An employee from a tree company that contacted me via my ad on Craigslist about trading services called today - they stopped by to see our tree. Yes, something should be done about our tree.. quickly. Yes, cabling it is an option.
He gave me a competitive quote for tree removal and then I asked him about cabling.. he gave me another very competitive quote for that as well. We talked a little bit about the barter, but it was his boss who spoke with me previously about that, so he wasn't quite sure. But something would happen.
They were at our house and ready to get to work. Tyler wasn't home, so I gave him a call. Then I called the tree guys again. Then we settled on cabling. It would buy us some more time with the tree.
Tree pros:
- Shade over our roof in the hot hot summer sun.
- We lost many trees in the 2011 tornado, our street would become even more bare if our tree were gone.
- It's basically our only substantial tree.
- A house with a tree is a lot more attractive than a house without - we're hoping to sell our house soon.
So a team of around 5 guys got to work. I was starting to feel a little bad about the trade.. lots of guys working for a few hours out in the cold for not much of a monetary profit.
Tyler came home and observed some of the tree work.
Confidence in the cabling seemed to be diminishing. By the time they were ready to go the main guy kept reducing the amount of time he thought it might help the tree. But if the tree does poorly and we want the entire thing removed, they'll take the total of this work off of the total of the entire removal.
And then it turned out that the boss wasn't interested in a barter for a cheaper job (which I completely understand). The barter was for removal of the tree. So.. that didn't happen. But I didn't mind.. I just wanted something done to it and was glad it was. And it was cheap.
So the cabling may not last as long as we'd like but we were reassured that if the tree does split the cables will hold it together and if, somehow, some part of the tree that is very close to our house does fall onto our house.. it's only about a foot away and wouldn't fall suddenly, so it would most likely rest on the edge of our roof and maybe bend the gutter.. The main tree guy said that a branch falling from up high would be more damaging than the big limb "falling" from where it is, so close to our house.
Fingers crossed we don't get any terrible storms anytime soon. And fingers crossed that the force of the tree being cabled helps it heal a little, or at least slows the rot that will happen in the crack.
Poor tree. :(
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