Along the Wasatch Front, the two things that break trees are wind and heavy wet snow, and the wet snow does the quiet damage because it loads a canopy that still has leaves on it. What you are left with afterward is not usually a tree lying in the yard. It is a limb that broke and did not fall, sitting up in the canopy over the driveway, or a fork that opened and is now held together by a strip of wood. Those are the calls worth making immediately.
The useful question after a storm is not how bad the tree looks. It is what is underneath the broken part. A shattered limb over an empty corner of the yard can wait until the phones calm down. The same limb hanging over the walk your kids use, the car, the gas meter or the front door is an urgent job, because hung wood comes down on its own schedule and nobody gets a warning. Triage the target first, then worry about how the tree will look when it is over.
Rope off or block the area beneath hanging wood, move the cars, and keep kids and pets out. Distance is the only protection you have until a crew is there.
Trace where limbs are contacting wires, including the service drop to your house. If anything touches a line, call the utility and treat the ground beneath it as dangerous.
Wide shots and close shots from where you are standing. They help whoever quotes it plan the work, and they are useful later if a claim gets involved.
Tell us what the wood is hanging over and how high it is. That is how a crew ranks the call. Phone 801-823-6018 and be plain about what is at risk.
Storm work costs more than the same work planned in advance, and it is worth understanding why. Damaged wood is under tension in ways sound wood is not, so cuts have to be made in an order that releases load safely, which is slower. Access is usually worse, with debris in the drop zone and the crew working over the thing that was already at risk. What sits underneath drives the method: a limb over a roof is roped and lowered, not dropped. Whether the rest can be felled whole or dismantled still applies, chipping and haul-away still apply, and any stump is separate.
Anything hanging, anything bent under load, and anything within reach of a line. Broken wood is under tension and moves in directions you cannot predict when you cut it. The specific combination to avoid is a ladder and a chainsaw, because you need both hands for the saw and the limb decides where it goes. Wait for someone with rigging and a plan.
Usually not in the same way a hanging limb is. A tree already on the ground has finished falling, and the fence is a repair question rather than a safety one. What deserves a quick look is the rest of the tree it came off, and the root plate if the whole tree tipped. Photograph it, keep people off the area, and get it scheduled.
Call whoever removes the hazard over your head first, then your insurer. Photographs taken before cleanup are the part people regret skipping, so get wide shots of what fell, what it landed on, and what is still hanging. Coverage varies by policy and by what was damaged, so ask your own carrier rather than taking a tree crew's word for it.
By what is underneath the wood. Crews go to hanging limbs over occupied space, trees on houses, and anything blocking egress before they go to a trunk lying across a lawn. If you are calling, lead with the target rather than the tree. Saying a limb is hung over the front door moves you up the list far faster than saying a tree is damaged.
Some trees do have to come down. How that goes is decided by access, by what sits underneath the tree, and by whether it can be dropped whole or has to be taken apart in pieces from the top down.
Learn more →Real pruning takes specific limbs off at the branch collar for a specific reason: clearance, deadwood, a rubbing branch. It does not mean shortening everything on the tree, and we match you with crews that know the difference.
Learn more →Grinding is a separate operation from removal, with its own machine and its own gate-width problem. It also makes a startling volume of chips, so you should decide up front how deep it goes and where those chips end up.
Learn more →A lean, a split fork, mushrooms at the base, a strip of bark gone: the tree is telling you something. An assessment reads it honestly, and often the honest answer is that the tree is fine and should be left alone.
Learn more →Get the tree looked at by someone who will tell you to leave it alone.
Request an AssessmentDescribe the tree, what is under it, and what changed. We will take it from there.