Thursday, July 28, 2011

Oak Tree Removal

There are two very large Oak trees in front of our house. I'm pretty sure they are as old as the house. There used to be three but one was hit by lightning years ago and came down. I removed the stump from that one last year with the help of a friend and his back hoe. The root ball was over 6 feet in diameter and lifted the front wheels of the tractor 4 feet off the ground when we picked it up with the back hoe arm.

The next tree over (the one that would have originally been in the middle of the three)  was starting to look really bad, there is a large rot hole at the top of the trunk where a large limb had fallen off many years ago. It's been getting steadily larger over time.





I've become increasingly concerned that the tree will come down on the house in a storm so I spoke with the city about taking it down as it's in the right-of-way on their property. The city council voted to have an arborist come out and make an assessment of the tree and go ahead and take it down if that's what the arborist recommended.

The arborist came out and immediately recommended that the tree come down. The city got the tree removal service out a few days later.





Look at that trunk, almost all heart. Too bad I dont have a sawmill handy.




They had to cut the trunk in half because it was too heavy for their crane to pick up.




I hate to see the tree go but it was becoming too much of a danger to the house and us.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow that was a big tree. Too bad you didn't have them leave it and hire someone with a bandsaw to come cut that into boards you could use. That's what we did with the large black walnut and cherry trees we had to cut down. On the bright side at least you can see your house now. : )

Anonymous said...

It's sad to see an old tree like that go, but it's nice to see your house! I bet your yard feels completely different.

We had two big oak trees in our front yard cut down last fall when we had the driveway re-poured. I was really sad to see them go, but one was really rotted and the other would have been too close to the new concrete. Now that they're gone, though, I'm loving all of the extra light and how much bigger the front yard feels.

Anonymous said...

I always feel sorry when seeing old trees taken down but sometimes it has to happen. Are you planing on replacing them with new trees or leaving it open?

Laura said...

A shame to lose the tree, but necessary. I've just discovered your blog - love it!

f.paul said...
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