We are concerned these branches and at least part of one tree need to come down. They are starting to look hollowed out, and their positioning is dangerous.
I’ve marked the areas that will likely need to be removed—we will have an arborist come out to assess. But in the meantime, hubby thinks he be able do the job himself by tying off small sections and cutting the branches piece by piece. After seeing numerous posts on this sub I told him I don’t feel comfortable with him trying, but he’s stubborn. I guess we’ll see what the arborist says—hubby is worried about the cost, I’m worried about injury risk obviously.
For the tree that forks, will it kill the rest of the tree? 😟 Will there be any detrimental effects to removing the other large branches from the other tree? These are all blue oaks.
by Ok_Pitch5865
38 Comments
Spoiler: he doesn’t.
Maybe some more spatial context is needed, but I’m gonna say hell no. Does he have *any* saw experience? Has he ever tied off and cut anything? Is he going to use a ladder? Does he have chaps and a hard hat? If *any* of your answers are No-No-Yes-No, then he shouldn’t even think about cutting this. In terms of decay after cuts, it’s going to depend on a more thorough inspection by the arborist. If the arborist is certified, be blunt with them and ask their opinino on the level of work and post-work decay, etc.
Husband has almost certainly misjudged the situation.
Always ask yourself… if you can’t afford to pay a professional, how are you going to afford life when he maimes himself so badly he can’t work? Or how will you pay for the roof repair when he drops the limb on the house? Also… why are you trying to trim this tree? It looks great
OP, my condolences to your homeowners insurance policy, but please take video so you can get some sweet sweet karma for your husbands foolishness.
me personally I’d rather learn the life lesson of tree removal,than home rebuilding
Hope you have insurance on the house.
In all seriousness, tell him that I, a Certified Arborist, want him to answer these questions:
1. Is his life insurance paid up? Will you receive payments if he dies of self-inflicted injuries?
2. Is your homeowner insurance paid up? Will they pay if they discover that the property owner caused damage to the house? This might be considered an act of negligence because he did not hire a professional to perform a dangerous task.
3. Will he allow a video recording to be made of his efforts, with instructions to you as next of kin to post the video here?
I don’t know your husband. I don’t know what his skills with trees and chainsaws are. But I tell you this: trees with decay and hollows rarely drop where you want them to, unless you have a lot of experience with felling. Dropping trees piece by piece is a good idea, but without a lift truck, your husband may need to stand on a ladder to reach these pieces…and it is strongly recommended that you never make cuts while standing on a ladder. Also, without running guide ropes to direct where the pieces are landing, your husband may still cause damage to the property.
L o L
Ready for an insurance claim?
This isn’t an “I think” job it’s a “yeah I got that” job. And that comes from experience. Hire it out
Let him do it. He needs this.
!remindme 5 days
One of my favorite oak species. Please don’t let him touch those oaks. Ladders and saws don’t mix. Judging by the tree species itself, you might be close to me. If you need someone to look at these let me know.
He’s got this . Let the learning curve begin.
Not an arborist but I’ve taken down a few 100’s of similar size trees under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t touch this
This is probably thee worst thing to DIY with a half-assed plan.
The one in the last pic is not one for an amateur to do. It’ll cost more than an arborist’s fee to replace your roof. The cuts can be made, but if your husband tries to do it himself, then please record the event and post to r/FellingGoneWild
Meanwhile, make sure he has protective gear, including a helmet, but more importantly let him know that ***branches hitting a ladder kills more people than branches alone***.
The only reasonable way for the safety of the cutter and the roof is to use a bucket truck.
That’s not an easy tree even for a professional. The stuff over the house needs to be rigged out. He has no idea how to rig and I’m assuming he doesn’t have tree climbing gear either. Best case scenario is he damages your roof. Worst case scenario is catastrophic injury or death. Home owners knock themselves off of ladders all the time because they don’t know proper cutting techniques. I’ve been doing tree work for years and I would struggle getting the stuff over the house down. Don’t let him do it. Show him my comment. For his own sake.
Post this in r/relationships
Unit he doesnt….I can see it now…Branch starts to fall and his inner self says “it is this point where you fucked up”…
I consider myself a novice with my saw and the trees I’ve cut down on my property, which is about 10 at this point. Mostly mature midwestern hardwoods. Ash and oak and walnut.
