In the words of Cher… “If I could tuuuuuuuuurn back tiiiiiiiime. If I could fiiiiiiiiiind a waaaaaaaay. I’d plant this pretty oak tree not on top of the house.”
No doubt it started out a lot smaller, but it grew, and with it grew the danger of it messing with our house. So when the home inspector crawled out from having assessed the roots and their proximity to the foundation, we were sad (but not surprised) to hear him say “this tree has got to go.”
Even if we could somehow do a root-growth-suppression-rain-dance to get them to avoid the house’s foundation, we couldn’t deny that about 50% of the tree’s canopy was precariously suspended right over our house. So even if just one branch came down in a storm, it would most likely damage our new roof.
And it would be a lot worse than that if the whole thing came down. We’ve seen some pretty bad storms over the last couple of years here…
We even saw a tree come down on the house right behind ours in Hurricane Irene back in 2011.
So once we knew we needed to remove the deck tree, we seized the opportunity to take a closer look at other trees on the property that we feared were dangerous/dying with the help of an arborist friend and some notes left by the inspector, which ended up identifying a few other troublesome trees, including three in the front and another one in the back near the deck. Those in particular were too close to the house (and too big) for comfort or had holes/rot in the base or were partially hollow (YIKES!) which meant they could come crashing down a lot more easily than healthy, solid trees could.
We had actually used this crew way back in 2007 at our first house, where we had a crazy giant split tree that was dead in the middle. They’re called Shady Tree Service, and William is the head dude. He’s a really nice guy and I feel like we’ve watched each other grow up or something. He wasn’t married back then, and now he’s married with two kids. Of course John and I have since tied and knot and had Clara (and Burger) so it was fun to catch up with him.
It’s a pretty hardcore job if you ask me. Dude, there’s a man up there – even higher than the house. You know, just swinging a chainsaw around.
Here’s William in the bucket, taming the lower portion of the deck tree. There’s actually a whole lot of math going on in tree work (angles, momentum, trajectory, etc) – you know, just to make sure nothing swings INTO YOUR HOUSE, so it’s pretty amazing to watch.
This was the view out of the guest room window. No zoom here, this is just how close the tree was (and how careful William had to be).
It was also crazy to see how hollow some of the trees were. This picture doesn’t do this any justice (one Clara and approximately four Burgers could have fit into the hole).
Here’s an “after” of the back, now that those two trees are gone. Still leafy, but less tree-on-house action.
And here’s a front view when we bought the house…
… and the front view now that those three are gone. It’s a more dramatic difference than I think we were expecting (we were so hoping we could keep at least one of them) but we’re glad they’re taken care of and we don’t have to stress every time we hear that a storm is coming. It has also let more light into the house, should help us grow more grass to fill in our patchy hair-plug-ish yard, and is going to help keep our new roof dryer (which lengthens its life) along with discouraging any more rot in our siding and trim (we already have some of that to deal with).
So a few thousand bucks later (ouch), those five trees are gone and we have some nice peace of mind. Tree removal costs definitely vary by the size of the tree, how hard it is to get to (will they need a crane, etc), and where you live. But a general range for getting a medium sized oak tree down that’s near a house in our area might be between $1K-$2K. If you add others, each additional tree tends to be a lot less since a lot of the cost is just getting the crew and machinery out to your house. So you could get a $1K quote for one tree, but negotiate a $3K total to get five of them taken care of (especially if a few of them are smaller/easier to wrangle).
Oh and I have a few tree negotiating tips:
- get a bunch of estimates if you don’t already have a favorite tree guy (we didn’t get others this time because William’s the best and every friend we recommend him to confirms that his prices are always better than the rest)
- make sure they’re licensed and insured (seriously, I wouldn’t mess around with this because it’s such a dangerous job)
- if you’ve used the company before, you can score a better price by reminding them you’re a repeat customer
- save competitor coupons (in our area some tree folks put out coupons and most of them will honor someone else’s to get the job themselves)
- in general whenever I negotiate (John hates that part, so it’s all me) I like to smile after they toss out an initial number and say “is that your best price?” (then I just shut my mouth and listen, which usually results in some amount of money off, free stump grinding, or some other perk)
As far as projects go, this might have been Clara’s favorite to watch. She loved gazing at the wood chipper, seeing the guys up in the trees, and standing on the stumps. This one’s the big deck tree, which she loved most of all. We thought about leaving some of the stump on the deck to create a table base, but the location would put the table a bit too close to the house for it to be functional.
