I am not asking for a crystal ball prediction. I am a renter living in the pink bungalow beneath the tree. One of the two remaining limbs came down in Sunday’s storm. I know the realtor is not going to have time to resolve the tree issue before Thursday considering that this Tuesday. There are more storms expected on Thursday. A couple of my neighbors think I am in danger but I don’t know.
Is it likely that since the trunk (obviously hollow) now only has one limb (two branches on remaining limb) that it is better able to withstand the next storm? I am trying to decide if it is overreacting to stay in a hotel Thursday night just in case. The part of the bungalow nearest the tree issue the kitchen and bathroom. So I was initially thinking I’d be fine in the bedroom even if the remaining limb falls, but then I remembered that the water and gas lines run on that side. The bungalow is a refurbished garage so I don’t know how well it would hold the weight of the limb. I’ll stop here before I overthink this.
Sorry for the long explanation. What would you do if you lived right by and underneath this tree?
Thanks very much for any advice you can offer. I apologize if this is not the right subreddit for this question.
by Various-Try-1208
14 Comments
I would not spend another moment inside that red house until the tree is removed.
had a massive sugar maple fail about 20′ from my house in 2024. thankfully only smashed my backyard fence & not my home. absolutely terrifying experience. take no chances.
I have a rotten sugar maple in my back yard that will cream my house if it breaks. Its really too big for as close as it is. I’m getting it evaluated and probably removed this year. Sugar maple are almost universally hollow and rotten inside, but they are beautiful trees.
I love my tree 😞
Moral: Don’t risk your house for a tree.
It was a 50/50 chance before half of it fell off. Now… Pretty good chance it’s gonna fall off.
The half of the canopy that is now gone, used to keep the other half (the still standing part of the canopy) out of the wind on that side. So if a strong wind storm blows from that direction it is more at risk of Breaking off.
The wound left from the Thorne off limbs is so big that the tree would not be able to successfully close the wound in time.
Personally I don’t trust the strength of the attachments of the remaining branches in case of a storm. My opinion is this needs to go.
The failure of the one stem has done very little to alter the likelihood of failure of the remaining stem. There is more wind exposure, but the level of decay is the same, that half of the tree is the same. In fact, the tree now weighs almost half of what it previously did. The likelihood for OVERALL failure at stem or roots is lower now.
If tree removal isn’t a palatable option, this tree would be a good candidate for heavy reduction pruning. Could easily stand another few decades safety if handled the right way.
Take it down … now
As soon as it got leaves on every branch and some wind… then it will fall. Saw such shit happen more than once.
Please contact a good arborist to check in on that tree very soon.
Pretty dang likely I would say!!!
It could snap off, or it could split down to ground level, taking the damage, say, 15ft further from the tree.
I had a hickory like that (though not near my home) on the back of my lot when I bought the house in 2003. About 40% of the crown was already gone. It was 2007 before the rest snapped off in a storm (post-hurricane tropical storm).
In short, it could come down in the next storm, or survive another 10 years. Honestly, nobody knows.
My general experience of trees falling, and being cut down (I do my own felling, on my property, not as a business), is that trees that fall in storms/ naturally don’t usually slam down to the ground. I had one large pine come down on a rental homes I own – it sort of wafted down and did almost no damage just punching a hole in one ridge shingle, but that was because the roots were pulling out of the ground.
Trees which are sawn off and fall are a whole other matter, though with a good crown of branches they still don’t _slam_ down. I did cut down one large pine, 18″ at the base, that had lost its crown in an ice storm – it was literally a 55ft standing stick. That thing slammed the ground! It also _bounced_ 6ft off the ground at the stump end. I had already walked away, as soon as it started to fall (that is the only safe thing to do, there is literally _nothing_ you can do once a tree starts to fall, do just leave!), but as I looked back, I saw the log bounced up to eye level (I’m 6’5″).
Do the prevailing winds blow towards or away from the house?
The side remaining hasn’t really changed. The tree canopy overall is probably less balanced than it was before, but the wood hasn’t lost significant strength.
It’s hard to judge from just a couple of pictures from the same angle. If you’ve got a really nasty storm coming in and you can get a hotel for a reasonable price it might be worth the money just for the peace of mind it’ll buy you until the tree can be assessed in person by an arborist. I wouldn’t say that this is necessarily a tree that NEEDS to be cut down immediately. There’s a good chance it can be pruned and monitored and enjoy many more years of life.
Treat yourself to a night out; room, hot tub, takeout, while you read all about renters insurance and acts of god.
That’s a hazard tree
Arboist here. It’s done. It may technically still be alive for some time but it will never recover and it will be down hill from here. Let’s say it does live, that wound doesn’t have the structure to hold that up if it continues to grow. Trees are awesome and anything to keep them alive but a wound like this means it’s on hospice unfortunately.
So, what I would do is move _everything you care about_ away from that side of the house and get the _fuck_ out when that storm hits.
Contact your landlord, via email, informing them of the hazard tree and your concerns, so that they cannot try to shift blame to you due to lack of notification, if you have not done so already. If you have spoken to them via the phone, send them a “reminder/checking for update” email. You want this in writing BEFORE the storm hits.