Tree Service in Chatham, VA
Danville Tree Care & Removal works Chatham regularly — 19 miles up US 29 from our Danville base, about a 26-minute run. Removal, stump grinding, and storm cleanup for a town with an unusually old and unusually large tree canopy. Free estimates. Call (434) 216-5589.
Chatham has more big old trees per acre than anywhere else we work
Chatham is the Pittsylvania County seat, two square miles at 720 feet, and its housing stock is genuinely old: roughly 37% of homes here were built before 1940, with a median build year around 1955 and almost nothing built between 1980 and 1999. That means the residential canopy is essentially one cohort of shade trees planted with pre-war and immediate post-war houses — now 60 to 100 years old, full size, and standing very close to roofs on a compact grid.
The Chatham Historic District covers about 95 acres with 191 contributing resources, listed on the National Register in 2001. Its own nomination describes “older deciduous trees” as the defining landscape and “large oaks” lining the drives. Those trees are magnificent and they are at the age where structural defects start to matter.
Add 508 acres of institutional grounds inside a town of 1,200 — Chatham Hall’s 365-acre campus and Hargrave Military Academy’s 143 acres — and the tree density here is not like anywhere else in the county.
The one thing every Chatham homeowner should know about brush
The town’s yard-waste program takes branches and limbs only under 3 inches in diameter. Collection runs Mondays and Fridays, out by 6 a.m., with grass and cuttings bagged separately and leaves piled loose at the curb.
Three inches is a small branch. Anything from an actual tree job — a limb off a mature oak, a section of trunk, a stump — is well past it. That means debris from real tree work in Chatham is a haul-off cost, not a curbside item, and it should be spelled out on your estimate. Ours always is.
Burning isn’t the workaround either. Virginia regulation permits on-site burning of yard trimmings only where no scheduled collection is available at the adjacent street — and Chatham runs collection.
Who to call about the power line
Chatham is Dominion Energy territory, not Danville Utilities. That distinction matters when a limb is over a service drop.
Dominion’s published Virginia policy clears roughly 20 feet above and 15 feet to the side of primary distribution lines in rural areas, works neighborhood lines on about a four-year cycle, and will not remove trees. What it will do, free of charge, is disconnect your service drop so a tree near it can come down safely. Call them and arrange that before we show up — it costs nothing and it changes the job from dangerous to routine.
Chatham's Trees Are Older Than Most
The county seat has an unusually old and unusually large canopy — white oaks and willow oaks planted a century ago, now at the size where a failure takes out more than a fence.
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The storm that reminded everyone
September 27, 2024. The remnants of Hurricane Helene spun up an EF-2 tornado that ran 6.85 miles with peak winds of 118 mph and ended about six miles west of Chatham. The National Weather Service survey recorded “numerous hardwood and softwood trees snapped and uprooted,” roughly 30 structures damaged, and one mobile home destroyed. A second, weaker tornado touched down near Keeling the same afternoon.
Chatham got the near miss. The trees that came through it with fresh cracks, torn roots, and hangers in the canopy are still standing, and some of them are still hazards.
Working in Chatham
One thing to ask about: Chatham requires a town business license for all business conducted inside the corporate limits, at a contractor rate of $0.16 per $100 of gross receipts. It’s a small amount of money and it tells you whether the crew in your yard is running a real business or working out of the back of a truck. Ask whoever you hire.
A note we like about this town: the Virginia Department of Forestry keeps a field office right here at 9 Woodlawn Heights, and Chatham Hall runs an ArbNet Level I accredited arboretum on its front lawn with 27 tree species, open to the public and free. Its logo commemorates the Big Oak that stood in the Meadow for decades before it fell in 2013. It’s a town that pays attention to its trees, and we like working here because of it.
Whose tree is it, and who pays when one comes down? That has a specific Virginia answer and it is not the one most people expect. See tree law in Danville.
What we do in Chatham
Most Chatham jobs are tree removal on the big shade trees, with the stump ground out once the tree is down. We also run storm damage work here when weather comes through.
Nearby: Gretna is ten miles further up US 29, and Blairs and Mount Hermon sit between here and Danville.
Not sure how bad it is? We will come look and tell you straight. The estimate is free.
Chatham Tree Service FAQs
Do I need a permit to remove a tree in Chatham, VA?
Not for a tree on your own private property — Chatham has no tree ordinance we’ve been able to find in the town code, and it isn’t in Virginia Tech’s statewide tree-ordinance database. That’s an absence of evidence rather than a guarantee, so for anything in the right-of-way or near a public area we call Town Hall at 434-432-9515 first. Trees on public property are a different matter entirely and need the town’s approval.
Will the Town of Chatham pick up my brush?
Only limbs under 3 inches in diameter, on Mondays and Fridays, out by 6 a.m. Anything larger — which is essentially all tree-work debris — has to be hauled. Grass and cuttings go in bags; leaves are piled loose at the curb.
Who do I call about a limb on a power line in Chatham?
Dominion Energy, not Danville Utilities. Dominion won’t remove the tree, but it will disconnect your service drop free of charge so the tree can be taken down safely. Make that call before you schedule us.
Call (434) 216-5589 for a free estimate in Chatham.
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