So instead, we decided to “keep” the tree in the form of a few fun little stepping stones that I asked the guys to cut before hauling the rest off to be chipped/recycled as mulch.
Those might look like you could lift them up and place them in that clean little line, but they each weighed a ton and could only be moved with the tractor that the guys had for hauling stuff, so it was fun to watch them shove them all into place with heavy machinery.
And how about this for an epilogue? Remember when John mentioned that we have some deer friends at the new house? Well, apparently they like us, because they love to sneak up on us. Take this shot for example. I was taking after photos of the trees gone and John saw this one hanging out right behind me. I didn’t even notice.
And then I did, and I took this picture. Sherry Petersik, wildlife photographer.
Then Burger barked and off it ran. So evidently we live in Fairy Tale Forest. Thank goodness we still have a bunch of leafy trees around to maintain the title…
Anyone else getting trees limbed up, trimmed, or removed? Couldn’t you watch a 24/7 show of people doing it? If HGTV’s wondering what programming to add, I’d totally watch an hour of guys taking giant trees down. Their lever-systems and crazy swinging contraptions are no joke.
Ethne @ Wom-Mom says
Those stepping logs are rad. I loved the deck tree, but it makes sense. I’m pretty sure I have the palest legs in the world, btw. In the words of one of my best friends: “it’s called sunless tanner dude.”
Mel says
We had this majestic Poplar in our backyard nestled between our garage, deck and house with half of the canopy over our neighbour’s property. In the second year in our house we had some unreal wind storms here in Calgary and my 3 and 2 year olds would find huge branches everywhere, so we opted to cut it down. With all the obstacles in the way the cost came in at just over $4K. I was home starting my third mat leave and watched the whole process, including when a rope snapped and the top section of the main trunk crashed down smashing our concrete path and shattering part of the deck; this professional crew (whom we’ve used often) were stunned and shocked. A different crew came back with this old guy and his trusty chainsaw and he spent three hours suspended from the trunk sawing down the middle and then sawing smaller chunks on each side to get it down to the stump. What a process! Well worth the money in the end to get rid of a poorly positioned tree which was also rotten in the middle. I wish more people would take the time when they plant trees and shrubs and consider these things…you guys are becoming experts at removing awkwardly placed trees ;)
Alisha says
Crazy! Did they replace your deck/pay for the concrete that got smashed? What happens in those situations???
Pam says
Love the “stepping stones” and all the great sunlight!
The deer are cute but please beware that they carry deer tics which can transfer to dogs and people. I would hate for any of you to be exposed to Lyme disease. Unfortunately, it happened to one of our neighbors who put out food and water for them in the wooded area of his backyard. :(
Karin K says
Next time you have tree stumps to get rid of, get the word out to the nearest college campus. Apparently there’s a new drinking game going on, and it requires a stump.
http://www.worldstump.com/about.html
All I can say is: it must keep the emergency rooms in business. Shudder.
YoungHouseLove says
Eeks!
xo,
s
Cher says
AHHH!!! This post was written for me….right? That’s why my name is in the title?
Living near Chicago in Oak Park (the same place Nicole from Making it Lovely lives) the trees here are HUGE and historic and rightuponyourhouse. I can’t imagine how much damage one falling would cause, but I’m sure it would be ridiculously awful. However, the (summer) weather here seems to be tamer than in VA, so we don’t have a ton a falling trees. The winter is a tad more challenging…
Holly says
i wonder if the previous owners feed the deer. bc you rarely see deer come that close to humans.
Jacob says
Soooo wish you were able to keep at least one of the taller trees in the front. Older trees add such character, and a sense of history to a home. Completely understand having to do things in the name of safety, however.
Stephanie says
I’ve never had to have a tree removed but when I was living at home, my neighbors did. It woke me up one a day off at like 7 am. They were having these two HUGE (bigger than the house!) ugly trees removed from their front yard. I would have been mad that they woke me up if I wasn’t so enthralled by what they were doing. I seriously sat in my window and watched them.
