A Tree Fell on our House!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

WE were trying to avoid this.

There was a big oak tree next to our house. It provided good shade, and our laundry line was attached to it. Several years ago, lightning struck it, and a branch the size of a tree itself fell down. It missed our house, but twisted our daughter’s heavy wooden playset askew and completely mangled a chair. The scar in the side has been gradually growing over, but this summer we noticed a hole, and called in the tree people. They carefully took it down, and we discovered that the carpenter ants had excavated a hole a foot in diameter and 3-4 feet long in the center.

We were glad we took it down before the strong winds came.

Forward to last wee. The Big Winds came, taking down trees all over New England.

No problem! We had already taken down our tree.
Problem – it wasn’t the only tree. After I used the bathroom and shaved on Thursday, I went into the kitchen to take my pills and feed the cats, and I noticed an AWFUL lot of leaves right next to the house. I ran to the bathroom and pulled up the shade. All I could see were leaves. I looked out the den window. Only leaves.
“Woah!” I said, channeling my inner Keanu Reeves.

My wide, Pepper Mill, was instantly awake,

“I heard you say ‘Whoa’” she observed.

“Come out here and have a look,” I replied.

When she saw, she said “Whoa!” too.

I ran out the side door in only my pajama bottoms, with bare feet (and it’s COLD in the morning now). There was a tree, horizontal, its crown against our house and up on the roof.
I checked on our daughter, MilliCal, against whose bedroom most of the tree had fallen. She was alright, but very surprised when she pulled up her windowshade.

The oak tree in the back of the house had come down in the windstorm sometime the previous night. It was torn up by the roots. Or, rather, where the roots should have been. The tree was growing on a “submerged” rock shelf, and had no roots going straight down. It’s a wonder it had stayed up as long as it had.

Damage: Two window screens. No windows were broken. No obvious damage to gutter, downspouts, or siding. When I checked the attic, there was no obvious sign of anything.

The tree had fallen against our house, and we slept through it. Pepper Mill thought she might have heard a slight noise in the night, like the mailbox closing.

When we had a better look, I was even more surprised. SEveral branches had broken off, and the sharp tips had embedded themselves deeply in the ground.

We arranged for a tree surgeon – the same guys as last time – to come out and take care of it. We filed a claim with the insurance company. We had it al done within three hours of seeing the tree down.

Now the insurance people have been out, seeing no damage. The tree people have been by and sawed up the tree, hauled it away, wood-chipped the smaller branches, and ground the stump. It turns out that there WAS carpenter ant damage to the tree, but that wasn’t what had caused it to topple.

Now I’ve got a lot of divots in my yard to fix, and a lot of firewood to burn. But we were VERY lucky.

2

Sooo…… your saying it didn’t make a sound?

3

That was scary. Are you planning to check the rest of your trees for carpenter ants? I would.

4

Yeah. I had that happen to me. It ended up breaking the main ridge beam of my house, damaging that chimney, breaking some rafters. The good news is I was well-insured, and everything was repairable.

StG

5

We’re thinking about it. Two of our neighbor’s trees were also hollowed out by ants, and now two of ours.

6

I hope you have a fireplace or wood stove!
~VOW

7

Remember when Rita came through?

My mother called me. “Could you come over with your camera?”

This was not a good sign. “Why?” I asked.

“Remember the big oak tree at the foot of the lower stairs?”

Yup , not a good sign. “Yes?”

“It’s in your old bedroom…”
The tree was basically a 50’ pipe, filled with 30’ of high quality loam and raccoon poo.
The grass was VERY green around where the tree was for the next few years.

We moved a decade ago, and there was still one oak left of the 6 that were there when we moved in. All were in the three foot wide trunk range, but that one was in a less than windy area.

8

If I called my wife a “wide” I would be eating leaves for a long time.

Dennis

9

Lucky indeed. A big oak coming down can destroy a house. A couple of window screens is nothing. And good work getting the other tree out of the way first, the wind gusts that came through the other day were crazy, I’m still amazed we didn’t lose power.

10

For a couple wees, at least.

11

This particular tree was apparently not in the forest. . . .

Maybe city trees don’t make sound?

12

Obviously that’s a typo, but do you mean weeds or weefs?

13

It’s a suburban area, so If a Tree Falls in the Suburbs and No One’;s Awake, Does It Make a Sound?

14

Weeks.

15

We live at 4000 feet in a mountain forest; mostly cedars and DougFirs here. I heard a THUD on the bedroom roof a couple of winters ago. I looked outside the next morning… and a damn 150-foot DougFir had fallen. Well, the top half, which reached my roof and then some. Fortunately, three feet of snow lay on the roof, cushioning the shock. No damage, hallelujah! But now we cut down the leaners before they have a chance to whack us.

I know a coastal California woman who came home one night too drunk to crawl to her bedroom so she collapsed on the sofa. Hurricane-force winds blew a giant redwood on her house… SMASH on her bed! If she’d been sober, she’d have been killed. A moral lurks there somewhere. Maybe: It’s an ill limb that brings no good.

16

You had a near thing, Cal. Glad you emerged with minimum damage.

We had an icestorm here about 25 years ago. 200,000 trees down or damaged. Our electric lines ran across the back lot lines of the street for aesthetic reasons. Our back neighbor has a small grove of trees, mostly quick-growing, tall trash trees. (Not their fault: we had them too, like everybody in the neighborhood.) A half dozen of them fell over and landed on the power lines, which kept them from crashing into our yard. Ever since then we’ve been taking down tree after tree and planting smaller ones that won’t grow to that size.

17

Not necessarily.

FTR, I hate that pig, but it just seems so appropriate.

18

Believe it or not, I was there for that ice storm. Got into town just before it arrived, and got stuck in my motel. I got to see the flashes from transformers exploding, and was stuck in town in a motel with no power. At least I had a place to say.

In a way, it’s fortunate I was there. I slogged through the ice and snow to surprise a friend nearby, and I found that they’d set up their emergency generator in a place where it would vent INTO the house. I helped them move it out to the garage. Enough monoxide got into the house, still, to give them headaches, but at least they were alive.

19

Cool. You’re a Science Hero!

20

Wow! You were super lucky!

We bought our current house almost exactly 6 years ago. At the time it had a huge oak tree on one side, just ten feet from the house. The trunk was a good 4 feet across at the base, and the top sort of enveloped half the house.

A few summers back it rained every single day for like a month and a half straight, then it got super windy. The oak tree is just outside the window at the bottom of the stairs, and one night I walked down the stairs and noticed the tree wasn’t quite where it was supposed to be. I went outside to look and saw the massive tree was heaved up halfway out of the ground and the top was leaning on the very corner of the back of the house.

I called my home insurance who told me to call an emergency tree service and they’d cover it. I had a crew come out the next morning, they brought a crane and a dump truck and spent the whole day sawing it up and hauling away huge chunks.

Actual damage to the house was minimal, and it could have been quite disastrous otherwise. Had it not clipped the corner of the house, it would have fallen onto the house behind us and most likely would have completely destroyed it.

And because it had hit the house, insurance paid out immediately, pretty much no questions asked. They just paid the tree guy directly. Had it not damaged the house, from what I’ve been told, insurance probably still would have paid eventually, but it would have been a hassle.

After it was removed (we had them cut a couple of slices from the trunk to save), I counted the rings on the stump. I believe I got up to 109, and I’m sure I missed more than a few that were very close together.

We were sad to see it go, it was a very nice tree that seemed otherwise perfectly healthy, and it was one of the reasons we bought the house.

OTOH, removing it did permanently solve my annual “literal-shit-ton-of-leaves” problem.