It’s not uncommon for trees to topple over in the winter months, threatening people’s homes and their lives.
One man who has been working to keep that from happening is Glen Sulski of Crieve Hall Tree Service, but on Wednesday, he was bringing trees down with the intention of having them hit a house.
“Normally I’m engineering to try to avoid hitting a house, but today we get to hit a house!” Sulski exclaimed.
The reason Sulski was dropping trees onto a house was mainly because the house will be demolished and the owner wanted the trees gone, but he’s also doing it in hopes that he can help educate people on tree safety.
“A tree could look healthy from the outside and be completely hollow on the inside,” Sulski explained, adding that over time, trees can get weak, rot out from the center, even rot into the roots of the tree, and then one day, simply fall over.
WEB EXTRA VIDEO: Winter Tree Safety
“I hope that people take note and look around their yard,” Sulski said.
But it’s important to look beyond your yard and into your neighbors’ yards as well.
“If a homeowner owns a tree and it falls onto your house, it goes onto your insurance policy,” Sulski explained.
If you’re worried about a neighbors tree toppling down onto your house and becoming your responsibility, Sulski said you can have a tree service come assess any trees you have questions about and decide whether the tree is hazardous.
If it is a hazardous tree and you alert your neighbor whose property the tree is on, the responsibility and liability of anything that happens as a result of that tree falling is shifted to them.
There are many ways to spot a hazardous tree, including the bark coming off of the side of the tree, if the tree gains a light, white color that wasn’t there before, if limbs have broken off and are hanging from the tree, or if there are holes in the tree that were not there before.
While all of these can be signs of a hazardous or rotting tree, there can also be very minor signs as well, or no signs at all. The best way to tell if a tree is hazardous on your property or around your property is to reach out to a tree expert to inspect the trees near your home.
To learn more, you can reach out to Glen Sulski at Crieve Hall Tree Service at 615-293-1601 or through email by clicking here.
