A tree came down on the house: what happens now

Why the removal order matters more than the removal

A tree that has come to rest on a building is frequently carrying part of its own weight through the structure it damaged. Lifting or cutting it without accounting for that transfers the load somewhere new, and the somewhere new is usually a rafter or a wall that has already been compromised.

This is why tree removal after a building strike is not the same job as taking down a tree in a yard. The sequence has to be planned against what is holding what, and it frequently happens alongside temporary shoring instead of before it.

The utility question comes first, always

If the tree is touching a service line, a drop to the house, or anything that might be energised, the situation is a utility call and nothing else happens until they have dealt with it. This is not a formality and it is not a delay to work around.

The same applies to a line that has come down separately in the same storm. Downed conductors can energise fences, wet ground and standing water well away from the visible break.

Documenting a tree strike

Photograph the tree on the building before anything moves it, from several angles, including wide shots that show the tree's origin and the direction of fall. Include the interior damage beneath the impact point.

If the tree came from a neighbouring property, that becomes a question between insurers and it is settled on evidence rather than on recollection. Note the date, the weather and the time you discovered it.

The interior is a water loss too

Almost every tree strike opens the envelope, and what comes through it, rain, snow, meltwater, behaves exactly like any other water intrusion. It travels along framing, soaks insulation and reaches rooms below the impact point.

That part of the job is extraction, removal of unsalvageable material and structural drying to a verified target, and it runs in parallel with the structural repair instead of after it.

What insurance typically treats differently

Wind bringing a tree down onto a structure and a tree failing because it was dead are commonly handled differently, as are damage to the building and the cost of removing the tree itself. Some policies limit debris removal separately from the structural repair.

None of that is decided on this page. Ask your insurer about the structure, the removal and the debris as three separate questions, because they frequently have three different answers.

Trees that have not fallen yet

After any significant wind event, a tree that is leaning, partially uprooted or hung up in another tree is a live hazard instead of a tidy-up job. The ground around a partially uprooted tree can be moving.

Keep clear of it and get it assessed. A hung-up or leaning tree coming down under its own weight, unpredictably, is one of the more common ways this category of event produces an injury after the storm has passed.

Tree strikes in the Greater Burlington area

This region's mature street and yard trees are a large part of what makes its older neighbourhoods what they are, and they are also the exposure. Burlington's Hill Section and the older parts of Winooski, Essex Junction and the village centres carry big trees close to buildings, and the same wind event produces very different outcomes there than in a newer Williston or South Burlington subdivision.

The upland and rural towns, Jericho, Underhill, Hinesburg, Westford, Cambridge, add distance and access. A tree across the only driveway means the removal crew, the utility and the restoration company all arrive to a property they cannot reach, so say so when you report it.

Wind off Lake Champlain and the funnelling effect of the Winooski and Lamoille valleys both concentrate storm damage in ways a regional forecast does not show. Two properties a mile apart routinely see very different events.

After a tree strike, in order

Order matters more than speed.