Laura says
Post a picture of the giant hole in the deck! How are you going to keep the kids away from the hole?
YoungHouseLove says
That’s going to be dealt with ASAP! Photos and details soon!
xo,
s
Brenda says
So glad you’ll be safer! Like an earlier commenter said, we had crazy severe storms in MN last weekend. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I was driving to work and saw a tree blocking a street entirely and huge branches down all over the place.
Pamela says
My neighbors had to remove a LARGE oak. Once the top was removed the trunk was lowered in one piece (25-30 feet). The next day an assortment of heavy equipment came and took that sucker away. The neighbors had sold it to a sawmill! We were even invited to the mill to select a couple of planks after the job was done.
YoungHouseLove says
That’s amazing!
xo,
s
Dayla says
My guy has owned a Tree Service for 20 years and I’m a Tree-Hugger. Compromise Much? We’re just like Paula Abdul and the cat in the Opposites Attract video…
I’ve shellacked a few stumps and have the most delightful end tables in one of our living rooms. They’re HEAVY but beautiful!
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, that Paula video is The Best.
xo,
s
Sarah says
We had a tree that we relunctantly left standing, and in a snow storm it fell! It was about a 100 year old Spruce, and when it fell, it stretched 70 feet from our porch to the street curb, just missing cars parked on the street. Had it fallen any other direction, it would have crushed the brand new addition on our home we recently had completed, or one of our neighbors houses!
See the tree here: http://thegilstraps08.blogspot.com/2012/03/our-loss.html
Another shot of the tree here: http://thegilstraps08.blogspot.com/2010/11/finished-outsidefront-entry.html
And the before/after of our house here: http://thegilstraps08.blogspot.com/2012/06/house-before-and-after.html
YoungHouseLove says
Yikes!! So glad it fell the way it did!
xo,
s
Kim H says
We had a huge sycamore cut down last fall. It sat about two feet from the front porch and was constantly dropping dead limbs and those pesky, thorny balls and clogging our gutters! The tree guys were working a job across the street, we negotiated a $500 fee (a real bargain) for them to come over after they were done.
Robyn says
Honestly, do you like this company more because of the word ‘Shady’? *cougheminemcough*
YoungHouseLove says
Haha! Doesn’t hurt!
xo
s
Stephanie says
A few years ago we had to cut down a big cherry tree that had grown too close to the house. Although we were sad to see it go–particularly since it had been a special tree for my great-grandparents–we are lucky enough to have a woodworker in the family. He took all the wood and created a couple dozen wooden bowls, which he engraved with the family farm’s name, and handed them out at a family reunion. It was a pretty special moment.
Theresa says
There’s a fine line between shade and a safe home. Besides, the extra light will be fabulous!
Allison says
We also just had three giant trees removed at our house. One tree was a locust that had split into four huge trunks off of one main stump. We had renegade squirrels tearing up our deck chairs and building a huge nest in it. They were all too close to our house for my comfort. It left us with a nice open space. Your tip about removing multiple trees at a time for cost is so accurate. Your front and back look great! I love the new stepping stumps.
Melissa N. says
Wow, what a difference to the front of your home! Any chance you guys could plant 5 new trees elsewhere on your property (at a safe distance from the house, of course) to replace the ones that had to be felled? Love your blog!
YoungHouseLove says
We’d love to! We already planted a hydrangea bush from John’s mom (a sweet housewarming gift) and the maple from our last house, but we’d love to bring in a whole lot more as we go!
xo
s
Katie says
THANK YOU for posting this! I have a (very smart and handsome) husband that is determined to cut some trees down (situation is eerily similar) BY HIMSELF. His ingenious idea is to attach a chainsaw blade to a rope and heave-ho it back and forth until the tree falls down, most likely on our house, fence, or us. Maybe this’ll convince him to hire someone. Ya think Shady Tree Service will come to Raleigh?
