The classification of commercial generally means that our client is an organization and the end users are the organization’s guests, students, or the general public.

In these cases, the highest attention is paid to design & engineering, as public safety is paramount. Additionally, durability under high throughput with minimal repairs or maintenance is important to most of our clients.

Tree Top Builders has worked with many private schools and camps, along with a few others including museums, municipal parks, reality television programs, an advertising agency making commercials, and an air force base.

Visit our Commercial Treehouse Portfolio to view these amazing structures!

While we can sometimes start a small backyard treehouse about a week or two after you reach out to us the first time, the commercial projects require much more planning, budgeting, design revisions & approvals, permitting, and scheduling.

Typically, the whole process is going to take at least 9 months, but can be more than 2 years. When we learn more about how your organization plans projects like this, we can help map out a realistic timeframe. If you’re in a hurry, we can move quickly and make sure that you always know what the next step is to keep a project on track.

The most important difference is that we generally have multiple stakeholders that we aim to please with every aspect of the project.

Additionally, commercial projects take more planning before, during, and after construction.

Sometimes our access to the work site is extremely limited. We typically have to take extra care when mobilizing staff and materials to get everything safely to the work area. Work sites must be properly closed each day to reduce hazards in case people wander into work areas while we are not on site. However, when all is said and done, commercial treehouses have the same goal as other types of treehouses: to get people safely up into the trees and experiencing an exciting new perspective of nature and our place in it. 

These projects are among the largest and most elaborate treehouse complexes in our portfolio. Depending on size & scale, probably start around $200,000 and some are closer to $1,000,000.

Our tree houses are designed to hold many times the weight of their intended use. We account for the dead and live loading of the tree house and all the people that could fit on it. The actual weight depends on the strength of the trees that the treehouse goes in and the specifics of the design. But in general, for most tree houses, we're talking over ten thousand pounds when evenly distributed. Why take any chances when safety is involved?

If you are putting a hot tub in your tree house, or if you plan to build many stories high, then you may need engineering plans to ensure that your tree house platform is suitable.

Our full service tree house design option can help give you the confidence that your tree house has been structurally designed to carry the weight of whatever you plan to put up there. Please contact us if you have further tree house construction questions.

Our tree houses are safe because we use strong materials and professional tree attachment methods that allow for tree movement and tree growth over time. Where prudent, we may also install backup support systems in critical places. Expert consulting arborists, engineers, challenge course professionals, fabricators, carpenters, and builders have helped us refine and improve our support systems and tree house construction practices over the years.

Our tree houses are as safe as a comparable deck, balcony, or cabin on the ground. We do, however, recommend that tree houses not be occupied when strong gusts of wind or lighting are possible.

Our Tree Houses have an average life span of 10-25 years, but can be made to last as long as the life of the tree. The materials we use are of the best quality and our methods of construction make for long-term use. As with any outdoor product, regular inspection and maintenance is imperative to prolong its life, and life expectancy would therefore depend to a great extent on the attention given to it.

SAFETY IS OUR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY. For example, tree house railings are strong and substantial, high enough and close enough to protect small children.

We have children too, and so our tree house construction methods are influenced by watching our kids play in our tree houses.

• We avoid placement of nails where they may loosen over time and create hazards.
• We sand down any rough edges on the tree house to eliminate potential splinters.
• Tree house entrance ladders are situated where they will be easiest to climb, keeping potential falls to a minimum height.
• We can use Plexiglas for windows or even plan to have operating windows situated over verandas or balconies to keep kids from jumping out.

We help you determine the appropriate safety measures that make you feel comfortable. In fact, if you have any safety related tree house questions or concerns, we will be happy to have an honest discussion of safety and risk on play structures and tree houses. In many cases, building codes are not applicable to tree houses because permits may not be required. However, due to our previous experience in the ground house building industry, we know how to build our tree houses so they are code compliant.

Many nostalgic tree house features such as rope ladders or natural branch railings would not pass code on a ground house. Most of our tree house options such as zip lines or rope swings aren't mentioned in the building code books either. So we will explain the codes to you, and then let you choose how you want your tree house built. We want you to know what the codes would be and why they would be that way so that you can weigh your aesthetic preferences against what the code books consider to be safe. We consider that informing you of those issues our duty as professional tree house builders.

We carry insurance that specifically names tree house building as the primary business activity. This is very expensive and hard to get at any price. If you consider another tree house builder for your project, make sure that they are not carrying a tree worker's or general carpenter's policy and telling you that they are fully insured for tree house construction. If their insurance company finds out that they primarily build tree houses, then you will not be protected.

We stand behind the quality of our work. If it is later discovered that in any part of a tree house project, we performed work in a sub-standard or un-workman-like manner, then we will attempt to fix the problem. Either we will come out and bring the tree house up to high quality standards, or we will make other arrangements that keep everyone as happy as possible. That being said, if the tree house is damaged through normal use, normal weathering, pests such as squirrels or bugs, or an act of nature or act of god, then it will not be our responsibility to make repairs free of charge. Sometimes the difference can be blurry with tree houses because of the movement and interconnection with nature. So there is no hard line, but we do promise to try reasonably hard to keep you happy and do what we honestly believe is right to keep our integrity and commercial standards of honor.

We've seen great and terrible treehouses built by both types of people. Some welders and engineers and other related professionals also have mixed treehouse building reviews. To be successful, our team has developed core competencies in all of these areas. We focus primarily on building and construction management, but without neglecting the importance of each area. The first 10% of the time spent on a treehouse is determining whether or not the tree is suitable to carry the load of the treehouse, where the best attachment points are, what the overall health of the tree is, and installing the main fasteners.

While Dan Wright is an ISA certified arborist, it's not a bad idea to also hire an RCA certified consulting arborist with at least 20 years of experience as a professional arborist to consult on a treehouse project. RCA arborists have a higher level of knowledge and a local one will have more insight into how your particular tree species does in your area, a point not to be overlooked since Dan is mostly familiar with trees in Pennsylvania and surrounding states.

Carpentry and building skills comprise the majority of the treehouse project and must be carefully employed to ensure safety. You want to hire people who you can trust to choose proper fasteners for each part of the tree house, form tight joints, build sturdy walls and railings to keep people safe, and close in roofs and windows to keep the weather out. At Tree Top Builders, we cross train our staff in various fields so that each member of the treehouse team understands the whole process.

We also have a network of expert tree house builders and consultants (including other arborists, engineers, machinists and metal workers) who understand the tree house building process and their important roles in each tree house project. You can trust that the combined experience of our treehouse team is at your service.