A really basic approach to testing his competence with this is to ask if he even has a pair of chainsaw chaps and if he *owns* his saw (owning vs renting). Bonus if he’s got a helmet with a visor and ear pro. That at least tells you how serious he’s taking it.
With how close this is to the house, if I were to attempt it, I would do away with the rigging and rent a man lift and just cut sections from the far end to the tree trunk, about 3 ft at a time. Smaller if the branch is thicker than 6 inches. That way, nothing falls on the house.
But that means forking out a couple hundred bucks for a man lift.
Of the30,000 average annual chainsaw injuries in the US, 80% are DIYers, 24,000. Cost is about $11,000 per injury. If the limb appears to pose a hazard to fail then that failure will also affect how it behaves when cutting. The hinge can fail, limb “barber chairs” goes in a direction not anticipated. If he’s working off a ladder then, it can be struck by the limb sending him to the ground with a running chainsaw that he longer has control over.
Hardhat is wonderful but chainsaw pants or chaps are also a necessary item.
It really isn’t worth the few dollars you might save compared to all the potential costs of failure.
The others look fine to deal with but the one leaning towards the houses needs professionals, unless the angle is only making it look like that
At least you came to the right subreddit to ask 🤷♂️
But unless he has previous experience cutting massive trees don’t let him do this. If an expert is out of budget, the home repair certainly will be.
U cant just tie that off and hope for the best. I do a lot of diy and i cut down own big pine tree. I would not touch this. He could die. Height, angle and size all are working against him. If he still pushed for it at least take out insurance on him? Best of luck
Tell your husband the concern you have is insurance. If he cuts the limb down and does his math wrong causing a limb to fall on your house, it’s all your(you and him) fault and responsibility. The tree company will have insurance for this and because you are paying them you are able to shift some of not all of the liability and insurance from yourselves to this tree company.
The great thing about hiring someone else? If something goes wrong, it’s their insurance that pays. I don’t even know for sure if your insurance would pay.
Make a phone call. It costs nothing to make a phone call. Replacing your roof and burying your husband will be expensive.
Goodluck. He’s gonna have to climb it. Use lowering lines for each branch and wouldnt hurt to have a directional line too. Or just call an experienced tree service. Probably be less that a grand.
Idk if I would even trust an arborist. Everyone and all pet would be out of the house and I’d have a hotel booked and waiting. He doesn’t have this. 😳
The one by the swing is doable, the other probably wouldn’t totally destroy the house, but I have no idea how he could do that safely or without it landing on the house. I’ve cut down more large trees on my and neighbors property than was smart, but definitely wouldn’t do that one.
Third thing to worry about: insurance. One of those drops and busts the rafters or goes even farther than that, who pays?
Any arborist worth their salt will be insured, you should verify their insurance first for this job by the way, meanwhile you doing damage to your own house is going to come out of your pocket one way or another.
That is just money of course, the injury risk is more than that, but the “a hiring an arborist” is also just about money.
I urge you to tell your husband what I have so often told myself: there is a reason people are paid quite well to do certain things.
90 comments in an hour. This is telling enough. Hire a professional.
That’s hard enough on its own. When you add in the risk to the house, it’s a ridiculous risk/reward ratio for your husband to do this.
See if you can get a quote for someone to just get this on the ground, then your husband can piece it up and get his kicks. You won’t save a ton, but it should be a bit cheaper.
Penny wise and pound foolish. Get a quote to the tree by an insured professional and then get a quote to repair the roof. Bet you anything the roof is 10x the cost to fix.
Not an arborist but was trained and on a tree trimming crew for a couple of years in my youth, I would hire a professional in this case yes i have the knowledge to do this but my skills are so out of practice that I would be more of a liability to myself than anything. When things go wrong cutting trees the often go wrong quickly and very badly.
Even if he could do what he thinks he can… is he fine with the damage that’s going to do to your driveway? Big logs coming down will leave significant dents in your nice brick driveway.
If he’s that worried about cost, have time find a service that will do the risky part and let him cut up the fallen logs / perform cleanup. That will still reduce the cost significantly.
But yes, the insurance probably wont cover if home damage occurs, or may drop you if you try to make a claim.