YoungHouseLove says
Oh I wish they would! They’re such sweet guys!
xo
s
Susan says
Any chance you had Lou Collier do your home inspection? :)
YoungHouseLove says
Whoops, I’m missing the joke. Is he a baseball player?
xo
s
Jessica says
I was really curious as to how they were going to cut the tree in the deck down. How did they get the sections down without damaging the deck? Did the pieces fall to the deck?
YoungHouseLove says
Nothing fell onto the deck. They were magicians. They roped giant chunks, tied them to their truck, and drove hard as soon as they had been cut (creating a pulley system with the truck that pulled them away from the deck and slowly lowered them down). Should have made a video! It was amazing!
xo
s
Carole says
I know you miss the look of the big trees in the front but believe me you will be happy to have a bit more light and the trees further away from the house-I speak from experience. One side of our house is completely shaded and we have mildew/algae problems on the house and windows from the constant green, moist air and no sunlight.
Sarah says
Thank’s for sharing this post! But I have to say I love that you kept the the tree stumps for Clara- very creative and I would love to see you incorporate them into some interesting landscaping!
Scott says
We’ve got a wooded front yard (all of our neighbors have perfect front yards so I want to at least make mine respectable) and I’ve been dreading getting any estimates. Judging by how much work you had done and for the price this will be a long process for us. Seriously, a least 20 trees need to go.
We’re in the area so we’ll check out these guys when we do get estimates.
Ryan says
Did the peeping dear incident remind anyone else of the “ghost” from Three Men and a Baby?
YoungHouseLove says
Hahahahah!
xo
s
Randa says
Perfect timing! We were taking a walk yesterday and saw a Shady Tree Service truck, so we took down the phone number. Great to open this up today and hear that you guys like and recommend them. We’ll have to call them for an estimate.
YoungHouseLove says
So funny! What are the odds?!
xo
s
Randa says
Right??! Well, we do sort of live in their neighborhood, so that probably upped the odds. Mind if I name-drop “John and Sherry”? :)
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, of course! Love those guys!
xo
s
Krissy says
Living in the backwoods and heating our house primarily with a woodstove, we do a lot of tree removal and choppage ourselves (we being the fiance and his friends, I watch while biting my nails). It’s always exciting (read: nerve wracking) to watch them come down.
Sarah G says
This is perfect timing! We need 3 dead pines taken out of our front yard and we have a giant stump next to the driveway that I’d like removed. Thanks for the tips! I will get several estimates, but somehow I then feel bad for the guys who didn’t win the deal. Is that just crazy?
YoungHouseLove says
I feel bad too! I always call them to thank them for their time and tell them we’re going with someone else (instead of leaving them hanging).
xo
s
gena says
Great job! It’s horribly expensive, but the risk to those guys is worth what they charge.
How about making that hole a little bigger and popping in a hot tub???? Clara would love it and I’ll bet you two wouldn’t mind soaking after a hard day of DIY’ing!
gena
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, I would love that! John would veto that in a second…
xo
s
Cara says
Great post, but you left one little detail out–what are you going to do about root decomposition especially with that tree that was in your deck? Had a friend remove a similar tree about three years back and now her windows have to be re-done, etc because the roots from the tree that were near and under the foundation have rotted and caused settling in the foundation. Did your arborist have any words of wisdom?
YoungHouseLove says
From what we understand (both the inspector and arborist were under the deck) the roots weren’t up against our foundation yet, but if the tree remained they would have grown into it, so I think you worry about settling/rotting more when it’s truly under the house’s foundation and then starts to degrade.
xo
s
Sally says
Good for y’all for being pro-active. We just had to have one of our two big trees taken down. Luckily for us, it was in the ROW and therefore the city’s responsibility. Whew!
Donna says
I just love the stepping-stone thing you did with the stumps! You could carve the initials of each family member or something sentimental in them. As far as wildlife goes, we have a little family of wild bunnies in our yard that keep eating all of our plants. It’s worth it, though, when we see them hopping around. So cute!
Donna says
I saw the stumps in the woods and all I could think was ‘Rope Course’. We have a really cool place near us that have zip lines and rope bridges, tree houses etc. They also have a scaled down area for younger kids called the woods. scroll down in the following link if you want to see what I mean.
