Storm damage and fallen tree cleanup

Storm work is the part of this trade where speed genuinely matters, and it is where we have built a lot of our reputation. Somebody replies fast, usually the same day, and if the situation is urgent we will tell you honestly how quickly we can be there rather than booking you in and hoping.

The first thing that gets dealt with is anything still hanging. A limb that has split but not fallen is the most dangerous thing on a storm site, because it is holding on by a hinge of wood that is already failing and nobody can tell when it lets go. Those come out first, from the bucket or off a line, before anybody starts clearing the ground. If a tree is across a drive, a roof or a fence, we work out what is holding what before anything is cut, because a stem under tension moves when you free it.

Then it is clearing. Whole trees sectioned down and loaded out, brush chipped, limbs cut into manageable lengths, the ground raked and the beds cleared. Storm debris is always more material than it looks, because a crown that came apart spreads across a much bigger area than the tree ever occupied. We bring the trailer and the chipper on the assumption that there is more of it than you told us, which is usually true.

A lot of storm work is also about what is left standing. A tree that lost half its crown is now unbalanced and often has torn wood where the limb came out. Sometimes that can be cleaned up and the tree kept. Sometimes the damage has taken enough of the structure that the honest answer is removal. We tell you which one it is while we are there, so you are not making that call twice.

If your insurance is involved, tell us at the estimate. We can write the work up clearly so you have something to hand over, and we will keep the photographs from the job. We do not give numbers over the phone in a storm any more than any other week, because a tree down on a house is exactly the situation where an unseen number is wrong. Send the address and somebody comes and looks.

One thing we will not do is promise round the clock response, because nobody running one honest crew can keep that promise when the whole county rings on the same morning. What we will do is answer, tell you truthfully where you are in the queue and what we can get to today, and make anything genuinely dangerous safe first. Customers who have been let down by somebody who said yes to everything tend to find that refreshing.

Storm work also throws up jobs that are not tree work at all. Fence runs flattened, a gate torn off, beds full of debris, a lawn that has been driven across. Because the landscaping and the fencing are ours as well, that all gets dealt with by the same crew rather than needing a second company and a second wait. Estimates are free, they happen at the property, and most jobs are quoted the same day we look.