Felling a tree is the moment where preparation either pays off or catches you out. Our tree felling course teaches you to read the tree, plan the cut and bring it down where you intended, every time. We deliver the City & Guilds NPTC Level 2 Award in Chainsaw Maintenance and Cross-Cutting and Felling and Processing Trees up to 380mm from our base at Preston Farm in Shoreham, and we train on real timber rather than practice logs in a yard.
We are the DTE Academy, the training body for Down To Earth Trees Ltd. We have been felling trees commercially across Kent and south-east London since 1979, and everything we teach comes from that daily working experience.
What You Will Learn
The course builds from the ground up, so no previous chainsaw experience is needed. You will cover:
Daily and routine chainsaw maintenance, including chain sharpening, fuelling and oiling
Cross-cutting timber under tension and compression, with the pivot points and swing directions that decide where a stem moves
Site assessment and risk assessment before a single cut is made
Sink cuts, hinge wood and back cuts, and how each one controls the direction of fall
Snedding and de-limbing felled stems ready for processing
Dealing with hung-up trees using hand tools
Health and safety legislation, exclusion zones and safe working practice
Our assessors verbally examine you at the end of the training. Pass, and you receive an NPTC Certificate of Competence, which is the qualification employers and insurers across the industry expect to see.
Who Should Take This Course
The course suits anyone whose work involves felling trees up to 380mm in diameter. That includes people starting out in arboriculture, groundworkers moving into tree work, forestry and estate staff, landowners managing their own woodland, and employers sending crews for certification or refresher training.
We do ask every candidate to complete a short selection questionnaire before booking, and sometimes a brief phone call. This is simply so we can group students sensibly and give everyone a course that works at the right pace.
What We Provide
Chainsaws are supplied. PPE can be hired from us for £40 if you would rather not buy your own kit yet, and we will tell you exactly what to bring if you do have it. Hot breakfast, lunch and drinks are provided throughout the day, because good training happens as much over a brew as it does on the stump.
Book Your Place
Group sizes are kept small and dates fill quickly. View our upcoming courses to book online, or get in touch and we will talk you through the right starting point.
If you are training from scratch with a career in mind, our Qualified Arborist Suite takes you through felling and everything else across six weeks, with a job offer waiting at the end.