Wouldn’t it be cool to have a rope swing, clinbing area or tree house back there?
http://www.skiroundtop.com/mt-adventures
YoungHouseLove says
So cool!
xo
s
karen says
we had a few trees removed a few months ago…one was a 40 year old elm :(
my husband is trying to remove the stumps with a backhoe he bought in preparation for our build next spring.
i gotta say (in a not weird creepy way) watching the arborists take down that big tree was a bit of a turn on! hahaha..i swear i’m not creepy!
Vickie says
We’re in the process right now of getting some quotes to get some trees trimmed at our new home (we purchased our first home a couple months back). I’ll be glad when all the trees are trimmed up since a lot hang over the house & we are in hurricane season down here in FL now! EEK!
Krystle @ Color Transformed Family says
I wish we could have this done. We have a huge tree sell than 20′ from the back of our house. Like yours the deck wraps around it but unlike yours there is no way to get a truck back there or a way to haul the tree off if it could be cut. Here’s to hoping it doesn’t fall before we move.
Bethany says
We just recently moved into a new home and had a dead tree removed and a bunch of overhanging branches from other trees lobbed off. My heart aches every time I think of the cost, but it is all for the good of the house. Every time a new piece came off a tree, I held my breath. It was definitely fun to watch!
I know you mentioned patching up the deck seat with more deck wood, but that could be a fun place for a small garden or sandbox for Clara.
Elise says
I snapped this hilarious picture of my girls last year when they were taking down trees on the lot next door: http://bobbleheadbaby.com/?p=2490 They seriously watched to process for hours.
YoungHouseLove says
SO CUTE!
xo
s
Ashley says
If they weren’t so darn heavy, I’d pick up those trunk pieces I see laying around sometimes. Semi-hallow out the middle and it would be a nice planter.
Trisha D. says
We too have been taking down trees and actually wanted to build a table and chairs. But hot dang those things are HEAVY.
I love the photo with the creepy deer, un-edited and real life. Guess it surprises me sometimes that you guys are actually behind the camera on all the beautiful photos. NOT that y’all aren’t capable… Rather behind the scenes are always neat to see.
YoungHouseLove says
Aw thanks Trisha! We love when we can work those behind the scenes cell phone pics in there too!
xo
s
Mala says
We’re having tree work done today too! Doesn’t this look like a great project and use of spare wood? I haven’t tried it yet and my husband doesn’t think it would last, but if you have the wood and the space, it’s worth a try!
http://decorhacks.com/2012/04/diy-stump-planters/
YoungHouseLove says
Really fun!
xo
s
Bonnie says
We just removed a bunch of trees, too! We used a friend to remove them, but he doesn’t have the crane and fancy machinery so we only took down some. To remove the rest we’d have to get a formal crew since what we’re left with now are crazy-leaning trees. Check out what we did!
http://ourhudsonhouse.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/ding-dong-the-sumacs-gone-or-tree-removal-phase-1/
http://ourhudsonhouse.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/enjoy-the-view-or-tree-removal-phase-2/
YoungHouseLove says
Woah, you were busy!
xo
s
Katie Garrett @ sweet pea's says
I have a friend who’s family business is just that! It’s always crazy to see pictures of them higher than homes with a chainsaw. Noooo, thank you! While big trees are beautiful, we had one fall on our house and it is absolutely worth the money for peace of mind knowing that won’t happen.
Stephanie says
Is your house in an HOA neighborhood?
YoungHouseLove says
It has a “covenant” so there are certain rules (fence regulations, getting approval for giant additions, etc) but it’s not really considered to be an HOA, so for things like painting your front door or removing a few trees you don’t need approval. But if you want to bulldoze a giant area of them you’d need to ask since it “changes the landscape of the neighborhood.”
xo
s
Steph Nelson says
I just had a tree removed too. It was too close to the house and in a “Y” shape. The bigger part of the Y was leaning too much towards the house for my liking. It was planted right in the middle of the house (visually, not literally) and now that it is gone it is amazing how much more open and not chopped up the house looks. That line the tree made visually wasn’t very appealing looking back.
Love the giant wood stepping stones. There is a pin on pinterest of a walkway made with pieces like that but close together like a path.
