Fortuntate to only be spending $4000!

[andyvh1959]

I live on the heavily wooded west side of Green Bay. LOTS of huge mature oaks, elms, maples, and ash, like the dead one behind my shop that I should have taken down this past winter. Last nights huge storm made that late choice for me. A 120ft + Ash tree snapped off about 10' above ground and it fell the only direction it could and not nail my house, or two other neighbor's houses. And it was 30' behind my shop, and fell away from the shop, no damage. That tree fell the ONLY way it would minimize damage, so I am extremely lucky. Nailed the corner of my fence and the neighbors fence. Tree crew will be done in about two hours, then I get to do the rest. I'm blessed it wasn't far far worse. Ha, my wife said she never heard it fall. ****! I've FELT a tree fall less than half the size of that tree!

She said she didn't hear it or felt it. Yet, I walk into the kitchen and she "Yow!!" startles so easily. Must be my huge presence right? Word to the wise, if you have a marginal tree standing on your property, spend the money NOW to remove it with control rather than suffer where nature drops it for you.

So I'm spending another $3000 to have a large dead pine taken down, and a much larger dead oak in the front yard taken down today. The pine has been dead for four years, the oak died last late summer. The oak is at least 100 feet tall.

 

[PoorUB]

I have a neighbor that had a huge Elm tree that got beat up in wind storm. Three split crotches, lots of broken limbs. I told him if he paid for a bucket lift, I would cut it down, at least until I got to the trunk which was more than I had tools to handle. He is a bit of a tree hugger, so he paid a guy $2,000 to trim the tree and bolt and chain the split crotches. I told him he was wasting his money as Dutch Elm disease would be taking it any way. Plus, I wanted it gone as it hung over my garage. He didn't listen and five years later he had the same guy come and cut it down after the city told him it had to go, that was another $3,000!!

I like trees, but when they become a liability I have no issues making fire wood out of them!

 

[T45]

I like trees, but when they become a liability I have no issues making fire wood out of them!

Keeping diseaded trees around anouther 3-5 years just spreads the disease...

 

[reader2580]

I just spent $2650 having three dead Ash trees near my house removed before they fall on the house. I have three or four more dead Ash trees, but they aren’t going to fall on anything. I don’t have the money to remove the remaining trees right now.

 

[jar944]

Word to the wise, if you have a marginal tree standing on your property, spend the money NOW..

Since this is GJ

STIHL MS 500i 25 in. Gas Chainsaw Rapid Super Chain RS 3/8 in. Mfr# 11472000105 - Ace Hardware

Designed and built exclusively for forestry personnel and tree service professionals, the MS 500i is the first ever chainsaw on the worldwide market with electronically controlled fuel injection. With its excellent power-to-weight ratio, this saw is an impressive piece of equipment for pros...

www.acehardware.com

 

[Hooked]

Timely thread. I met with a tree guy yesterday for an estimate to take out two and trim two more. Not looking forward to the estimate.

 

[CraigStu]

3 years ago we had a 50-60ft fall towards the house. We were lucky as it missed by about 3ft but that set me on a mission. Cut all trees that can reach the house. 10-12 down now and more to go. I watch the wind during every storm and it is always from W, NW, N so that is the side I've been concentrating on. I have 2 that are too big for me to handle but fortunately they are still alive.

 

[Sturgeon]

Andy, you should go to church this Sunday ha ha. Trees are tough on structures for sure, glad it didn't do more.

