo City sits right between them. Across the rest of Gauteng, we get to you the same day.
You can save time by sending photos on WhatsApp while we are on the way. Send us:
With those, our team arrives with the right equipment and a price ready.
Our standard tree felling rates run from about R850 for a small, easy tree to R25,000 or more for a large or dangerous one. Removing a large or dangerous tree typically costs R8,500 to R25,000 or more. See our tree felling prices for the ranges by tree size.
We charge the same rates for emergencies, with no after-hours surcharge, even when we send a team at short notice, at night or in riskier conditions. You get a written quote before any work starts, so there is never a surprise at the end.
These things move the price:
Most emergency tree calls end in an insurance claim. These three steps keep yours simple.
Call us first if the tree is still a danger. Making the site safe stops the damage from spreading, and most policies expect you to take reasonable steps to prevent further loss. Then log the claim the same day.
Damage to your house, roof, walls and garage usually falls under your building policy. Damage to things inside the house, like furniture, falls under your household contents policy. A tree on your car goes on your motor policy.
If your neighbour's tree fell on your property, you normally claim from your own insurer, and your insurer decides whether to recover the cost from the neighbour. Many building policies only pay to remove a fallen tree when it has damaged an insured structure, so a tree on an empty lawn is often not covered. Cover differs between insurers, so check your policy wording or ask your broker.
You get all three within 2 days of the job.
Most storm damage tree removal calls come in during Gauteng's summer storm season, from about October to March. Five things cause most of them.
Short, violent storms. Highveld thunderstorms bring strong gusts, hail and heavy rain in a short burst, often in the late afternoon.
Waterlogged soil. After a few days of rain, roots lose their grip. A tree with a heavy crown can then pull its whole root plate out of the ground.
Gum trees. Gum trees grow tall and carry a lot of weight up high. Like several other large trees, they can drop a healthy-looking limb on a calm, hot afternoon, which arborists call summer branch drop.
Shot hole borer. The polyphagous shot hole borer was first identified in South Africa in 2017, and Gauteng is the centre of the outbreak. The beetle causes branch dieback and often kills the tree. A 2024 study found it in about 3 in 10 of the trees researchers checked in Houghton Estate, Johannesburg. Dead branches turn brittle and can drop without warning.
Lightning. Gauteng's summer storms bring frequent lightning. A strike can burn the wood or roots inside a tree without obvious damage on the outside, so have a struck tree checked even if it looks fine.
Most trees give you a warning before they come down. Look for:
If you see one of these, it is not an emergency yet. Book our arborist to check the tree, and we deal with it on a normal day at a normal price.
Some indigenous trees are protected under section 15 of the National Forests Act, 1998. Nobody may cut, damage or remove a protected tree without a licence from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment. The protected list includes the camel thorn, the shepherd's tree and the marula.
If the tree that fell or is leaning may be indigenous, tell us when you call. We check the species before we cut.
Street trees in Johannesburg belong to the City, even when they stand right outside your wall. Under the City's street tree bylaws, only Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo may remove, prune or maintain them, and fines for damaging one run up to R327,000 per tree. Report a fallen or dangerous street tree to City Parks on 011 712 6600 or Joburg Connect on 011 375 5555. In Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, report it to your municipality.
We offer emergency tree felling across Gauteng. Our closest teams cover Roodepoort, Randburg, Northcliff and Cosmo City. We also respond in Sandton, Kempton Park, Centurion and Pretoria East, and across the rest of Johannesburg, Pretoria, the East Rand, the West Rand and the Vaal.
For everything else we do, see our main page on tree felling in Gauteng.
Once the danger is gone, most customers want the job finished properly. We offer stump grinding and removal for what the fallen tree left behind. We also do tree trimming and pruning to make safe the trees next to it that took strain in the same storm.
We reach most emergencies in northwest Johannesburg within 60 minutes, and the rest of Gauteng the same day. Send us photos on WhatsApp while we are on the way so we arrive with the right equipment.
Yes. We answer emergency calls day and night, including weekends and public holidays.
Our standard rates run from about R850 for a small tree to R25,000 or more for a large or dangerous one, and we charge the same rates for emergencies, with no after-hours surcharge. The price depends on the tree's size, what it fell on and how easy it is to reach. You get a written quote before any work starts.
Call us first if the tree is still a danger, because making it safe stops the damage from spreading. Then log your claim the same day. We send you photos, an itemised invoice and a job report within 2 days.
Usually, if the tree damaged an insured structure such as your house, wall or car. A tree that fell on an empty lawn is often not covered. Check your policy wording or ask your broker.
You normally claim from your own insurer, whoever owned the tree. Your insurer then decides whether to recover the cost from your neighbour.
Stay well back and treat every wire as live, including any fence or gate the tree touches. Call your electricity supplier's emergency line first. Once they make the line safe, we remove the tree.
We do not recommend it. A storm-damaged tree holds tension, and a wrong cut can make a section spring, kick or roll. Leave it to a team with rigging and protective gear.
We take away all the wood, branches and debris as part of the job. Stump grinding is a separate service we can do on the same visit or later.
Yes. Tell us the estate's access rules when you call, and we arrange entry with security before we arrive.
Do not wait for a leaning or fallen tree to move again. Call 083 761 7228 for emergency tree felling anywhere in Gauteng, day or night.
Send photos on WhatsApp and we will quote while we are on the way. Or request a free quote and we call you straight back.
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