Rachael says
I feel your pain! We have had to bring down two trees right in the front of our home too. One was structurally threatening and the other just stole all of the light from the living room! You have to wonder why anyone thinks of putting them there in the first place!!
Now I have my eye on one in our back yard that casts shadow over our pool by 2pm onwards. I am not generally a fan of tree culling, but when you have literally loads on your property, some of them need to go!
Eri says
I mentioned it in a comment sometime before, but among the first things we did after closing on our house was remove trees. Five in total (plus some monster shrubs… they weren’t “shrubs” anymore given their overgrown size, though). So I nodded at every single word of your post.
First gone were two cedar trees beside the house, which were way SO TOO close to the foundation, with half of the canopies hanging over the roof.
But the real issue was a monstrous twin-trunk silver maple in the backyard which had taken over the world. Monstrous, I mean it. First, the silver maple is one of the worst trees for residential space. It grows super fast, quickly getting out of control. Yet the previous owners just let it be over decades! And it has quite brittle wood, so blows the wind, and you will see a bunch of branches falling down onto your yard. And its extensive, shallow root system. Bad, real bad. We couldn’t do anything to the backyard because of its widespread surface roots.
We waited for a couple of months, till late fall, because with all the leaves on the job would be an extremely demanding one. Plus we knew there would be some discount during the late fall through early spring season (they need to keep their guys busy). Then Hurricane Sandy hit. Just when we were going to hire our tree guys. A big rotten branch came down onto the detached garage and damaged its roof (everything else was safe — could have been worse!)
So now that it’s gone forever (along with the surface roots) I feel exactly the same as “we’re glad they’re taken care of and we don’t have to stress every time we hear that a storm is coming.” The quote was probably about the same as yours or perhaps a bit higher, but for us that was one of those “money well spent” projects.
If I may add to your tips,
(1) Quotes can wildly differ among contractors. In our case, the highest and the lowest were more than twice as different. So getting multiple quotes is a must. We subscribe to Angie’s list, which helped decide who to get a quote from (and discounts or coupons may be offered through Angie’s).
(2) There may be some winter season discount (this may not be the case in warm regions). If your tree(s) is not imminently dangerous, you can wait… (hindsight 50/50, but we failed :()
(3) Never never never ever never plant the silver maple. Never never never ever let it stay.
I’m happy this fall we won’t have to clean up all the fallen leaves that monster shook off each and every moment :)
Kacey W. says
My husband and I had three dead trees in the back yard of our house when we bought it. We did two by ourselves – one literally got pulled down (roots popped up and everything!) and one we chainsawed, but the last was too big. And we two thirty somethings were captivated watching the professional guys take the last tree down! Almost made the price tag a little more bearable :-)
Alisha says
You remember that story I told you yesterday about Young Alisha, Defender of Trees? Well, nobody tell her that one day she marries a man who cuts down multiple trees (HIMSELF!!!) in their 1/2 acre yard in the city!
Previous owners had lined the property line with what my husband calls “weed trees” (no, not actual marijuana, just really weak, hollow trees) and since our neighbor had erected a wooden privacy fence on their side, we removed the chain link fencing that the trees were actually GROWING THROUGH on our side!!! One tree was actually being supported by the top pole of the rickety chain link framing–eek!–and another was doing a back bend over the neighbors wood fence. They were also planted dangerously close together–maybe 5 foot spacing–and about 40+ feet tall.
I was really sad to think about cutting them down–they completely blocked the view of rental units on an adjacent street behind us–but last year we realized that we had to at least take down two (mentioned above) for safety reasons. And when the next door renters moved out last summer and the place sat empty for a month we leapt at the chance to do it when we wouldn’t have any neighbors to upset. It was also convenient to drive our truck into their backyard for cleanup (backbend tree was completely over their yard and not ours) and after a couple hours no one would even know there had been a tree there!
About three weeks ago we took down two more that were pretty sickly from the same clump of trees. The ones that remain now have space to grow!
And fear not fellow tree lovers! We still have plenty of trees all around our yard for shade and greenery. Plus, we just planted a 12′ Green Weeping Beech that was a gift from my father-in-law–we had always admired a similar 30′ specimen in their yard–now we get to watch our very own grow over the years!