Proactive work to save property

[Fullbranch]

Howdy!

Just wrapped up a small removal job and it had me thinking. Today was nothing too technical, 70' poplar leaning hard toward a garage/apartment with some serious soft rot 2/3 up the trunk. Swung the tree around and avoided the garage no problem, but it had me thinking, how much money/time/resources would it have cost the homeowner had the tree fallen naturally into the structure. I do some carpentry on the side and my best estimate would have been roughly 2 or 3 days in labor to replace siding, roofing, and basic interior finish. Say $1800 + materials or so, said and done. I bid the job much lower than that with some additional pruning and small removal over the driveway and large snag over a walking path.
What I am curious to know is how much money you all save in preemptive tree care, whether it be removals or pruning or cabling, etc. Apart from insurance work I believe that most of us operate in a preemptive manner, removing and trimming to prevent insurance claims. There is obviously a lot of room for interpretation and extrapolation, but it would be great to hear what folks think they save in property damage in a given week/month/year.

 

[Jonny]

I’d agree, a lot of residential work is a preventative measure. Gotta consider that with hazardous and dangerous trees there may be more at risk than just property, life and limb even. It happens.
I love the peace of mind in knowing that my home and family aren’t in danger every time there’s high wind.

Welcome man! Good topic

 

[SomethingWitty]

Howdy!

Just wrapped up a small removal job and it had me thinking. Today was nothing too technical, 70' poplar leaning hard toward a garage/apartment with some serious soft rot 2/3 up the trunk. Swung the tree around and avoided the garage no problem, but it had me thinking, how much money/time/resources would it have cost the homeowner had the tree fallen naturally into the structure. I do some carpentry on the side and my best estimate would have been roughly 2 or 3 days in labor to replace siding, roofing, and basic interior finish. Say $1800 + materials or so, said and done. I bid the job much lower than that with some additional pruning and small removal over the driveway and large snag over a walking path.
What I am curious to know is how much money you all save in preemptive tree care, whether it be removals or pruning or cabling, etc. Apart from insurance work I believe that most of us operate in a preemptive manner, removing and trimming to prevent insurance claims. There is obviously a lot of room for interpretation and extrapolation, but it would be great to hear what folks think they save in property damage in a given week/month/year.

People save far less than they think.
I appease many people with perfectly harmless trees by taking small cuts and giving them the minimum amount of space that they are okay with. It is sometimes hard to convince people to not be mean to their trees because they are scared of them.
Most of the deadwood that I remove is aesthetic rather than dangerous, and much of the pruning for clearance is to keep the tree from paying later when someone else says "Yeah, that is close! I'll cut it back!"
There are definitely exceptions, but most standard pruning goes to the people who call and pay rather than to the ones who have real hazards to address. Probably most of the removals as well.

 

[Fullbranch]

People save far less than they think.
I appease many people with perfectly harmless trees by taking small cuts and giving them the minimum amount of space that they are okay with. It is sometimes hard to convince people to not be mean to their trees because they are scared of them.
Most of the deadwood that I remove is aesthetic rather than dangerous, and much of the pruning for clearance is to keep the tree from paying later when someone else says "Yeah, that is close! I'll cut it back!"
There are definitely exceptions, but most standard pruning goes to the people who call and pay rather than to the ones who have real hazards to address. Probably most of the removals as well.

I totally agree with you, one doesn't need to look much further than topping trees because they are getting too tall, and scary!

Obviously it's important to outline the consequences for inaction to property owners when there is legitimate threat to property or life, but what sparked the idea was insurance claims and our reactionary societal systems.

I'm pretty environmentally conscious and just think of how much unnecessary work/fuel/time/etc. goes into fixing a problem that could have been avoided. It's a real wonder why homeowners insurance doesn't cover preemptive measures that could save everyone time and money...

 

[Fullbranch]

Oh and a thank you for the welcome, I've lurked for quite some time but its good to be out of the shadows!

 

[evo]

I saved a client easily 5 digits if not much more.. He bought a stump farm, and was replanting doug firs, the entire 5 acres was logged minus a buffer zone a few trees deep (also doug fir) and he wanted to build a house as close to the trees as possible. I found laminated root rot in most of the stumps and the remainder looked like shit. Told him to rework his whole plan, and build his house in the middle of the lot, and consider clearing the rest due to the proximity of neighboring homes and structures.
All for $100 bucks... and a viable direction for the long haul of the property..

 

[Treehuggn4life]

I do have to agree that most of what we do is to give the home owner a warm fuzzy feeling. There are a few exceptions though. Here in Colorado I have spent 20 years doing fire mitigation work. When I was living in the mountains it was my bread and butter.
During my recent stint in the department of corrections I was on an inmate fire fighting crew. My experience as a wildland firefighter gave me a whole new outlook on mitigation work. Once you see houses burned to the ground it kinda causes a paradigm shift. Of course not every home can be saved but when trees are torching , firefighters will triage the homes that can be saved and those are usually the ones that have had fire mitigation work done to them. Defensible space is paramount. I'm not talking about clear cutting 300 ft around a home, but rather sensible thinning and pruning. I have spent a whole day in a big ponderosa pine picking out every twig of dead. In the past I just thought it made them look cleaner but now I understand the value of it. Once you have seen a fire crown in the canopy you will see things in a whole new light. Wildland firefighters fight fire on the ground by removing the fuels. Once it crowns all we can do is pull back and watch. We call that the Kodak moment.

I have a feeling that I am going to be selling A lot of fire mitigation work from here on out. I can truly see the value of it now. With the climate changing like it is even a blind man can see the trends. Just look at California and our poor friends Down Under.

 

[evo]

I do have to agree that most of what we do is to give the home owner a warm fuzzy feeling. There are a few exceptions though. Here in Colorado I have spent 20 years doing fire mitigation work. When I was living in the mountains it was my bread and butter.
During my recent stint in the department of corrections I was on an inmate fire fighting crew. My experience as a wildland firefighter gave me a whole new outlook on mitigation work. Once you see houses burned to the ground it kinda causes a paradigm shift. Of course not every home can be saved but when trees are torching , firefighters will triage the homes that can be saved and those are usually the ones that have had fire mitigation work done to them. Defensible space is paramount. I'm not talking about clear cutting 300 ft around a home, but rather sensible thinning and pruning. I have spent a whole day in a big ponderosa pine picking out every twig of dead. In the past I just thought it made them look cleaner but now I understand the value of it. Once you have seen a fire crown in the canopy you will see things in a whole new light. Wildland firefighters fight fire on the ground by removing the fuels. Once it crowns all we can do is pull back and watch. We call that the Kodak moment.

I have a feeling that I am going to be selling A lot of fire mitigation work from here on out. I can truly see the value of it now. With the climate changing like it is even a blind man can see the trends. Just look at California and our poor friends Down Under.

Aye, It's certainly a different ball game these days. It would be unheard of to sell fire mitigation work here in the NW corner of washington state 10 years ago (when i first started studying it). Now its taking hold! Talk about Red rock Green rock.. They say that doesn't happen any more, but I can tell you that it's more unspoken, firefighters don't risk lives if they know it's a lost cause.