 

[y'sguy]

I've been watching this enormous Sycamore be dissected over the last several days. A simple 2-man crew. It is a backyard 2 homes away from ours and has been a threat to neighbors' homes for ages. Sewers, driveways, roofs, you name it. We will miss it, though it provided great shade for us in the afternoon an evening. Especially welcome in our summers. The job's still not complete as we are currently under a severe weather watch, high wind, lightning, thunderstorms, and the usual this time of year. There is a whole lot more of this sucker up above out of frame of the pic. I can't imagine the amount of work it is for these guys even though I have been watching. The home just sold, so I'm curious who paid to have this removed or how much the sale price was reduced to accommodate this. One can sort of gauge the size of the main trunk from the ladder next to it. They did drop one small (easily 400 lbs!) section which promptly went through the roof of the garage. They repaired the roof right after, before the rain.
If it were maple, ash, or oak, at least the timber would be worth something. This will just go to the dump. There is still going to be a massive stump to deal with. I wonder how they will choose to handle that. I see a lot of folks skip that part, unfortunately. More money!

 

[bluedog225]

When I was younger I noticed really old people had no trees in their yards. I wondered why.

 

[Mr. Tool]

Some years back (before COVID) I was determined to have not 1, not 2 but a total of 3 trees removed from my backyard. One in particular was very near our house just close enough to our back patio.

All three trees were the same and had started to rot away slowly (something, either insects or disease, etc. probably from the Woodpeckers that are around) and large branches started to fall off one by one, etc.

So I told the wife that they needed to be totally removed (stump, roots and all) she was dead set against having them removed, she liked them and said that they could be saved, she just wanted them trimmed down, etc.....my response was "NO, they need to be removed, especially the one close to our patio because if a bad, strong winded storm were to come, that particular tree was ready to fall and I didn't want the chance of it coming down on the house." ....and I definitely didn't want that to happen because then that would lead to bigger problems $$$$$!

Wife says.."You better not cut them down!"

I never said that "I" would do the job.

Two weeks later.....wife flies out to California to visit our daughter, says she'll probably stay a few days (a week maybe)....I say sure and drive her to the airport and see her off.

Get home, start looking for companies that totally remove trees, etc.....next day three guy's come out and look at all 3 trees, I tell them exactly what I want....we come to an agreement on the price for removal and haul off, etc....and then they start to proceed with the job!

I even recorded most of their process, it was definitely for the better.

It's always best to ask for forgiveness then ask for permission.

The End!

P.S....and Oh yes we're still married, this Saturday will be our 34th year anniversary!

 

[driftpin]

Areca palms in the front yard of our rental home.~25 ft tall. The young neighbor decided to cut back the base of the trees,which was on my property. I told him he should never set foot on my property again without my permission. I trimmed up the hack job he did to the base of the palm trunks and clearly marked where the exact property line was with a sealed survey.



In the first picture, our house is on the left, and the neighbor's house is to the right.

Also in the first picture you can see that the area I cut back from the base of the palm trunks is nearly 2 ft from the property line. The concrete pad marks the found iron rod showing the property line. The view is from the front yard looking to the backyard.

The second picture shows a view of the areca palm closest to the front property line and that is the one that I cut back his hack job to be probably a full 2 ft inside my property line with him.




Doing that trimming dulled my new micro three Stihl 16" chainsaw blade so I will be spending some time using my Dremel tool to resharpen it.

 

[Old tool guy]

Nice.
.

 

[andyvh1959]

I have two large healthy mature oaks on the west side of my house, each leans to the south about 10 degrees off plumb. I used the angle-app on my phone to check. I'm calling an arborist to ask if they're a potential danger. I may just have the canopy bottom of each tree raised to improve the tree's vertical balance.

 

[Junkman]

Every winter I would store my wifes PT Cruiser convertible in a friends barn. I got a call from him that a tree fell on the barn. When I got over there, there were 3 huge trees on the barn, and his Model A Pick Up was flattened like a bug. His PT Cruiser suffered minimal damage, and my wifes Cruiser had a bunch of small dents and scratches to it. Hagerty called it a total loss, and because I had "cherished value" coverage, I was able to keep it without having to pay for the "salvage". It was insured for $3500, and the cost of repair was close to $6000 to repair and repaint. She still loves the car, and it is presentable enough that it doesn't look like a junk car. Since it now has a salvage title, its value is just about NIL!
It cost over $14,000 to have those trees removed, and it took 2 log trucks to cart away the logs. One of the two was a cherry tree, and the arborist estimated that the 3 trees were between 100 and 125 years old. I should have counted the rings, but his estimate was good enough for me.

