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| on the way to the super market... i ran across this one.. only took me a year to remember the camera .. lol ...
i suspect renters ... lol ... i wonder what part of the trim??? job is power line related ... i swear that house is no more than 40 x 40 ... there is no way to miss them while they sleep ... ken
listen child.. i cant drive and take pix.. and will you at least roll down the finger printed window.. criminey.. you gotta teach them EVERYthing ...
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Follow-Up Postings:
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| They are probably keeping it for the tremendous property value boosting aesthetic qualities. There are a few people I would love to move into that house. I would probably even pay closing costs for them |
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| At least in the first picture, it looks like they should add a 2X4 brace between the crest of the porch roof and the tree trunk, for balance. Some streamers of that yellow caution tape could complete the look. |
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| Oh, and the utility company didn't do that work. They might have started it and then the home owners decided to complete it in an attempt to make it look more uniform, but most of the pruning is not something that would be utility related. |
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- Posted by ken_adrian z5 (My Page) on Thu, Dec 22, 11 at 11:58
| ya gotta love typos in the title ... try to keep your replies out of the gutter .. every time.. in every post i bring up the topic of being killed in your sleep.. this was the house i thought of ... proud to have finally found the pic on the hard drive to share ... i mean really .. think of what was hanging over the house before the topping ... those look to be a good 12 to 18 inch cuts at the top .... looks like a maple bark to me .... ken |
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| I wish you could have seen what a utility company did to a massive one hundred year old pine at the front of our property. Yes, I can believe the crews contracted by a power company did that. History of our tree. The utility company asked to remove our tree and my husband (before I married him) decline. So they pruned it. Ten years later they came back and I showed them the hollow trunk, lightening damage and how it was leaning (just like that one) over their lines. They did just enough pruning to hold them a year or two until the branches fouled the lines again. Said it was no threat. About two years later, the tree top toppled and it cost us over a thousand in clean up. Next time the company came around, they saw fit to top the tree about ten feet above the lines and if you want 'ugly' it looked far worse than this tree. It was so grotesque, I wondered if it weren't a spite job. They made comments on the stupidity of a homeowner who would plant a tree like that under a line. I had to remind them that this was a farm and that electricity probably didn't come to this area until at least 1940s and they put their line under that tree's already existing canopy. Who's stupid? This could be a rental house with a very dumb landlord. Or a family who can't afford the four figures this tree's removal is going to cost. It's a tragedy waiting to happen. |
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- Posted by toronado3800 Z6 St. Louis (My Page) on Thu, Dec 22, 11 at 16:32
| Good point on the cost. In st louis our power company prefers a big "U" shaped tree to be around their wires. Of course two municipalities just got together and planted about 100 locusts right below some power lines to keep our history going |
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| Except it wasn't cheap to have it topped either. Unless they didn't pay for it. It certainly won't be cheap when it breaks up and falls on the house. |
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- Posted by ken_adrian z5 (My Page) on Thu, Dec 22, 11 at 16:49
| yeah.. i figure the landlord doesnt make enough on rent to pay the mortgage and the tree guy ... ken |
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- Posted by wisconsitom 4/5 WI (My Page) on Thu, Dec 22, 11 at 18:06
| As to the quality of power company contracted line clearance, it varies depending primarily on whether the community has a tree ordinance or not. In my city, we do have an ordinance, and it requires line clearance guys to at least make targeted cuts, ie. no stubs. The same contractor- a very large well-known outfit with orange trucks, do absolutely horrendous work in neighboring towns. +oM |
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| Gee, I wonder who that might be. |
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| Yeah.........me too. What they left behind for us to clean up would have made one hellava totem pole, visible for miles. |
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| Whoever was cutting on that tree stopped just when the firewood was getting good. The wires are safe though, at the expense of the house. The power company should finish the job. That's a serious liability! It should have been taken down before the house was built. Look at the multiple trunks. One, leaning out toward the street, has already been removed, leaving a big scar that will rot out and further weaken the whole thing. Maybe a charity can take it on if the owner can't do it and the power company refuses. A little publicity might go a long way to save some lives. I'd hesitate to even go in that house, let alone sleep in it. Mike |
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| "The power company should finish the job." Why? They didn't cause the problem and it doesn't look like there is much danger to the lines at this point, so why should their customers foot the bill? |
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- Posted by harvestman 6 (My Page) on Fri, Dec 23, 11 at 14:53
| In the state of NY hazard trees are no ones liability unless there has been a complaint prior to damage of a hazard tree. Otherwise any damage is considered an act of nature. At least that's how I understand it, but I do wonder if such incompetent pruning that creates a hazard tree would extend the possibility of liability to the butchers responsible, regardless. (My apology to actual butchers who generally do a skilled and careful job of dividing sections of meat and work on organisms already dead). |
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- Posted by wisconsitom 4/5 WI (My Page) on Fri, Dec 23, 11 at 17:03
| On re-reading, I think the tone of my post above is a little harsh on the orange truck guys. I've actually seen a wide range of competence and adherence to ethical tree pruning standards by workers for that co. And in any case, they are merely doing as directed by their foreman, who in turn gets his marching orders from the regional forester for the power co. Having said that, the existence of a tree ordinance or lack thereof is still the primary determinant of what kind of line-clearance job gets done. +oM |
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| Exactly, Tom. It isn't up to the company doing the job, but the standards they need to adhere to. It's a thankless job and a dangerous one and what they deal with are problems they didn't initially create. It's not their responsibility to do remedial work for any issue not related to protecting the lines. In my case, however, the hollow tree was still leaning over their lines and sooner or later would have taken them out, had we not remediated the problem. What I noticed in that photograph was the 'half-tree' behind the tree in question. If it remains healthy enough to continue growing it shall become a continuing issue for power line clearance. What is more cost effective for them. To have to address repeatedly, or to have just removed it the first time and been done with it? I know this has to be a touchy issue between utilities and land owners......but maintenance and its cost is a secondary issue. Power outages from downed limbs and emergency repairs are the primary ones and one trip in the dead of winter or storm situations don't come cheap. |
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