Florida is known for hurricanes and with strong winds, you get lots of yard debris. Well, moving to Tennessee I thought I was done with cleaning up after storms, but no, mother nature decided to visit me earlier this week and knocked one of my 100' red oaks down.
My yard has a number of big trees and I enjoy them immensely. I love big trees and I bought a house with many of them. But I found out that they can cause a lot of trouble. At 4:30 in the morning my wife and I were startled out of the bed with a loud boom that hit with enough force to rattle the house. We jumped out of bed and scrambled to find out what happened. The power was out in the house so we grabbed a flashlight and headed downstairs where we found my son outside of the basement door with his torch. My daughter was still asleep through the whole thing (story to follow).
I was pretty lucky. When it fell it missed my RV and the house, only clipping the deck.
A general indicator of the size of this tree. See what appears to be a lighter color line. The top of that is at the top of my thigh while I'm standing next to it. The trunk is about 40" in diameter.
Well, since I moved away from Florida and wouldn't need the debris removal tools that I had collected for hurricanes and such, I threw out all that stuff. A quick trip to the homer depot and I collected some tools to get to work. The family started clearing brush to see what was underneath.
Getting it cleared and checking the damage.
I know that some of the structure is damaged. I asked some of the Town of Farragut (my local municipality) to come and take a look at the damage and give an opinion. They believe that the entire deck structure needs to be replaced because of concerns of hidden damage. This part is apparent.
The concern is that the tree pushed the entire deck and could have sheared some of the fasteners that hold the deck against the house. Some of that damage could be hidden. I've been looking and found some additional cracks in the doubled 2x12's so I am thinking a new deck is in order. I will get a contractor out soon. Unfortunately, this weather event affected a very large area and there's damage to many homes in the area. Mine isn't so bad so it'll probably be a few months until it can get fixed. Just in time for spring!!
So, my daughter slept through the entire thing. She never poked her head out of her room or anything. So in the morning, I sent her a text saying she needed to clean a few leaves and some twigs that had fallen overnight before she could go to the movies with her friends (she had the day off from school because of voting). She says "ok" and then I get a text "I need to call you asap!". So I call her and say what's up? She is frantic, "dad, I don't know if you looked outside but this is more serious than some twigs! A whole tree is down and I don't know how to clean it up! Can I still go to the movies!" I laughed and she was relieved!
Today I'll start cutting up the main part of the tree. I will have a bit of firewood I am sure. I just bought a rick and had a half left over from last year so we should be warm this winter!
My yard has a number of big trees and I enjoy them immensely. I love big trees and I bought a house with many of them. But I found out that they can cause a lot of trouble. At 4:30 in the morning my wife and I were startled out of the bed with a loud boom that hit with enough force to rattle the house. We jumped out of bed and scrambled to find out what happened. The power was out in the house so we grabbed a flashlight and headed downstairs where we found my son outside of the basement door with his torch. My daughter was still asleep through the whole thing (story to follow).
I was pretty lucky. When it fell it missed my RV and the house, only clipping the deck.
A general indicator of the size of this tree. See what appears to be a lighter color line. The top of that is at the top of my thigh while I'm standing next to it. The trunk is about 40" in diameter.
Well, since I moved away from Florida and wouldn't need the debris removal tools that I had collected for hurricanes and such, I threw out all that stuff. A quick trip to the homer depot and I collected some tools to get to work. The family started clearing brush to see what was underneath.
Getting it cleared and checking the damage.
I know that some of the structure is damaged. I asked some of the Town of Farragut (my local municipality) to come and take a look at the damage and give an opinion. They believe that the entire deck structure needs to be replaced because of concerns of hidden damage. This part is apparent.
The concern is that the tree pushed the entire deck and could have sheared some of the fasteners that hold the deck against the house. Some of that damage could be hidden. I've been looking and found some additional cracks in the doubled 2x12's so I am thinking a new deck is in order. I will get a contractor out soon. Unfortunately, this weather event affected a very large area and there's damage to many homes in the area. Mine isn't so bad so it'll probably be a few months until it can get fixed. Just in time for spring!!
So, my daughter slept through the entire thing. She never poked her head out of her room or anything. So in the morning, I sent her a text saying she needed to clean a few leaves and some twigs that had fallen overnight before she could go to the movies with her friends (she had the day off from school because of voting). She says "ok" and then I get a text "I need to call you asap!". So I call her and say what's up? She is frantic, "dad, I don't know if you looked outside but this is more serious than some twigs! A whole tree is down and I don't know how to clean it up! Can I still go to the movies!" I laughed and she was relieved!
Today I'll start cutting up the main part of the tree. I will have a bit of firewood I am sure. I just bought a rick and had a half left over from last year so we should be warm this winter!
Maybe put in a Craigslist ad, free wood! Glad it missed the house!!
Comment