 

[andyvh1959]

These two large mature oaks, each at least 100' tall, each have anout a 10 degree southern lean to them. I'd estimate the center of mass above ground is 50' up. They're both healthy but the lean makes me anxious.

 

[MongoTA]

I've been running a chainsaw since I was 12 years old. First one was an old Homelite with a 12" bar. While I adore trees, sometimes they do have to come down. With some it's easy. With others it's a more difficult decision. We had two oaks, one 95', the other over 100' tall, that were near our house and in heavy winds started shedding parts of their crowns.
While I prefer my Husqvarna 395, my wife prefers old school. But she's 65-years old and does yoga, so she's able.



The second tree, a traditional chainsaw hinge cut would have dropped it either on the house, on a bluestone patio, on the leach field, or onto my neighbor's property. For the first time ever I hired a crew to come in and take down a tree. They used a crane and a crew of six people. $4k for one tree, but they did it safely and in spectacular fashion.

Sometimes you gotta pay, and this time I did. Money very well spent.

 

[Copymutt]

Got a 40’ aspen, one of a clump that died last fall as well as some 8” dead elm limbs over the waterfall I’ll be taking down this spring. Still remember roping controls from my teens helping my dad. They were called tree surgeons back then. Only the largest firms had bucket trucks.

 

[Old tool guy]

Is the wife wearing proper safety flip-flops? Hard to tell from this angle.

The picture with the crane … where was the tree?

 

[andyvh1959]

Run to Menards today to spend about $300 in materials to help my neighbor repair the fence my tree fall damaged. Probably another $100 for the garden baubles/spinners/etc that got wiped out. Still pretty cheap and maintains good standing with the neighbors.

 

[Uncle murph]

Some years back (before COVID) I was determined to have not 1, not 2 but a total of 3 trees removed from my backyard. One in particular was very near our house just close enough to our back patio.

All three trees were the same and had started to rot away slowly (something, either insects or disease, etc. probably from the Woodpeckers that are around) and large branches started to fall off one by one, etc.

So I told the wife that they needed to be totally removed (stump, roots and all) she was dead set against having them removed, she liked them and said that they could be saved, she just wanted them trimmed down, etc.....my response was "NO, they need to be removed, especially the one close to our patio because if a bad, strong winded storm were to come, that particular tree was ready to fall and I didn't want the chance of it coming down on the house." ....and I definitely didn't want that to happen because then that would lead to bigger problems $$$$$!

Wife says.."You better not cut them down!"

I never said that "I" would do the job.

Two weeks later.....wife flies out to California to visit our daughter, says she'll probably stay a few days (a week maybe)....I say sure and drive her to the airport and see her off.

Get home, start looking for companies that totally remove trees, etc.....next day three guy's come out and look at all 3 trees, I tell them exactly what I want....we come to an agreement on the price for removal and haul off, etc....and then they start to proceed with the job!

I even recorded most of their process, it was definitely for the better.

It's always best to ask for forgiveness then ask for permission.

The End!

P.S....and Oh yes we're still married, this Saturday will be our 34th year anniversary!

Very good.Just a note though, you see woodpeckers,they’re after bugs that are already there.

 

[andyvh1959]

Hire the pros, they bring in the big Stihl, nothing my little 16" vintage Poulan chain saw could do in a week of cutting. One guy climbed to the top of the 100' oak and topped it down, company owner got to do the final cut to drop the trunk. $7365 for three trees, all the wood, limbs, brush gone, two stumps ground down. His team is good, about 1.5 hours from tree standing to grinding stump and done.

 

[ATC]

I usually take down any tree that is a threat. But one large oak was hanging over the house and too tall for a tow-behind lift to get to. We hired that one out. Three guys showed up, and two of them just sat in a chair and watched…LoL

The machine was impressive!