Holy cow, this wind! My wife counted 27 trees on our property, and some of them are getting whipped around pretty good right now. We've been hearing them scrape against the house and windows for a couple of hours now.

How did the trees hold up? My neighbor had a couple dead ash trees killed by the emerald ash borers and a strong wind a couple months ago took down One of them destroying my chain link fence. Hopefully you had no such problem.

Sorry about your fence. Chain link has a tendency to kink when trees fall. Its not real hard to repair, but you need parts. For a long time I was "second in command" at a club I belong to. Then the chief fixer turned it all over to me. Thanks.

On the bright side, If the tree was already dead and visibly so, its the owners responsibility to take it down before it causes damage to adjoining property. Most decent neighbors are willing to at least share the work load. As anyone who has ever paid to remove a tree knows, it ain't cheap. Most folks with a chain saw and fireplace just smile about it. Hence the term windfall.

Its why you don't leave a dead tree standing. It costs more in the end to pay after it falls. Usually on the neighbors car. Or house. If all you lost was some fencing, you're lucky.

Any that are weakened or compromised next to the house should go. Not sure I’d even want branches rubbing the house.

I always have an eye open for firewood, UT is a little to far though.

Winds died down overnight, but still some gusts this morning. Gusts were up to 60 mph.

We had to drop two 70 yr old oaks this spring. Their roots were growing over themselves and choking off water. Dying from the top down and close to the house.

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We had to drop two 70 yr old oaks this spring.

Same here, a couple of years ago.
The 100-year old white oaks are magnificent trees but when they are close to a house they can and eventually will cause big problems.

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On the bright side, If the tree was already dead and visibly so, its the owners responsibility to take it down before it causes damage to adjoining property.

Here in FL unless you put the dead trees property owner on written notice, you have no claim against them for any damages or cleanup of a dead tree that falls onto your property.

Link 2 Law info

I used to have two pine trees in the corner of my back yard. Then one night I only had one. In the middle of winter when it was already dark when I got home from work, my next door neighbor came knocking on my door in the evening. "Did you know that one of your trees fell down last night?" No, I didn't. We went out to look and sure enough one of the two trees had fallen right into the slot between my house and his. No damage except it collapsed part of the fence. So I had it removed and the fence repaired.

Then I talked to my homeowner's insurance guy. "Will you pay the cost for me to have that 2nd tree removed before it falls on my house or my neighbor's house?" Nope. They'll pay tens or hundreds of thousands to repair or rebuild a crushed house, but they won't proactively pay a few hundred to have a dangerous tree removed. The remaining tree was already leaning noticeably more (toward my house) than it had been before. It seemed like a no-brainer to me. Sooner or later that tree IS going to fall on my house, so why in hell wouldn't you rather pay out $1K now than $150K later??? Logic and common sense mean nothing to these people, all they know or care about is statistics and probabilities. So yeah, I paid to have the 2nd tree removed too, before it decided to fall over.

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They'll pay tens or hundreds of thousands to repair or rebuild a crushed house, but they won't proactively pay a few hundred to have a dangerous tree removed

Sadly this is one of the oldest "basic" ways insurers try to limit their losses. Actual damage is easy to quantify mathematically; dealing with prospective damage means guessing whether the damage will or will not occur in a specific place and time. Your world can seem a little skewed when you deal with risk by pooling and by algorithm.

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Originally posted by Expert308:
... so why in hell wouldn't you rather pay out $1K now than $150K later??? Logic and common sense mean nothing to these people, all they know or care about is statistics and probabilities. So yeah, I paid to have the 2nd tree removed too, before it decided to fall over.

Kinda answered your own question there.

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Then I talked to my homeowner's insurance guy. "Will you pay the cost for me to have that 2nd tree removed before it falls on my house or my neighbor's house?" Nope. They'll pay tens or hundreds of thousands to repair or rebuild a crushed house, but they won't proactively pay a few hundred to have a dangerous tree removed. T

Simple really, insurance is there to make you whole in the case of an accident, damage, fire, etc. It's not there to pay to prevent damage to your property, that's your expense and responsibility, no different than health care or auto insurance.

Would you call up your auto carrier and ask them to pay for an uber so you don't drive home drunk and possibly wreck your car, of course not, it's not a realistic proposition..

Well maybe you would, depending on how many tequila shooters the blond in the mini skirt challenged you to hit, before she left with the other guy.... and now you are drunk and can't walk...

Logic and common sense is that you take care of your problem before it becomes a bigger problem, personal responsibility.

To further explain, how does XYZ company know that if they pay it, you'll continue to pay them for coverage, next year, the year after that, and for how long.

They could mitigate the future damages, pay for the tree only to find the customer doesn't renew with them, and that tree could have stayed up until the next carrier takes over.

Anyway besides all the if's and whats, its insurance, it isn't a warranty pre-existing service plan on your property.

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They'll pay tens or hundreds of thousands to repair or rebuild a crushed house, but they won't proactively pay a few hundred to have a dangerous tree removed. The remaining tree was already leaning noticeably more (toward my house) than it had been before. It seemed like a no-brainer to me. Sooner or later that tree IS going to fall on my house, so why in hell wouldn't you rather pay out $1K now than $150K later??? Logic and common sense mean nothing to these people, all they know or care about is statistics and probabilities. So yeah, I paid to have the 2nd tree removed too, before it decided to fall over.

^^^^^^
If the tree falls on your house they will pay to cut it off your house, NOTHING MORE. Cutting up the rest of the tree, grinding the stump and hauling it off is your responsibility. It is best to pay someone to remove the tree now. I have had trees on my house and it is expensive and inconvenient to say the least.

Well, fortunately, all our trees made it through the night. But wow - what a windstorm!

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Originally posted by 4x5:
Well, fortunately, all our trees made it through the night. But wow - what a windstorm!

Are you close to any of the fires? I'd be more worried about that.

Jim

When the weather is better, I would look into getting some branches cut down. It’s not good to have them scraping your house under any conditions.

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Originally posted by Jimbo54:

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Originally posted by 4x5:
Well, fortunately, all our trees made it through the night. But wow - what a windstorm!

Are you close to any of the fires? I'd be more worried about that.

Jim

Yeah, those were something else. We are just down the street about 2 or 3 miles from the Traverse Mountain fire, so we were pretty safe.

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Originally posted by PowerSurge:
When the weather is better, I would look into getting some branches cut down. It’s not good to have them scraping your house under any conditions.

Agreed