Community Chat

[qualitygal]

The other day it was so beautiful and sunny out and the temperature was just right, that we were out on the deck. For the first time, I looked around at the trees. Noticed that during a storm, if lightening hit them just right, or ice that there's 5 that could come down on our home.

Once of the major things that drew us to this house was our great back yard. Over the course of many years, ice storms have killed one out back and we've lost limbs to ice in other areas of our beautiful back yard.

Got to wondering how many other people have large trees around them, that if ice came along or lightening hit, do you have trees that could come down on your home. ??

No way would I cut trees down in the hopes of preventing either case, but, it's just something I noticed.

[gidgetgh]

We have woods on the one side of our house and many many trees behind us-huge pine trees. In the 9 years we've lived here, we've probably removed 10 trees. One was diseased and we had to cut it down. The others were too close to the house. Our safety and the house come first. Our trees come after that. We don't have any plans right now to remove any others, but if we need to, we will.

[Lakk]

I had a 50 ft. weeping willow we had to have cut down in the 80's in the back yard near the house because the roots were causing damage in the neighbors pipes. We had one other tree destroyed in a storm so there is nothing in the back yard now close enough to hit the house. I have one tree near the house in the front I am going to have either cut back or cut down this summer. My house and safety are valuable to me the tree is not another one can be planted further from the house.

[TaxyLady]

I was more concerned with wet soil and wind. This is usually what brings trees down. So after hurricane Sandy, I had the trees, that could do major damage to the house, chopped down. Two of the 10 trees were hollow in the center and contained water. They were ready to fall. You could not tell by looking at them. So I am glad I did and I feel safer that they are gone.

My niece was eating dinner with a friend when she got a telephone call from her neighbor that a tree fell on the house. Major damage to the entire structure. So glad the family was not home at the time.

Certain trees that are shallow rooted come down easily with a storm. Never plant a weeping willow near a house.

I had the trees cut in the winter when I wouldn't disturb any families living in them. I have hundreds more trees surrounding the house for them to live.

[RedTop]

When we built our house 33 years ago, my husband cut 2 huge pine trees behind our house for fear they would be a problem later on. I still worry about 2 other pines back there, but we don't own that property and the property owner we worked with before has passed away, as has his son.

Trees on your property are often covered under your homeowners insurance. If they fall, or are damaged and you have to take them down, you can turn that in on your policy as a claim. Within the first 10 years after we lived here, we lost a tree in a storm, and collected $400 from State Farm. I am not sure if things are the same with other companies, but it would be worth checking into.

[jeanlake]

December 2012, during a beautiful, thick snowfall a powerful thunderstorm swooshed in. We thought it was a December tornado. Our large oak tree in the front yard fell on my husband's truck parked in the driveway. Totaled the truck and ripped away the guttering around the garage. We used the brick border around the tree and converted it to a flower garden to go along with the new courtyard we put it. It's a wonderful reminder to us that beautiful things can come from disappointments. We love the tall 20 year-old trees in the backyard that we planted the week we moved in. I don't like think the craggy walnut tree in the corner is attractive compared to our other trees, but husband said there's something noble and beautiful about it. The squirrels certainly like it!

[Allegheny]

My neighbor's house across the road is totally surrounded by trees, basically built in a forest setting. The house has been there over 30 years and they have never had a tree or large branch come down on the house. However, when her husband decided to remove one, he didn't know what he was doing and it came down on the house. Most of the roof had to be rebuilt. We sort of giggled, because he looked so much like Paul Bunyan.

Our house was built among the trees. Over the years we have had several come down (luckily non struck the house). Eventually, we had anything within striking distance removed. Much to my husband's disapproval, I still plant trees, but am careful what I plant and where they are placed.

[Pickwickpapers]

Trees have always been one of my favorite things.....growing up we had mature shade trees and my grandparents had a big porch upstairs and I loved sitting there feeling like a tree house. Being a tomboy I was pretty good at climbing trees too. We planted several trees in our yard when we build our home years ago trying to gage where to plant so not to interfere with the house or power lines. I still love trees and value them but a damaged tree that wasn't removed from the road fell some years back and hit my DH and his vehicle on the way home from work killing him. The tree should have been removed but most of us don't know how to judge where trees are in danger of falling due to structural issues until the tree has fallen. By then it is too late........trees are living things that do need to be checked for damage or illness that could cause accidents, property damage and unfortunately in some cases loss of loved ones.

[hckynut]

On 5/24/2014 qualitygal said:

The other day it was so beautiful and sunny out and the temperature was just right, that we were out on the deck. For the first time, I looked around at the trees. Noticed that during a storm, if lightening hit them just right, or ice that there's 5 that could come down on our home.

Once of the major things that drew us to this house was our great back yard. Over the course of many years, ice storms have killed one out back and we've lost limbs to ice in other areas of our beautiful back yard.

Got to wondering how many other people have large trees around them, that if ice came along or lightening hit, do you have trees that could come down on your home. ??

No way would I cut trees down in the hopes of preventing either case, but, it's just something I noticed.

When we moved here in 2000 we had 300 beautiful trees. Thanks to snow/ice storms many of them did not survive. Then in our state came a Pine Tree Disease that killed ever single pine tree on our propery, most of when are close to the highway and not really visible to us through our other spruce and maple trees. Always sad to see beautiful trees ruined from a storm or anything for that matter.

I watch one night from our patio room when lightning hit 2 trees directly. One it completely pull out of the ground and the other it ripped all the bark off of the whole tree. And these trees were only about 40 feet from our patio room. One of our prettiest young Blue Spruce trees in our backyard was ruined by an wet snow storm a few years ago. I even went out to it with a hockey stick and knocked off as much ice and snow as I could because it was drooping almost all the way to touching the ground on the lower branches.

While this dis save some of the branches this tree that was so full is now sparse in many areas and has lost a whole lot of it's beauty for a blue spruce tree. We also have a huge maple tree right next to our patio room and during one of our very windy rain storms I heard a crack and a slight sound on the roof of our patio room. Since I practically live in that room, I don't miss much of what is going on in our back area of our home.

Next day I went out and saw a HUGE branch that had broken and was hanging precariously over the roof of our patio room. I got hold of a tree company and they came out the next day and removed the branch and also $500+ from my wallet. I stayed out of the patio room and also blocked off all feline door entrances to the room until we got that branch safely removed.

Lost track of how many branches I've had to saw off our so many of our trees because of the high winds at times in our area. Don't use a chain saw but have a cordless reciprocating saw that handles most of the size branches I need to cut. I made a trade off again with my neighbor. He comes with a chain saw and cuts down the big ones and I in turn mow his lawn for him. Now I am talking over an acre of grass here not a 50x50 yard. He also plows my driveway in the winter and I add a mowing for each plow.

I think he is getting the better of the tradeoff as it takes me an hour and a half to mow his lawn and 2 gallons of gas. It takes him about 15 minutes to do my driveway, when it is a 6" or more depth of snow. Otherwise he is done in 5 minutes. With the trees he did take about 45 minutes a couple times so I may have to renegotiate this deal with him.

:-)

[Lilysmom]

Good story John. Our development was formerly a farm. We have many beautiful oak, maple and birch on the property but none close enough to the house to cause damage. We had a large maple go down on the stone patio overlooking the lake. I was so sad to lose it. I must say, while I love the shape and shade of the oak trees, I hate the mess they leave with leaves that don't break down. Oak is DH's favorite tree, not mine as I am the one who cleans out the gardens! We cleared a lot of spruce which were in poor shape in the interior as TaxyLady mentioned. LM